How to set the default directory of the cd command in Windows cmd terminal?

Question

The cmd command cd takes me to a directory I never spend any time in.

I would like it to take me to C:\Users\Kacy\Documents\ by default.

Unfortunately, set cd = C:\Users\Kacy\Documents\ does not work.

Is there a simple way to change this setting within the cmd terminal ?

Answer 1

On Windows 10, you can also navigate to C:\Users\%YOUR_USERNAME%\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\System Tools, then right click command prompt and select properties.

Then in the Shortcut tab, you can change the "Start in:" field to be whatever path you desire. By default it references Environment Variables, but you can update it to be C:, D:/My Folder/Foo/Bar, etc.

Answer 2

The command cd without any arguments simply displays the current directory; it doesn't "take you" anywhere.

From an already open command prompt, you can't change this using simply cd. You can write a batch file that does it for you, and run that instead. Create a plain text file with Notepad that contains just one line.

cd /d"C:\Users\Kacy\Documents" 

Save it as MyDocs.bat or something that you can remember easily.

If you want a command prompt to always open in a certain location, create a desktop shortcut to it with the command (program)

cmd /k cd /d"Yourdirectory" 

And then double-click that desktop shortcut to open the command prompt.

Note the double quotes around the directory name are necessary if the directory name includes spaces.