🌍 Environment Variable Configuration
Overview
Open WebUI provides a large range of environment variables that allow you to customize and configure various aspects of the application. This page serves as a comprehensive reference for all available environment variables, providing their types, default values, and descriptions. As new variables are introduced, this page will be updated to reflect the growing configuration options.
This page is up-to-date with Open WebUI release version v0.6.19, but is still a work in progress to later include more accurate descriptions, listing out options available for environment variables, defaults, and improving descriptions.
Important Note on PersistentConfig Environment Variables
When launching Open WebUI for the first time, all environment variables are treated equally and can be used to configure the application. However, for environment variables marked as PersistentConfig, their values are persisted and stored internally.
After the initial launch, if you restart the container, PersistentConfig environment variables will no longer use the external environment variable values. Instead, they will use the internally stored values.
In contrast, regular environment variables will continue to be updated and applied on each subsequent restart.
You can update the values of PersistentConfig environment variables directly from within Open WebUI, and these changes will be stored internally. This allows you to manage these configuration settings independently of the external environment variables.
Please note that PersistentConfig environment variables are clearly marked as such in the documentation below, so you can be aware of how they will behave.
To disable PersistentConfig and have Open WebUI treat all variables equally, you can set ENABLE_PERSISTENT_CONFIG to False.
App/Backend
The following environment variables are used by backend/open_webui/config.py to provide Open WebUI startup
configuration. Please note that some variables may have different default values depending on
whether you're running Open WebUI directly or via Docker. For more information on logging
environment variables, see our logging documentation.
General
WEBUI_URL
- Type:
str - Default:
http://localhost:3000 - Description: Specifies the URL where your Open WebUI installation is reachable. Needed for search engine support and OAuth/SSO.
- Persistence: This environment variable is a
PersistentConfigvariable.
This variable has to be set before you start using OAuth/SSO for authentication. Since this is a persistent config environment variable, you can only change it through one of the following options:
- Temporarily disabling persistent config using
ENABLE_PERSISTENT_CONFIG - Changing
WEBUI_URLin the admin panel > settings and changing "WebUI URL".
Failure to set WEBUI_URL before using OAuth/SSO will result in failure to log in.
ENABLE_SIGNUP
- Type:
bool - Default:
True - Description: Toggles user account creation.
- Persistence: This environment variable is a
PersistentConfigvariable.
ENABLE_SIGNUP_PASSWORD_CONFIRMATION
- Type:
bool - Default:
False - Description: If set to True, a "Confirm Password" field is added to the sign-up page to help users avoid typos when creating their password.
ENABLE_LOGIN_FORM
- Type:
bool - Default:
True - Description: Toggles email, password, sign-in and "or" (only when
ENABLE_OAUTH_SIGNUPis set to True) elements. - Persistence: This environment variable is a
PersistentConfigvariable.
This should only ever be set to False when ENABLE_OAUTH_SIGNUP
is also being used and set to True. Failure to do so will result in the inability to login.
DEFAULT_LOCALE
- Type:
str - Default:
en - Description: Sets the default locale for the application.
- Persistence: This environment variable is a
PersistentConfigvariable.
DEFAULT_MODELS
- Type:
str - Default: Empty string (' '), since
None. - Description: Sets a default Language Model.
- Persistence: This environment variable is a
PersistentConfigvariable.
DEFAULT_USER_ROLE
- Type:
str - Options:
pending- New users are pending until their accounts are manually activated by an admin.user- New users are automatically activated with regular user permissions.admin- New users are automatically activated with administrator permissions.
- Default:
pending - Description: Sets the default role assigned to new users.
- Persistence: This environment variable is a
PersistentConfigvariable.
PENDING_USER_OVERLAY_TITLE
- Type:
str - Default: Empty string (' ')
- Description: Sets a custom title for the pending user overlay.
- Persistence: This environment variable is a
PersistentConfigvariable.
