My program has a class with many properties that store all the settings and information for a user’s project, like this:

Class Config{
    public bool EnableYoutube { get; set; }= true;
    public bool EnableFacebook { get; set; }= true;
}

When the user saves, I serialize this class to JSON and save it to a text file. Conversely, when the user loads a project, I read the text file and deserialize the JSON to restore the project’s settings and information.

Now I have a tricky problem: when I update the software, I may add some features and need to modify or add new properties to this class, like this:

Class Config{
    public bool EnableYoutube { get; set; }= true;
    
    public bool EnableTiktok { get; set; }= true;
}

When the user updates the software and then loads a project, the deserialization of this JSON fails because the structure of the two classes has changed.

I may use a database later, but now the project schedule is tight and I can’t make too big a switch. Maybe there are better ways to save settings in a plain text file? How can I solve this problem?