Set the default folder for new Finder windows

The built-in choices — Recents, Home, Documents — are fine, but sometimes you want new Finder windows to open somewhere specific: the project folder you're living in this month, your Downloads folder, or a shared drive. macOS lets you point new windows at any folder on disk. Here's the exact route.

Use the "Other" option in Finder Settings

1. Click the desktop or a Finder window so Finder is active, then choose Finder → Settings and stay on the General tab.
2. Open the New Finder windows show dropdown and scroll to the bottom — choose Other….
3. In the browser that appears, navigate to the exact folder you want and click Choose.

From now on every new window opens right there. The folder's name replaces "Other…" in the dropdown so you can see your pick at a glance. This works the same on macOS 13 Ventura, 14 Sonoma, and 15 Sequoia. If you ever move or rename that folder, revisit this dropdown and point it at the new location, since the setting stores the specific path.

Set the path from the Terminal

A custom folder needs two keys: NewWindowTarget switched to the "custom" code PfLo, and NewWindowTargetPath holding the folder's location as a file:// URL. This example opens new windows in ~/Projects — replace yourname and the folder to match yours.

# Open new windows in a specific folder (here: ~/Projects)
defaults write com.apple.finder NewWindowTarget -string "PfLo"
defaults write com.apple.finder NewWindowTargetPath -string "file:///Users/yourname/Projects/"
killall Finder

# Undo — clear both keys, back to the default (Recents)
defaults delete com.apple.finder NewWindowTarget
defaults delete com.apple.finder NewWindowTargetPath
killall Finder

A few details make or break the path:

• Use the full absolute path starting file:///Users/... — three slashes after file:, then the usual path.
• Keep the trailing slash after the folder name.
• If any folder in the path contains a space, replace it with %20 — for example file:///Users/yourname/Client%20Work/.

The killall Finder restart applies both keys at once. The two delete commands remove them and return Finder to its default Recents view.

Folders people usually point new windows at

A few destinations come up again and again, each for a clear reason:

• Downloads — if the first thing you do in most windows is grab a file you just saved, starting here skips a step.
• A current project folder — the single directory you're living in this month; retarget it when the project changes.
• A shared or external drive — handy when your working files sit on a NAS or an attached disk rather than the internal drive.

The one thing to keep in mind is that a custom target is stored as a specific path, not a live "wherever this folder is now" pointer. Move or rename the folder and new windows will fail to find it, quietly falling back or opening empty. When that happens, just return to the dropdown and choose the folder again at its new spot — a two-second fix, and a good reason to point at stable, long-lived folders rather than ones you reshuffle often.

If you switch target folders often — say, once per project — the Finder Settings dropdown is quicker than editing the path by hand each time, since the Other… browser remembers where you last were. Reserve the Terminal route for setups you'll leave in place, and use the menu for anything you expect to change every few weeks.

Get the folder's path without guessing

Not sure of the exact path to type? Right-click the folder in Finder, hold Option, and choose Copy … as Pathname. See how to copy a file or folder path on Mac for the full trick, then wrap it as a file:// URL.