Command Line Arguments

Notepad++ supports various case-sensitive command line arguments to control its startup and affect its behavior.

Help usage

notepad++ [--help] [-multiInst] [-noPlugin] [-l<Language>]
  [-udl="My UDL Name"] [-L<langCode>] [-n<line>] [-c<column>] [-p<pos>]
  [-x<left-pos>] [-y<TopPos>] [-monitor] [-nosession] [-notabbar]
  [-ro] [-fullReadOnly] [-fullReadOnlySavingForbidden]
  [-systemtray] [-loadingTime] [-alwaysOnTop] [-openSession] [-r]
  [-qn="Easter Egg Name" | -qt="Text to Type" | -qf="D:\path to\file"]
  [-qSpeed(1|2|3)] [-quickPrint] [-settingsDir="d:\your settings dir\"]
  [-openFoldersAsWorkspace] [-titleAdd="additional title bar text"]
  [-pluginMessage="text for plugin(s)"]
  [filepath]

--help: The help message for command line arguments. It will be shown before Notepad++'s launch.
-multiInst: Launch another Notepad++ instance, so user can have several Notepad++ simultaneously.
-noPlugin: Launch Notepad++ without loading any plugin.
-l: Open file or display ghost typing with syntax highlighting of choice. Language is a short identifier string: the full list can be found in langs.model.xml (as the names of each <Language name="..."> element).

show example Programming Language identifiers

normal, actionscript, ada, asm, asn1, asp, autoit, avs, baanc, bash, batch, blitzbasic, c, caml, cmake, cobol, coffeescript, cpp, cs, csound, css, d, diff, erlang, escript, forth, fortran, fortran77, freebasic, gdscript, go, gui4cli, haskell, hollywood, html, ihex, ini, inno, java, javascript, javascript, json, json5, jsp, kix, latex, lisp, makefile, matlab, mmixal, mssql, nfo, nim, nncrontab, nsis, objc, oscript, pascal, perl, php, postscript, powershell, props, purebasic, python, r, raku, rc, rebol, registry, ruby, rust, sas, scheme, smalltalk, spice, sql, srec, swift, tcl, tehex, tex, toml, txt2tags, typescript, vb, verilog, vhdl, visualprolog, xml, yaml.
-udl="My UDL Name": Open file with User Defined Language (UDL) syntax highlighting My UDL Name active. If the UDL name does not conain spaces, the quote marks aren’t required around the name (like -udl=MyUDL). The UDL name should match an existing UDL. Mutually exclusive with -l (UDL will take priority over standard syntax highlighter). (new to v8.1.2)

-L: Apply indicated localization, langCode maps to the localization file name:

