How to disable Notepad++ Auto-open previous files without opening Notepad++?

Question

How do I stop Notepad++ from loading all files from the past session?

I know how to do that settings in Notepad++, but the problem is that I once opened a very large file (>10GB) and made the Notepad++ hang up. Notepad++ has already marked that big file in the session and therefore hang up everytime I start the Notepad++. Is there a way I can stop it from loading the past session so it won't hang up every time?

P.S. I have received a report on possible duplicate with this question. This is obviously a different case. At least in that question the notepad++ still starts up normally while in my case I cannot even change the settings normally because the notepad++ just hang while loading the stored version. The answer to this question also provide a good way to change the settings without starting Notepad++, which will be useful in fixing problems caused by settings when the Notepad++ cannot starts normally.

Solution 1

Yes, you can change that setting by modifying the config file.

go to %appdata%\Notepad++ and open config.xml

You should find the following line in there:

<GUIConfig name="RememberLastSession">yes</GUIConfig>

just change it to no and that should do the trick.

Solution 2

Start from command line:

notepad++ -nosession

"Auto-open previous files" then should be disabled

Solution 3

This is for those who do not want to modify the XML config filess, and this will also work without having the Notepad++ in PATH.

As I do not have enough reputation to comment on other answers, I'll add on Jacques Hubart's comment, all credits should still be for him.

1. Open Windows Run (Windows + R)
2. Type in the full path to the Notepad++ EXE. This would normally be C:\Program Files\Notepad++\notepad++.exe
3. Add the nosession parameter
4. Run

Preview:

Solution 4

If, like me, you left a huge file in the last session, you can also remove just the offending file from the session and keep the rest.

go to %appdata%\Notepad++ and open session.xml

Scroll to the right to see the filename. Be careful to keep the integrety of the XML by removing the entire "file" node. It should be on a single line.

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