Customize Hubspot Design Manager settings for safer development

Working in Hubspot Design Manager gives you powerful tools to build themes, templates, and modules, but it also introduces risk if changes are pushed to production accounts too quickly. By fine-tuning your design settings, you can protect live sites, manage code locations, and keep your development workspace clean and organized.

This guide explains every major setting available in Design Manager and how to configure them step by step, based on HubSpot’s official documentation.

Overview of Hubspot Design Manager settings

The design settings in Hubspot are controlled at the account level for your design tools. These options affect how your theme and module files behave in production, which domain your assets reference, and how the file tree is displayed.

You can access all of these options directly inside the Design Manager interface, and they apply to designers, developers, and marketers who work with coded templates or drag-and-drop modules.

How to open Design Manager settings in Hubspot

Follow these steps to find the settings panel:

1. In your Hubspot account, navigate to the main navigation bar.
2. Open the Marketing or Content tools, then choose Design Tools or Design Manager (name may vary by portal).
3. In the Design Manager, locate the top toolbar.
4. Click the Settings or gear icon to open the Design Manager settings panel.

Once open, you will see several sections that you can configure independently. The exact options can vary depending on your account type and permissions.

Hubspot asset and domain configuration

One core aspect of Design Manager is controlling the domains used for hosted files, such as CSS, JavaScript, and images. Setting a preferred domain is important for consistency, security, and performance.

Set the default file hosting domain in Hubspot

In the settings panel, look for the option that controls how files from the File Manager or coded templates are referenced. You will typically see a choice of domains connected to your Hubspot portal.

Use this process to configure it:

1. Select the preferred domain you want your design assets to load from, such as a primary website domain or a dedicated assets subdomain.
2. Confirm that the chosen domain is correctly connected and secured with SSL in your domain settings.
3. Save changes so future asset references created by Design Manager will use this domain by default.

This setting does not retroactively update every existing file reference, but it helps standardize future work and keeps your front-end assets aligned with your main website presence.

Hubspot safety settings for themes and modules

To avoid accidental breaking changes on live websites, Hubspot provides safety options that influence how themes, modules, and templates behave across accounts. These are especially important if you build or maintain marketplace themes or manage content for multiple clients.

Prevent unsafe theme changes in Hubspot

When working on themes that are already in use, you may want to limit which changes propagate to existing templates or live pages. Safety settings can:

• Restrict automatic updates to modules used in existing content.
• Control whether structural changes are allowed on templates that are in production.
• Help you maintain backwards compatibility when updating reusable assets.

In the settings panel:

1. Locate the section related to theme or module safety behavior.
2. Enable options that limit high-risk changes if you are supporting many live pages or client accounts.
3. Keep a record of your chosen defaults so your development team follows the same standards.

Configure default module behavior in Hubspot

Design Manager can also control how new modules behave when added to templates or themes. Typical options may include:

• Default visibility or availability of a module in the content editor.
• How modules sync updates between cloned or referenced versions.
• Whether specific modules are editable by marketers or locked down for developers only.

Adjusting these defaults allows you to strike a balance between flexibility for content editors and stability for design system maintainers.

Hubspot file management and organization settings

Clean file organization is key to long-term maintainability. Hubspot Design Manager provides options to help you manage labels, folders, and how the file tree appears.

Use labels to manage design files in Hubspot

Labels help categorize templates, modules, and partials for easier discovery. In the settings area, you can review and manage label behavior, including:

• Which labels are available to your team.
• How labels are shown or filtered in the Design Manager sidebar.
• Guidelines for using labels on shared components.

Create a simple internal standard such as labels for global modules, page templates, or email layouts so everyone on your team understands how to find key assets.

Control file tree display in Hubspot Design Manager

The way the file tree appears in the left-hand panel of Design Manager can be adjusted to reduce clutter and focus on what matters most. From the settings panel you may be able to:

• Show or hide system folders and automatically generated files.
• Collapse or expand certain library sections by default.
• Filter out legacy assets your team no longer maintains.

This helps developers spend less time searching for the correct file and more time building and testing updated layouts.

Best practices for using Hubspot Design Manager settings

Beyond the raw configuration, how you use these settings day-to-day in Hubspot has a big impact on your workflow and stability.

Create a standard configuration for your team

Before making wide changes, decide on a shared configuration for your organization or agency. For example:

• A primary assets domain to use across all new templates.
• Default safety options for themes in production.
• Label conventions for modules, partials, and snippets.

Document these standards and confirm that each developer applies them consistently when working in any Hubspot account you manage.

Use sandbox accounts before updating production Hubspot portals

If you work on complex themes or marketplace assets, test your Design Manager settings in a sandbox or staging environment first.

1. Connect a test domain or subdomain for assets.
2. Apply your desired safety and organization settings.
3. Verify how changes affect existing pages, modules, and dependent templates.
4. Once confirmed, mirror those settings in the production account.

This approach greatly reduces the risk of breaking layouts or losing critical editor options for marketers.

Where to learn more about Hubspot Design Manager

For the most precise, up-to-date reference on each Design Manager option, review the official documentation directly from the platform provider. You can find it at this detailed knowledge base article.

If you need strategic guidance on implementing these settings across multiple portals or creating scalable themes, consider working with Hubspot-focused consultants. An example of an implementation and optimization partner is Consultevo, which supports teams with configuration, development, and technical SEO.

Summary: get more control from Hubspot Design Manager

By understanding and adjusting Design Manager settings in Hubspot, you can:

• Standardize the domains that serve your design assets.
• Protect live sites with safer module and theme behavior.
• Organize coded files using labels and a cleaner file tree.
• Align your whole team on a consistent development workflow.

Take time to review these options in each new Hubspot account you manage. A few minutes of configuration early on will save hours of troubleshooting later and help keep your live experiences fast, stable, and easy to maintain.

Need Help With Hubspot?

If you want expert help building, automating, or scaling your Hubspot , work with ConsultEvo, a team who has a decade of Hubspot experience.

Scale Hubspot

“`