How to prevent Visual Studio Code from always reopening the previous files or folders?

Visual Studio Code always seems to remember my session and reopen the files and/or projects that were open the last time I used it. It obviously behaves correctly when running it from the command line with a file or folder supplied, but when opening from a taskbar shortcut, I'd like it to default to an empty environment.

Is there any way to change this behavior?


You can also go into your settings and use the following:

"window.reopenFolders": "none"

which will not reopen the folders you were working on when you closed the editor. The other options are one (the default) and all.

Edit 2017-11-09:

The option is now changed in latest versions.

"window.restoreWindows": "none"

See Mathieu DOMER's answer.

Edit 2018-09-12:

Another setting related to this is the hotExit setting. This has been discussed in this answer to a related question. To prevent reopening and remembering unsaved files, you can set this to:

"files.hotExit": "off"

But from the test I've made, when the window.restoreWindows setting is set to none, this is not needed. I haven't tested every possible combination, so YMMV.

And to answer a question in the comments, to edit the settings, you have to open the settings file. Some documentation can be found here (at least on the date I am writing this).


With latest update, it seems that the parameter has changed, now use:

"window.restoreWindows": "none"

In VS Code:

  • for Windows/Linux Ctrl+, (or choose File/Preferences/Settings) to open the settings page.
  • for Mac +, (or choose Code -> Preferences -> Settings) to open the settings page.

then type restoreWindows in the Search settings input to filter for this setting. Set it to none and restart the browser.

restoreWindows