show Language Codes

code	file
`ab`, `abk`	`abkhazian.xml`
`af`	`afrikaans.xml`
`an`	`aragonese.xml`
`ar`, `ar-dz`, `ar-bh`, `ar-eg`, `ar-iq`, `ar-jo`, `ar-kw`, `ar-lb`, `ar-ly`, `ar-ma`, `ar-om`, `ar-qa`, `ar-sa`, `ar-sy`, `ar-tn`, `ar-ae`, `ar-ye`	`arabic.xml`
`az`	`azerbaijani.xml`
`be`	`belarusian.xml`
`bg`	`bulgarian.xml`
`bn`	`bengali.xml`
`br-fr`	`breton.xml`
`bs`	`bosnian.xml`
`ca`	`catalan.xml`
`co`, `co-fr`	`corsican.xml`
`cs`	`czech.xml`
`cy-gb`	`welsh.xml`
`da`	`danish.xml`
`de`, `de-at`, `de-de`, `de-li`, `de-lu`, `de-ch`	`german.xml`
`el`	`greek.xml`
`eo`	`esperanto.xml`
`es-ar`	`spanish_ar.xml`
`es`, `es-bo`, `es-cl`, `es-co`, `es-cr`, `es-do`, `es-ec`, `es-sv`, `es-gt`, `es-hn`, `es-mx`, `es-ni`, `es-pa`, `es-py`, `es-pe`, `es-pr`, `es-es`, `es-uy`, `es-ve`	`spanish.xml`
`et`	`estonian.xml`
`eu`	`basque.xml`
`exy`	`extremaduran.xml`
`fa`	`farsi.xml`
`fi`	`finnish.xml`
`fr`, `fr-be`, `fr-ca`, `fr-fr`, `fr-lu`, `fr-mc`, `fr-ch`	`french.xml`
`fur`	`friulian.xml`
`ga`	`irish.xml`
`gl`	`galician.xml`
`gu`	`gujarati.xml`
`he`	`hebrew.xml`
`hi`	`hindi.xml`
`hr`	`croatian.xml`
`hu`	`hungarian.xml`
`id`	`indonesian.xml`
`it`, `it-ch`	`italian.xml`
`ja`	`japanese.xml`
`ka`	`georgian.xml`
`kab`	`kabyle.xml` (spelling fixed to `kab` in v8.7.5; must use `keb` instead of `kab` in v8.7.4 and earlier)
`kk`	`kazakh.xml`
`kn`	`kannada.xml`
`ko`, `ko-kp`, `ko-kr`	`korean.xml`
`ku`	`kurdish.xml`
`ky`	`kyrgyz.xml`
`lb`	`luxembourgish.xml`
`lij`	`ligurian.xml`
`lt`	`lithuanian.xml`
`lv`	`latvian.xml`
`mk`	`macedonian.xml`
`mn`	`mongolian.xml`
`mr`	`marathi.xml`
`ms`	`malay.xml`
`ne`, `nep`	`nepali.xml`
`nl`, `nl-be`	`dutch.xml`
`nn`	`nynorsk.xml`
`no`, `nb`	`norwegian.xml`
`oc-aranes`	`aranese.xml`
`oc`	`occitan.xml`
`pa`, `pa-in`	`punjabi.xml`
`pl`	`polish.xml`
`pt-br`	`brazilian_portuguese.xml`
`pt`, `pt-pt`	`portuguese.xml`
`ro`, `ro-mo`	`romanian.xml`
`ru`, `ru-mo`	`russian.xml`
`sc`	`sardinian.xml`
`sgs`	`samogitian.xml`
`si`	`sinhala.xml`
`sk`	`slovak.xml`
`sl`	`slovenian.xml`
`sq`	`albanian.xml`
`sr-cyrl-ba`, `sr-cyrl-sp`	`serbianCyrillic.xml`
`sr`	`serbian.xml`
`sv`	`swedish.xml`
`ta`	`tamil.xml`
`te`	`telugu.xml`
`tg-cyrl-tj`	`tajikCyrillic.xml`
`th`	`thai.xml`
`tl`	`tagalog.xml`
`tr`	`turkish.xml`
`tt`	`tatar.xml`
`ug-cn`	`uyghur.xml`
`uk`	`ukrainian.xml`
`ur`, `ur-pk`	`urdu.xml`
`uz-cyrl-uz`	`uzbekCyrillic.xml`
`uz`	`uzbek.xml`
`vec`	`venetian.xml`
`vi`, `vi-vn`	`vietnamese.xml`
`yue`	`hongKongCantonese.xml`
`zh-tw`, `zh-hk`, `zh-sg`	`taiwaneseMandarin.xml`
`zh`, `zh-cn`	`chineseSimplified.xml`
`zu`, `zu-za`	`zulu.xml`

