diff --git a/CHANGELOG.md b/CHANGELOG.md
index 8648e8bd56..1dc25220a9 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -9,6 +9,8 @@ on [Keep a Changelog](https://keepachangelog.com/en/1.0.0/).
   guidelines.
 - Negative scale factors are now supported by the 3D renderer, which can be handy for
   mirroring meshes (thanks @carlosedubarreto, #974)
+- `imgui_base_config.ini` is now optional, and should now be located at
+  `resources/OpenSimCreator`, rather than in the root `resources/` directory.
 
 ## [0.5.18] - 2025/01/16
 
diff --git a/liboscar/UI/oscimgui.cpp b/liboscar/UI/oscimgui.cpp
index 2bb1a8393f..cd60e405b1 100644
--- a/liboscar/UI/oscimgui.cpp
+++ b/liboscar/UI/oscimgui.cpp
@@ -707,8 +707,12 @@ namespace
         // load application-level ImGui settings, then the user one,
         // so that the user settings takes precedence
         {
-            const std::string base_ini_data = loader.slurp("imgui_base_config.ini");
-            ImGui::LoadIniSettingsFromMemory(base_ini_data.data(), base_ini_data.size());
+            // TODO: this should be provided externally by osc/libOpenSimCreator, so that
+            // OpenSim-independent codebases aren't dependent on it
+            if (loader.resource_exists("OpenSimCreator/imgui_base_config.ini")) {
+                const std::string base_ini_data = loader.slurp("OpenSimCreator/imgui_base_config.ini");
+                ImGui::LoadIniSettingsFromMemory(base_ini_data.data(), base_ini_data.size());
+            }
 
             // CARE: the reason this filepath is `static` is because ImGui requires that
             // the string outlives the ImGui context
diff --git a/resources/imgui_base_config.ini b/resources/OpenSimCreator/imgui_base_config.ini
similarity index 100%
rename from resources/imgui_base_config.ini
rename to resources/OpenSimCreator/imgui_base_config.ini