PENDING_USER_OVERLAY_CONTENT
- Type:
str - Default: Empty string (' ')
- Description: Sets a custom text content for the pending user overlay.
- Persistence: This environment variable is a
PersistentConfigvariable.
ENABLE_CHANNELS
- Type:
bool - Default:
False - Description: Enables or disables channel support.
- Persistence: This environment variable is a
PersistentConfigvariable.
WEBHOOK_URL
- Type:
str - Description: Sets a webhook for integration with Discord/Slack/Microsoft Teams.
- Persistence: This environment variable is a
PersistentConfigvariable.
ENABLE_ADMIN_EXPORT
- Type:
bool - Default:
True - Description: Controls whether admin users can export data.
ENABLE_ADMIN_CHAT_ACCESS
- Type:
bool - Default:
True - Description: Enables admin users to access all chats. When disabled, admins can no longer accesss user's chats in the admin panel.
ENABLE_ADMIN_WORKSPACE_CONTENT_ACCESS
- Type:
bool - Default:
True - Description: When disabled, admin users are treated like regular users for workspace access and only see knowledge bases, models, prompts, and tools they have explicit permission to access through the existing access control system. If set to
True, admins have access to all created items in the workspace area regardless of access permissions.
ENABLE_USER_WEBHOOKS
- Type:
bool - Default:
True - Description: Enables or disables user webhooks.
- Persistence: This environment variable is a
PersistentConfigvariable.
RESPONSE_WATERMARK
- Type:
str - Default: Empty string (' ')
- Description: Sets a custom text that will be included when you copy a message in the chat. E.g.
"This text is AI generated"-> will add "This text is AI generated" to every message, when copied. - Persistence: This environment variable is a
PersistentConfigvariable.
THREAD_POOL_SIZE
- Type:
int - Default:
0 - Description: Sets the thread pool size for FastAPI/AnyIO blocking calls. By default (when set to
0) FastAPI/AnyIO use40threads. In case of large instances and many concurrent users, it may be needed to increaseTHREAD_POOL_SIZEto prevent blocking.
MODELS_CACHE_TTL
- Type:
int - Default:
1 - Description: Sets the cache time-to-live in seconds for model list responses from OpenAI and Ollama endpoints. This reduces API calls by caching the available models list for the specified duration. Set to empty string to disable caching entirely.
This caches the external model lists retrieved from configured OpenAI-compatible and Ollama API endpoints (not Open WebUI's internal model configurations). Higher values improve performance by reducing redundant API requests to external providers but may delay visibility of newly added or removed models on those endpoints. A value of 0 disables caching and forces fresh API calls each time. In high-traffic scenarios, increasing this value (e.g., to 300 seconds) can significantly reduce load on external API endpoints while still providing reasonably fresh model data.
SHOW_ADMIN_DETAILS
- Type:
bool - Default:
True - Description: Toggles whether to show admin user details in the interface.
- Persistence: This environment variable is a
PersistentConfigvariable.
ADMIN_EMAIL
- Type:
str - Description: Sets the admin email shown by
SHOW_ADMIN_DETAILS - Persistence: This environment variable is a
PersistentConfigvariable.
ENV
- Type:
str - Options:
dev- Enables the FastAPI API documentation on/docsprod- Automatically configures several environment variables
- Default:
- Backend Default:
dev - Docker Default:
prod
- Backend Default:
- Description: Environment setting.
ENABLE_PERSISTENT_CONFIG
- Type:
bool - Default:
True - Description: If set to
False, allPersistentConfigvariables are treated as regular variables.
CUSTOM_NAME
- Type:
str - Description: Sets
WEBUI_NAMEbut polls api.openwebui.com for metadata.
WEBUI_NAME
- Type:
str - Default:
Open WebUI - Description: Sets the main WebUI name. Appends
(Open WebUI)if overridden.
PORT
- Type:
int - Default:
8080 - Description: Sets the port to run Open WebUI from.
