Why is the working directory opening to the launch directory upon launch?

Every time I launch MATLAB, the current folder opens to the directory that was used to launch the application.

• If I launch the application by double clicking the executable file, the Current Folder is set to the location of the executable. In my case that is C:\Program Files\MATLAB\R2019b\bin.
• I often launch instead using an AutoHotkey script. That script just calls 'run' on the executable mentioned above. For some reason when I launch MATLAB in this way, the Current Folder is set to the folder that the AutoHotKey script is stored in.

I have set my preferences to open to a specific directory each time under Preferences - General - Initial working folder. However, this is ignored, and the folder is set each time as described above.

I have also tried instead selecting the "Last working folder from previous MATLAB session option" here. Unfortunatly that did not fix the issue, and it still opens to the same wrong directory each time.

Answer 1

[Image Analyst]

Not sure why your preference is not adhered to. Try this workaround by setting the folder in your startup.m file:

>>edit startup.m

then in there, type

cd('c:\myFolder'); % Wherever you want.
fprintf('Done running "%s".\n', mfilename("fullpath"));

then save it and run it or restart MATLAB, which should run it automatically.

[Peter]

That workaround worked for me, thanks! It would be interesting to find out what when wrong on my system to cause this issue, but at least it launches correctly now.