Options, Settings, Properties, Configuration, Preferences — when and why?

Tricky, this, as there's no one single consistent style followed by all applications. As you say they are (broadly) synonyms.

In truth it doesn't really matter so long as your expected audience understands what you mean.

The biggest difference is between Properties, which usually affect a component or object, and the others, which affect the whole application.

Following an approximate lead from Visual Studio and other Microsoft products:

• Properties represent the characteristics of a single component or object in the application.
• Options alter global ways that the application works. Microsoft products use this to customise the UI toolbar, for example. There's an implication here that you can disable UI elements altogether (e.g. a "Simple" user interface or an "Advanced" user interface).
• Settings and Preferences change qualities of how the application works. The implication here is to change, not disable: for example, "Metric measurements" or "British Imperial measurements".
• Configuration is often where an application is customised for each user or group.

But there's no single rule.

I'd suggest you use Properties for object characteristics and Settings for everything else that's application-wide.

I just did a quick scan and wanted to post this list for reference.

Edge                        Settings
Google Chrome               Settings
Google Chrome DevTools      Settings > Preferences
Mozilla FireFox             Options (about:preferences) > Network Settings
Mozilla FireFox DevTools    Settings > Editor Preferences
Opera                       Settings

DeviantArt                  Settings
Facebook                    Settings, News Feed Preferences
GitHub                      Settings
Google                      Settings
IMDb                        Account Settings > Preferences
Instagram                   Options (aria-label)
JSFiddle                    Settings
StackOverflow               Settings > Preferences
Twitter                     Settings
YouTube                     Settings

FileZilla                   Edit > Settings
GitHub                      File > Options
Notepad++                   Settings > Preferences
VS Code                     Preferences > Settings

Audacity                    Preferences
IcoFx                       Options > Preferences > Options
Process Explorer            Options
TeamViewer                  Tools > Options
uTorrent                    Options > Preferences
Windows Media Player        Tools/Organize > Options

phpmyadmin                  Settings
XAMPP                       Config > Service and Port Settings
                                   > Log Options

MS Word                     File > Options > Proofing > AutoCorrect Options
                                                      > Writing Style Settings

Photoshop                   Edit > Color Settings
                            Edit > Preferences
                            Type > Language Options
                            3D > 3D Print Settings
                            Viev > 32-bit Preview Options
                            Window > Options

Windows                     Settings

Used as the parent (window/choice):

• Settings : 20 times
• Options : 10 times
• Preferences : 4 times
• Config(uration) : 1 time

Total mentions:

• Settings : 24
• Options : 15
• Preferences : 12
• Config(uration) : 1

Based on this, I'd sort these in this order (from general/fixed/app-related to specific/dynamic/user-related):

Settings > Options > Preferences

I believe it's largely a matter of personal preference.

However, I feel that I usually see properties as referencing one single part of an appliation, where as Options/Settings are usually a more global property.

In addition, Preferences are probably not things that have as large of an impact as something labeled options or settings. Things such as a minor change in the display or something similar.

The most important thing is to have consistency across the application.

And personally, I prefer the term 'options', as it sounds less intimidating than settings, properties, or configuration.

Apart from Properties (which usually applies to a document or object inside a document, except when it doesn't), they're pretty much all the same. No-one agrees which terminology is best.

For example for program config, Apple style is ‘Preferences’ in the application menu, GNOME style is ‘Preferences’ on the ‘Edit’ menu. KDE style is a whole ‘Settings’ menu of its own. Windows style was ‘Options’ on the ‘Tools’ menu, though all bets are off now as more MS apps drop the menu bar and throw the old predictable controls all over the place with no consistent pettern.

RISC OS style was ‘Choices’ on the icon bar menu, just to add yet another pointless possibility.

Options: usually for components or objects. You have right to choose, so there're some options for you to choose.

Settings: There's a system. It may work as it always do, but it offers some settings for you to adjust its behaviors.

Properties: every object has properties. color, size, and etc. You 'set' settings. and you 'change' object's properties.

Configuration: usually, every system has its configurations, either a default one or a customized one. The system needs a proper configuration in order to run properly. Usually, it has little meaning of user's choice or not. Although you can adjust system's behavior with different configurations.

Preferences: you may prefer a different habit, so here comes the prefer-ences. Every user may have their own habits. Preferences is more like different users sets of prefers. In system level, it may work via different configurations, but on the GUI, we don't say configuration, we say preferences.

In conclusion, for example, in a drawing application, you may say, we change the properties of a circle, a shape. When you start the application, we have three options to choose for how the application would appear after launch. There are some configuration files under the installation folder, some may easy to understand, but some may be very technical, which is not prepared for normal users. Users they just change settings in the menu, to decide how a function works in the application. Settings and Preferences usually don't appear in the same application. Tools that more for efficiency, use Settings more. Applications that more for conveniency, use Preferences would be more friendly for users.

Hope those help.

Settings: Thinking of a slider to select a value from 1 to 10 for example

Options: Thinking of an on/off button

Preferences: Thinking of a choice from multiple choices, like morning, afternoon or evening

Configuration: Technical settings probably end users should not know about. Like what is the data source?