If you're running the application via Python and using the open-webui serve command, you cannot set the port using the PORT configuration. Instead, you must specify it directly as a command-line argument using the --port flag. For example:
open-webui serve --port 9999
This will run the Open WebUI on port 9999. The PORT environment variable is disregarded in this mode.
ENABLE_REALTIME_CHAT_SAVE
- Type:
bool - Default:
False - Description: When enabled, the system saves each chunk of streamed chat data to the database in real time to ensure maximum data persistency. This feature provides robust data recovery and allows accurate session tracking. However, the tradeoff is increased latency, as saving to the database introduces a delay. Disabling this feature can improve performance and reduce delays, but it risks potential data loss in the event of a system failure or crash. Use based on your application's requirements and acceptable tradeoffs.
CHAT_RESPONSE_STREAM_DELTA_CHUNK_SIZE
- Type:
int - Default:
1 - Description: Sets a system-wide minimum value for the number of tokens to batch together before sending them to the client during a streaming response. This allows an administrator to enforce a baseline level of performance and stability across the entire system by preventing excessively small chunk sizes that can cause high CPU load. The final chunk size used for a response will be the highest value set among this global variable, the model's advanced parameters, or the per-chat settings. The default is 1, which applies no minimum batching at the global level.
It is recommended to set this to a high single-digit or low double-digit value if you run Open WebUI with high concurrency, many users, and very fast streaming models.
BYPASS_MODEL_ACCESS_CONTROL
- Type:
bool - Default:
False - Description: Bypasses model access control.
WEBUI_BUILD_HASH
- Type:
str - Default:
dev-build - Description: Used for identifying the Git SHA of the build for releases.
WEBUI_BANNERS
- Type:
listofdict - Default:
[] - Description: List of banners to show to users. The format for banners are:
[{"id": "string", "type": "string [info, success, warning, error]", "title": "string", "content": "string", "dismissible": false, "timestamp": 1000}]
- Persistence: This environment variable is a
PersistentConfigvariable.
When setting this environment variable in a .env file, make sure to escape the quotes by wrapping the entire value in double quotes and using escaped quotes (\") for the inner quotes. Example:
WEBUI_BANNERS="[{\"id\": \"1\", \"type\": \"warning\", \"title\": \"Your messages are stored.\", \"content\": \"Your messages are stored and may be reviewed by human people. LLM's are prone to hallucinations, check sources.\", \"dismissible\": true, \"timestamp\": 1000}]"
USE_CUDA_DOCKER
- Type:
bool - Default:
False - Description: Builds the Docker image with NVIDIA CUDA support. Enables GPU acceleration for local Whisper and embeddings.
EXTERNAL_PWA_MANIFEST_URL
- Type:
str - Default: Empty string (' '), since
Noneis set as default. - Description: When defined as a fully qualified URL (e.g., https://path/to/manifest.webmanifest), requests sent to /manifest.json will use the external manifest file. When not defined, the default manifest.json file will be used.
ENABLE_TITLE_GENERATION
- Type:
bool - Default:
True - Description: Enables or disables chat title generation.
- Persistence: This environment variable is a
PersistentConfigvariable.
LICENSE_KEY
- Type:
str - Default:
None - Description: Specifies the license key to use (for Enterprise users only).
- Persistence: This environment variable is a
PersistentConfigvariable.
SSL_ASSERT_FINGERPRINT
- Type:
str - Default: Empty string (' '), since
Noneis set as default. - Description: Specifies the SSL assert fingerprint to use.
- Persistence: This environment variable is a
PersistentConfigvariable.
DEFAULT_PROMPT_SUGGESTIONS
- Type:
listofdict - Default:
[](which means to use the built-in default prompt suggestions) - Description: List of prompt suggestions. The format for prompt suggestions are:
[{"title": ["Title part 1", "Title part 2"], "content": "prompt"}]
AIOHTTP Client
AIOHTTP_CLIENT_TIMEOUT
- Type:
int - Default:
300 - Description: Specifies the timeout duration in seconds for the AIOHTTP client. This impacts things such as connections to Ollama and OpenAI endpoints.
