Build Profiles reference

When you select a profile, Unity displays a list of settings that you can adjust for the build.

Build your application

To build your application, select one of the following options:

Setting	Description
Build and Run	Compile a Player and open it on your target platform. This option always uses the incremental build.
Build	Compile a Player, then do nothing. The default build is incremental, except for the first build, which is always a full non-incremental clean build.
	Clean build	Create a clean, non-incremental build.
	Force skip data build	Skip the data build process. Use this setting to build code changes but skip the process of generating scenes and other non-code related assets.

Note: The Build and Build and run settings are visible only for the active profile.

Build data

Use the Build Data section to configure the following settings:

Scene List

When you build your application, Unity builds all the selected scenes in the Scene List pane. Unity builds scenes in the order in which they appear in the list.

You can add, exclude, remove, and reorder scenes in the list.

Add : To add all currently open scenes to the list, select Add Open Scenes. You can also drag scenes from your Project window into the list.
Exclude: To exclude a scene in the list from the build, clear the checkbox next to that scene. This removes the scene from the build, but not from the list.
Remove: To remove a scene from the list, select the scene and press Delete on your keyboard.
Adjust the order: To adjust the scene order, drag scenes into a different position in the list.

Note: Platform profiles share the same scenes. To add or remove scenes from a platform profile, in the Platforms section, select Scene List.

Scripting Defines

The Scripting Defines section allows you to add specific scripting defines for each build profile. For more information on Scripting Defines, refer to Conditional compilation.

Platform settings

Each platform has specific build settings.

Windows : Windows Build Settings reference.
Mac : Build a macOS application.
Linux: Linux Build Settings reference.
Universal Windows PlatformAn IAP feature that supports Microsoft’s In App Purchase simulator, which allows you to test IAP purchase flows on devices before publishing your application. More info
See in Glossary: UWP Build Settings reference.
tvOS: Build your application for tvOS.
iOS: iOS Build Settings reference.
Android: Android Build Settings reference.
Web: Web Build Settings.

For information on build settings for closed platforms, refer to the included documentation in the Unity installer of each closed platformIncludes platforms that require confidentiality and legal agreements with the platform provider for using their developer tools and hardware. These platforms aren’t open to development unless you have an established relationship with the provider. For example PlayStation®, Game Core for Xbox®, and Nintendo®.
See in Glossary.

Shared build settings

The following build settings are available for all profile types. The values of these settings are shared across platform profiles, but not across build profiles.

Note: Updating shared settings of an active platform profile using EditorUserBuildSettings applies changes across all platform profiles. However, updating shared settings of an active build profile with EditorUserBuildSettings only updates that specific build profile.

Property	Description
Development Build	Include scripting debug symbols and the ProfilerA window that helps you to optimize your game. It shows how much time is spent in the various areas of your game. For example, it can report the percentage of time spent rendering, animating, or in your game logic. More info See in Glossary in your build. Use this setting when you want to test your application. When you select this option, Unity sets the `DEVELOPMENT_BUILD` scripting define symbol. Your build then includes preprocessor directives that set `DEVELOPMENT_BUILD` as a condition. For more information, refer to Platform dependent compilation.
Autoconnect Profiler	Automatically connect the Unity Profiler to your build. For more information, refer to Profiler. Note: This option is available only if you select Development Build.
Deep Profiling	Allow the Profiler to process all your script code and record every function call, returning detailed profiling data. For more information, refer to Deep Profiling. This property is available only if you enable Development Build. Note: Enabling Deep Profiling might slow down script execution.
Script Debugging	Attach script debuggers to the Player remotely. This property is available only if you enable Development Build.
Wait for Managed Debugger	Make the Player wait for a debugger to be attached before it executes any script code. This property is visible only if you enable Script Debugging.
Compression Method	Specifies the method Unity uses to compress the data in your Project when it builds the Player. This includes AssetsAny media or data that can be used in your game or project. An asset may come from a file created outside of Unity, such as a 3D Model, an audio file or an image. You can also create some asset types in Unity, such as an Animator Controller, an Audio Mixer or a Render Texture. More info See in Glossary, ScenesA Scene contains the environments and menus of your game. Think of each unique Scene file as a unique level. In each Scene, you place your environments, obstacles, and decorations, essentially designing and building your game in pieces. More info See in Glossary, Player settingsSettings that let you set various player-specific options for the final game built by Unity. More info See in Glossary, and GI data.
	Default	On Windows, Mac, Linux Standalone, and iOS, there is no default compression. On Android, the default compression is ZIP, which gives slightly better compression results than LZ4HC. However, ZIP data is slower to decompress.
	LZ4	A fast compression format that is useful for development builds. For more information, refer to BuildOptions.CompressWithLz4.
	LZ4HC	A high compression variant of LZ4 that is slower to build but produces better results for release builds. For more information, refer to BuildOptions.CompressWithLz4HC.

Player Settings

Use the Customize player settings option to create custom Player settings for each build profile you want to use. For more information, refer to Override Player settings with build profiles.

Note: A link to the global Player settings is available in the Build Profiles toolbarA row of buttons and basic controls at the top of the Unity Editor that allows you to interact with the Editor in various ways (e.g. scaling, translation). More info
See in Glossary.

Asset Import Overrides

Select the Asset Import Overrides option from the Build Profiles toolbar. To speed up the time to import and change platforms, you can locally override all texture import settings. During development, asset overrides can be useful to speed up iteration time by using lower quality assets.

To set asset import overrides for initial project imports, use the editor command line arguments -overrideMaxTextureSize and -overrideTextureCompression.

Once you have selected your override options, select Apply Overides to apply the changes. A warning symbol appears next to the Apply Import Overrides button to alert you of any active overrides.

Note: The default value for both override options is No Override.

Setting	Description
Max Texture Size	Override the maximum imported texture size. Unity imports textures in the lower of two values: this value, or the Max Size value specified in Texture import settings. The time it takes to import a texture is proportional to the number of pixels it contains, so a texture size with a lower maximum can speed up import times. It’s recommended to use this setting only during development as the resulting textures are lower in resolution.
Texture Compression	Override the texture compression options set in Texture import settings. Only affects textures that have one of the compressed texture formats.
	Force Fast Compressor	Use a faster but lower quality texture compression mode for formats that support it (BC7, BC6H, ASTC, ETC, ETC2). Usually this results in more compression artifacts, but for many formats the compression itself is 2 to 20 times faster. This setting also disables Crunch texture compression format on any textures that have it. The effect of this setting is the same as if all textures had their Compressor Quality set to a low number in the platforms section of their Texture import settings.
	Force Uncompressed	Use uncompressed formats. This is faster to import (because it skips the texture compression process), but the resulting textures take up more memory and game data size, and can impact rendering performance. The effect of this setting is the same as if all textures had their Compression set to None in their platforms’ Texture import settings.
	Force No Crunch	Disable Crunch compression for all textures. Crunch compression can take a long time, so disabling it can speed up the import process significantly. However, the resulting textures take up more disk space. Selecting this option is the same as disabling Use Crunch Compression in the Texture import settings for all textures.

Additional resources

Override Player settings with build profiles

Incremental build pipeline