Emacs on Windows: Init File Location

Emacs Init File Location on Microsoft Windows

On Microsoft Windows, by default, emacs looks at the following directory.

# open the dir
Invoke-Item ~/AppData/Roaming/

in that dir, it looks for the file

.emacs.d/init.el

or

.emacs

The Unix Environment Variable $HOME

If you have the environment variable named HOME, then it's at:

$HOME/.emacs.d/init.el

or

$HOME/.emacs

🛑 WARNING: HOME should not be confused with HOMEPATH.

• HOMEPATH is standard Microsoft Windows environment variable.
• HOME is standard unix/linux environment variable. (doesn't exist in Windows 10 by default.)

Reference

• Find Init (Emacs Manual)