Emacs: Launch

By Xah Lee. Date: . Last updated: .

Emacs can run in GUI mode (graphical user interface), or within a text terminal. 〔see Emacs: Terminal vs Graphical User Interface〕

Microsoft Windows

MacOS

Start in GUI

Double click the emacs app icon.

Start Emacs on MacOS from Terminal

Linux

Start GUI Emacs

On a text terminal, type: 

# linux. Start GUI emacs
emacs
# linux. Start GUI emacs. and if terminal is killed, won't kill emacs with it
nohup emacs &

Run Emacs in Text Terminal

# linux. run emacs in text terminal
emacs -nw

-nw is same as --no-window-system, means run emacs in text terminal.

Start emacs and open a file

# open a file with emacs
emacs fileName

Emacs, start, exit, and init files