I don&#x27;t use customize either, but there are very few things^1 that will be put in it without you <i>explicitly</i> customizing the variable and choosing to save it. So rather than typing elisp code out by hand, you can use the more user-friendly interface to set a variable. If you&#x27;re -- for example -- version controlling your init file and you use customize, you want to have your customize block version controlled.<p>[1] The <i>only</i> one I know about is `package-selected-variables`, which are &quot;packages installed explicitly by user&quot;. It&#x27;s used to make sure those packages are not considered unneeded if they aren&#x27;t a dependency of anything.