Where are projects stored in Eclipse?

Question

The Project Explorer is able to list all projects in Eclipse. I am wondering where the project information gets stored?

Answer 1

The projects can be found under the .metadata directory of your workspace:

[eclipse-workspace]/.metadata/.plugins/org.eclipse.core.resources/.projects

Each project contains a .location file (in binary format) which presumably tells eclipse where the project is located on the filesystem, if it has been imported.

Answer 2

By default projects in Eclipse are stored under your workspace. You get asked where your workspace is created or which one to open whenever you open Eclipse, but you can configure it to not ask you again.

If you configured Eclipse not to ask again, then you can go to General -> Startup and Shutdown -> Workspaces in your preferences and check "Prompt for workspace on startup".

That page also lists your recently used workspaces (with probably just 1 entry, if you never explicitly specified a different one).

Note that you can also create projects that are located outside of your workspace, by explicitly specifying a separate location per-project.