PyCharm 2020.2 Help

Opening, reopening, and closing projects

PyCharm lets you open several projects simultaneously in different windows. By default, each time you open a project while another one is opened , PyCharm prompts you to choose whether to open the project in the same window or in a new window.

If necessary, choose one of the options in the Project Opening section of the System Settings page to change this behavior:

  • Open project in new window to open a new PyCharm window each time a new project is opened.

  • Open project in the same window to stay in the same PyCharm window.

  • Confirm window to open project in to keep the default behavior and display a dialog to choose how to open each new project.

Opening projects

This operation refers both to the projects created in PyCharm, and the projects from existing sources.

Open a project

  1. Click Open on the Welcome screen or select File | Open from the main menu.

  2. In the Select Path dialog, select the directory that contains the project to open.

  3. Specify whether you want to open the project in a new frame, close the current project and reuse the existing frame, or open the new project in the same frame with the current one. Refer to the Opening Multiple Projects section for details.

Open a project from the command line

Reopening recent projects

PyCharm keeps the history list of the recent projects, from which you can select the desired one.

When PyCharm starts, the most recent project reopens by default (unless this option is disabled on the System Settings page of the Settings/Preferences dialog Ctrl+Alt+S.

Reopen a recent project

  • Call File | Open Recent from the main menu and select the desired project from the list.

    Note that the list also contains the projects that share one window.

    Specify whether you want to open the project in a new frame, reuse the current frame, or attach it to the currently opened project.

    Open the project in the current window, new window, or attach it to the existing project

  • On the Welcome screen, click the project of interest in the left-hand pane where the list of your recent projects is shown. Start typing in the Welcome screen to filter the list of recent projects.

Remove a project from the list of recent projects

  • Click Open Recent on the File menu, then click Manage Projects at the very bottom of the recent project list.

  • Click the closing icon for the project to remove.

    Remove a recent project from the list of the recent projects
    The selected project will be removed from the list of the recent project in the Project window and on the Welcome screen.

To remove a project only from the list on the Welcome Screen, right-click the target project and select Remove Selected from Welcome Screen.

Remove a project from the list of the recent projects on the Welcome Screen

Closing projects

When you have only one open project and you close it, PyCharm displays the Welcome screen. In case of multiple projects, each one is closed with its frame.

To close a project

  • From the main menu, select File | Close Project.

If you want to detach any of the projects that have been attached to a primary project in one window, just delete the target projects from the Project View.

Delete a project from view

You can close a project that has been added to the currently opened one (primary project).

  1. In the Project tool window, right-click the project to be deleted.

  2. From the context menu of the selection, choose Remove from Project View, or press Delete:

    Remove from the project view

PyCharm automatically saves changes that you make in your files. Saving is triggered by various events, such as compiling, running, debugging, performing version control operations, closing a file or a project, or quitting the IDE. Most of the actual events are predefined and cannot be configured, but you can be sure that changes will not be lost as you work.

Refer to Saving project files for more details.

Last modified: Wed Aug 19 14:24:29 UTC 2020