How to open folder in cmd

How to Open a File/Folder in Command Prompt (CMD) Windows 10 [MiniTool Tips]

Wonder how to open a file cmd or how to open a folder in Command Prompt on Windows 10? This tutorial provides a step-by-step guide. Also, if you can’t find some files or folders in Windows 10, or some files are unexpectedly lost in your Windows 10 computer, MiniTool free data recovery software for Windows 10/8/7 can help you easily recover lost files.

You can also open files from Command Prompt. Wonder how to open a file or folder in Command Prompt on Windows 10? Check the step-by-step guide in this tutorial.

You can use Windows Run commands to fast access tools and settings on your Windows 10/11 computer. Here’s the list of 30 useful Run commands you should know.

How to Open a File CMD Windows 10 in 2 Steps

Step 1 – Open Command Prompt

You can press Windows + R keys on the keyboard to open Windows Run dialog. Then type cmd in the Run box. If you want to run Command Prompt as Administrator, you need to press Ctrl + Shift + Enter keys at the same time.

Alternatively, you can also click Start or Search box in Windows 10, and type cmd or command prompt. Right-click the Command Prompt app in the list and choose Run as administrator.

Step 2 – Open Files from Command Prompt

Normally you have two ways to open a file using cmd. One is to move the folder that the file is in, the other is to open the files directly in Command Prompt.

Method 1. How to open a file with cmd by moving to the folder firstly

Method 2. How to open a file using cmd directly

You can also choose to open files from Command Prompt on Windows 10 directly, instead of going to the folder path. You can input the full path, file name and its file extension to open the target file, e.g. “C:\Users\mini\Desktop\travel.png”.

You can also freely specify an app to open the file. You need to type the whole path of the app ahead of the path of the file, for example, «%windir%\system32\mspaint.exe» «C:\Users\mini\Desktop\travel.png». Press Enter to open the file using CMD.

How to stop Windows 11 update? This post provides 5 solutions to let you disable automatic updates on Windows 11. Check the step-by-step guide.

How to Open a Folder in Command Prompt Windows 10

You can also open a folder from Command Prompt with the command line below.

After you enter into Command Prompt window by following the operation above, you can open a folder in File Explorer in Command Prompt. The command line can be like this, start %windir%\explorer.exe “C:\Users\mini\Desktop”.

Tip: Need to mention that you need to enclose the path of a file or folder in double quotation marks, since some folder or files names have spaces in them.

>> Quick Video Guide:

To Recover Unexpectedly Lost Files or Folders in Windows 10

Sometimes you may suffer unexpected data loss in Windows 10 due to various reasons, e.g. system crash, Blue Screen error (e.g. Bad Pool Caller BSOD error), power outage, malware/virus infection, hard drive failure, etc. To easily recover lost data for free, you can choose the best free data recovery software to realize it.

MiniTool Power Data Recovery, a 100% clean and free data recovery software for Windows 10/8/7, enables you to easily recover mistakenly deleted files or lost files from computer local drive, external hard drive, SSD drive, USB drive (pen drive data recovery), SD card, and more.

If you forgot Windows 11 password, you can check the 6 solutions in this post to reset/bypass Windows 11 password. Also learn how to change Windows 11 password.

How to open a File or Folder using Command Prompt or PowerShell in Windows 11/10

Thanks to the graphical user interface of Windows 10, users can get just about anything done by simply clicking on the icon. Without the GUI, we’d have been forced to do everything from the command line in PowerShell or Command Prompt.

However, learning to work with the command line is a useful skill, as it gives you quick access to functions and operations. For instance, in some situations when working on Command Prompt or PowerShell, you need to open folders or files. You don’t have to exit the window just to find the folder or file.

Open folders & files using Command Prompt & PowerShell

In this guide, I’ll show you how to open folders right from Command Prompt and PowerShell on your Windows 11/10 PC.

In the post remember to replace with your username.

1] How to navigate to a folder using Command Prompt and PowerShell

Open the Command prompt by searching for cmd in the Start Menu and selecting Command Prompt. For PowerShell, you can also search for it and open from the Start Menu.

Type in the following command and hit ENTER to run it:

NOTE: In the above command, replace Path\To\Folder with the actual path to the folder that you want to open. So, it can become:

To open a file saved in this folder, input the name of the file and press ENTER. Example,

Alternatively, you can enter the full path to the file without using the cd command. For example,

2] How to open a folder using Command Prompt and PowerShell

The first technique would open a file saved in a folder. However, if you wish to open the folder in File Explorer using Command Prompt or PowerShell, you make use of the start command.

Command Prompt

To open a folder, append the folder path after the start command. For example, I can navigate to the New Folder folder using the following command:

If you want to open the current folder, run the start command with a fullstop (.):

To open the parent folder to your current folder, use two fullstops (..):

On hitting ENTER, the specified folder will open in a File Explorer window.

PowerShell

To open a folder in File Explorer using PowerShell, input either of the following cmdlets –

and add the path to the folder.

To open the current directory, use the following command:

3] How to close a file using Command Prompt and PowerShell

To close an already opened file using the command line, you make use of the taskkill command. First, navigate to the folder using the first method:

Enter the following command when you are in the correct directory:

In the above command, replace the filename part with the name of the file you want to close.