-n: Scroll to indicated line (LineNumber) on filepath.
-c: Scroll to indicated column (ColumnNumber) on filepath.
-p: Scroll to indicated 0 base position (Position) on filepath.
-x: Move Notepad++ to indicated left side position (LeftPos) on the screen.
-y: Move Notepad++ to indicated top position (TopPos) on the screen.
-monitor: Open file with file monitoring enabled.
-nosession: Launch Notepad++ without previous session.
-notabbar: Launch Notepad++ without tabbar.
-ro: Make the filepath read only.
-fullReadOnly: Open all files read-only by default, toggling the R/O off and saving is allowed.
-fullReadOnlySavingForbidden: Open all files read-only by default, toggling the R/O off and saving is disabled.
-systemtray: Launch Notepad++ directly in system tray.
-loadingTime: Display Notepad++ loading time.
- Starting in v8.6.1, it shows millisecond precision using the ##:##:##.### (hour:minute:second.millisecond) format. It separates the loading time into Notepad++ initialization, plugins loading time, session loading time, command-line-parameter parsing time, and the total loading time.
- In v8.6 or earlier, it just showed the total number of seconds for Notepad++ to load, without millisecond precision and without the listing of the times for individual loading stages.
-alwaysOnTop: Make Notepad++ always on top.
-openSession: Open a session. filepath must be a session file.
-r: Open files recursively. This argument will be ignored if filepath contain no wildcard character.
-qn="Easter Egg Name": Launch ghost typing to display easter egg via its Easter Egg Name.
-qt="Text to Type": Launch ghost typing to display a text via the given Text to Type.
-qf="D:\path to\file": Launch ghost typing to display a file content via the file path D:\path to\file.
-qSpeed(1|2|3): Ghost typing speed. Value from 1 to 3 for slow, fast, and fastest.
-quickPrint: Print the file given as argument filepath then quit Notepad++.
-settingsDir="d:\your settings dir\": Override the default settings dir.
-openFoldersAsWorkspace: Any folders listed as arguments will be opened as a workspace, rather than opening all the contained files individually.
-titleAdd="additional title bar text": Add a dash and a space and the supplied text to the right side of the application title bar (new to v8.0.0).
-pluginMessage="text for plugin(s)": If plugin developers need extra command line arguments, then users can add this option, and the plugin will be notified that it can parse that string for extra information (new to v8.4.2).
- You can only give Notepad++ one -pluginMessage argument.
- If you have multiple pieces of information you want to pass to one or more plugins, they have to be joined together in that same single argument.
  - Each plugin will use the plugin name as the prefix for its sub-argument names.
  - Each sub-argument will be in name=value format.
  - Each sub-argument should be separated by a ; semicolon.
  - Example:
```
-pluginMessage="NppExecScriptPath=C:\Program Files\Notepad++\plugins\NppExec\init.py;NppExecArg2=arg2Value;mimeToolsSettings=disable;pluginYInfo=show"
```
filepath: File or folder name to open (absolute or relative path name).

The order of the options is not important. Brackets indicate that the options are not required, and are not part of the command-line argument. The number of hyphens is significant, and the options are case sensitive.

For compatibility, Notepad++ will first try to identify the entire command line as a filename, even if it is unquoted. It is however not recommended to do this, as you should always quote the filename.

This help usage list can be accessed inside Notepad++ using the --help command line argument, or using the ?-menu’s Command Line Arguments entry.

Additional Options

There are other Notepad++ command-line options which aren’t included in the help usage list. These are intended for advanced usage or other special circumstances.

-notepadStyleCmdline: When you follow the instructions in Other Resources > Notepad Replacement, to replace Windows’ builtin notepad.exe with Notepad++, Windows will try to pass /p or /P as a command-line option when you try to print the file from the Explorer Context menu. Enabling this option allows Notepad++ to recognize that option, and convert it internally to the official -quickPrint option.
-z: Causes Notepad++ to ignore the next command line argument (a single word, or a phrase in quotes).
- The only intended and supported use for this option is for the Notepad Replacement syntax. Any other use for this option is unsupported and not guaranteed to work.
- There can only be one -z per command-line, because that is all that is required for Notepad Replacement.

Installer Options

The Notepad++ installer executable accepts the three NSIS command-line options:

/S : Enables silent installation.
/NCRC: Skips the installer’s CRC check.
/D=c:\blah or /D=c:\path with spaces\blah : Overrides the default installation directory.
- Do not put quotes around the path, even when there are spaces.
- Because it allows spaces in the path, this option must be the last argument on the installer command line, if included.

It also implements additional Notepad++-specific options:

/noUpdater: Disables the N++ inherent automatic updates (it does not install the WinGUP & PluginsAdmin updating components).
/closeRunningNpp: Will (try to) close existing Notepad++ before installing the new version. (New to v8.6.9.)
- It will first try a “nice” close request (using WM_CLOSE).
- If the “nice” request wasn’t successful after 5 seconds, it will kill the underlying process.
- If Notepad++ has multiple instances opened, it will close all instances.
/runNppAfterSilentInstall: After a silent install, it will automatically run the newly-installed Notepad++. (New to v8.6.9.)
- Only works if /S is also specified.
/relaunchNppAfterSilentInstall: If Notepad++ was running when silent install was initiated, it will automatically run the newly-installed Notepad++ after installation is complete. (New to v8.8.2.)
- Only works if /S is also specified.

Note : The installer options are case sensitive: /S will do a silent installation, whereas /s will not.