This is the maximum amount of time the client will wait for a response before timing out.
If set to an empty string (' '), the timeout will be set to None, effectively disabling the timeout and
allowing the client to wait indefinitely.
AIOHTTP_CLIENT_TIMEOUT_MODEL_LIST
- Type:
int - Default:
10 - Description: Sets the timeout in seconds for fetching the model list. This can be useful in cases where network latency requires a longer timeout duration to successfully retrieve the model list.
The AIOHTTP_CLIENT_TIMEOUT_MODEL_LIST is set to 10 seconds by default to help ensure that all necessary connections are available when opening the web UI. This duration allows enough time for retrieving the model list even in cases of higher network latency. You can lower this value if quicker timeouts are preferred, but keep in mind that doing so may lead to some connections being dropped, depending on your network conditions.
AIOHTTP_CLIENT_TIMEOUT_OPENAI_MODEL_LIST
- Type:
int - Description: Sets the timeout in seconds for fetching the model list. This can be useful in cases where network latency requires a longer timeout duration to successfully retrieve the model list.
Directories
DATA_DIR
- Type:
str - Default:
./data - Description: Specifies the base directory for data storage, including uploads, cache, vector database, etc.
FONTS_DIR
- Type:
str - Description: Specifies the directory for fonts.
FRONTEND_BUILD_DIR
- Type:
str - Default:
../build - Description: Specifies the location of the built frontend files.
STATIC_DIR
- Type:
str - Default:
./static - Description: Specifies the directory for static files, such as the favicon.
Ollama
ENABLE_OLLAMA_API
- Type:
bool - Default:
True - Description: Enables the use of Ollama APIs.
- Persistence: This environment variable is a
PersistentConfigvariable.
OLLAMA_BASE_URL (OLLAMA_API_BASE_URL is deprecated)
- Type:
str - Default:
http://localhost:11434 - Docker Default:
- If
K8S_FLAGis set:http://ollama-service.open-webui.svc.cluster.local:11434 - If
USE_OLLAMA_DOCKER=True:http://localhost:11434 - Else
http://host.docker.internal:11434
- If
- Description: Configures the Ollama backend URL.
OLLAMA_BASE_URLS
- Type:
str - Description: Configures load-balanced Ollama backend hosts, separated by
;. SeeOLLAMA_BASE_URL. Takes precedence overOLLAMA_BASE_URL. - Example:
http://host-one:11434;http://host-two:11434 - Persistence: This environment variable is a
PersistentConfigvariable.
USE_OLLAMA_DOCKER
- Type:
bool - Default:
False - Description: Builds the Docker image with a bundled Ollama instance.
K8S_FLAG
- Type:
bool - Default:
False - Description: If set, assumes Helm chart deployment and sets
OLLAMA_BASE_URLtohttp://ollama-service.open-webui.svc.cluster.local:11434
OpenAI
ENABLE_OPENAI_API
- Type:
bool - Default:
True - Description: Enables the use of OpenAI APIs.
- Persistence: This environment variable is a
PersistentConfigvariable.
OPENAI_API_BASE_URL
- Type:
str - Default:
https://api.openai.com/v1 - Description: Configures the OpenAI base API URL.
- Persistence: This environment variable is a
PersistentConfigvariable.
OPENAI_API_BASE_URLS
- Type:
str - Description: Supports balanced OpenAI base API URLs, semicolon-separated.
- Example:
http://host-one:11434;http://host-two:11434 - Persistence: This environment variable is a
PersistentConfigvariable.
OPENAI_API_KEY
- Type:
str - Description: Sets the OpenAI API key.
- Example:
sk-124781258123 - Persistence: This environment variable is a
PersistentConfigvariable.
OPENAI_API_KEYS
- Type:
str - Description: Supports multiple OpenAI API keys, semicolon-separated.
- Example:
sk-124781258123;sk-4389759834759834 - Persistence: This environment variable is a
PersistentConfigvariable.