Note that this command closes every instant of the open file, and you risk losing unsaved data.

I hope you find the post useful.

Date: September 17, 2021 Tags: CMD, PowerShell

Related Posts

Terminal vs PowerShell vs Command Prompt difference explained

How to run CMD command on startup automatically in Windows 11/10

Command-line switches to deploy Microsoft software Update packages

[email protected]

Keshi Ile is a seasoned technology expert who holds a Bachelors’s degree in Electronics Engineering and a Master’s in Digital Marketing. He runs several internet companies and contributes to technology blogs.

How to open a file / folder in Command Prompt [CMD guide]

Microsoft DOS (Disk Operating System) is a command-line platform that was the world’s foremost operating system during the 1980s.

However, DOS declined into irrelevance during the 1990s after Microsoft released Windows 95, which introduced the Start menu.

Nevertheless, Windows has retained a windowed replica of DOS in the form of the Command Prompt. That’s not entirely the same as the 1980s DOS platforms, but it has a similar command set.

You can open folders and files with the Command Prompt instead of File Explorer. This is how you can open folders and files within the Command Prompt.

How can I open files and folders with the Command Prompt?

1. Open the Command Prompt

2. Open a folder

You’ll need to include the root folder and all its subfolders within the path to open a required folder within the Command Prompt.

3. Open a file

Alternatively, you can open files in the Command Prompt without moving to their folders first. To do that, you’ll need to enter a command that includes the full folder path for the file along with the file title itself.

For example, let’s suppose you need to open a file titled youcam_9.png from the path Users\mav_u\pictures. To do so, you would enter this command:

That file-opening command must always include quotation marks.

So, who needs File Explorer when you can open folders and files with the Command Prompt instead?

Ok, the Command Prompt may not be everybody’s cup of tea; but some users might still prefer its command-line flexibility.

Read more about this topic

Restoro has been downloaded by 0 readers this month.

How do I open an Explorer window in a given directory from cmd.exe?

I see how to launch many other programs from a batch file, but I can’t find a command like open on Mac OS X. Does such a tool exist on Windows? Powershell, or a Windows API call from an executable would also work.

Or, put another way, how can I invoke Windows default «Open» handler for a file from a batch file or powershell script?

5 Answers 5

Trending sort

Trending sort is based off of the default sorting method — by highest score — but it boosts votes that have happened recently, helping to surface more up-to-date answers.

It falls back to sorting by highest score if no posts are trending.

Switch to Trending sort

In Windows you can open Explorer with the following command:

If you want it to open a specific folder, do this for example:

would launch Notepad (or whatever text editor you’re using),

would launch your browser,

will launch Explorer, etc.

Care has to be taken with arguments in quotes, as start will interpret the first quoted argument as the window title to use, so something like

will not work as intended. Instead prepend an empty quoted argument in that case:

Note that start isn’t a separate program but a shell-builtin. So to invoke this from an external program you have to use something like

As for the Windows API, you’re looking for ShellExecute with the open verb.

How to Create, Open and Delete A Folder Using Command Prompt

Do you often create a new folder through the right-click menu (as the following screen shot shows)? This method, admittedly, is simple and efficient, but not the only way to make a folder. Namely, there are other ways to achieve the same target, and using Command Prompt is among the choices. Moreover, Command Prompt can also be applied to open and delete a folder. Consequently, this article will illustrate how to use Command Prompt to create, open and delete a folder in Windows 8/8.1 computer.

Video guide on how to create, open and delete a folder using Command Prompt on Win 8:

1. Use command prompt to create a folder

Sample: Create a folder titled «video..» in E disk

Step 1: Open Command Prompt.

Press Windows key and X key at the same time to open a menu, and then choose Command Prompt in it.

Step 2: Input a md command in the form of «md drive letter\folder name\» (without double quotation marks) and confirm the setting.

That is, type md e:\video..\ and tap Enter on the keyboard.

Tips: In the md command, «e:» stands for the drive letter of E disk, and «video..» refers to the folder name. Hence, you can change the drive letter and folder name to create another folder on your computer.

Go to E disk and you will find that a folder called «video..» is created with triumph.

2. Use command prompt to open a folder

Step 1: Get to Command Prompt.

Step 2: Type a start command in the form of «start drive letter\folder name\» (without double quotation marks) and affirm the cmd.

If you want to open the «video..» folder, you can follow the procedure below.

Input start e:\video..\ in Command Prompt window, and press Enter.

Immediately, the «video..» folder opens, as exhibited in the picture below.

3. Use command prompt to delete a folder

Step 1: Enter Command Prompt.

Step 2: Type a rd command by the form of «rd drive letter\folder name\» (same as above) and then bring the cmd into effect.

For your better understanding, the rd command of deleting «video..» folder is as follows.

rd e:\video..\

After that, as you can see from the following photo, the specified folder has been removed from E disk.

In brief, from this text, you can learn about the method of using command prompt to create, open and delete a folder. And if you are interested in it, you can try it in your computer at this moment.

Related Articles:

iSunshare is dedicated to providing the best service for Windows, Mac, Android users who are in demand for password recovery and data recovery.