Change the location of the ~ directory in a Windows install of Git Bash

In my case, all I had to do was add the following User variable on Windows:

Variable name: HOME
Variable value: %USERPROFILE%

How to set a Environment Variable (You can use the User variables for username section if you are not a system administrator)

I'd share what I did, which works not only for Git, but MSYS/MinGW as well.

The HOME environment variable is not normally set for Windows applications, so creating it through Windows did not affect anything else. From the Computer Properties (right-click on Computer - or whatever it is named - in Explorer, and select Properties, or Control Panel -> System and Security -> System), choose Advanced system settings, then Environment Variables... and create a new one, HOME, and assign it wherever you like.

If you can't create new environment variables, the other answer will still work. (I went through the details of how to create environment variables precisely because it's so dificult to find.)

Instead of modifying the global profile you could create the .bash_profile in your default $HOME directory (e.g. C:\Users\WhateverUser\.bash_profile) with the following contents:

export HOME="C:\my\projects\dir" # or export HOME="/c/my/projects/dir" cd "$HOME" # if you'd like it to be the starting dir of the git shell 

1.Right click to Gitbash shortcut choose Properties
2.Choose "Shortcut" tab
3.Type your starting directory to "Start in" field
4.Remove "--cd-to-home" part from "Target" field

So, $HOME is what I need to modify. However I have been unable to find where this mythical $HOME variable is set so I assumed it was a Linux system version of PATH or something. Anyway...**

Answer

Adding HOME at the top of the profile file worked.

HOME="c://path/to/custom/root/".

 #THE FIX WAS ADDING THE FOLLOWING LINE TO THE TOP OF THE PROFILE FILE HOME="c://path/to/custom/root/" # below are the original contents =========== # To the extent possible under law, ..blah blah # Some resources... # Customizing Your Shell: http://www.dsl.org/cookbook/cookbook_5.html#SEC69 # Consistent BackSpace and Delete Configuration: # http://www.ibb.net/~anne/keyboard.html # The Linux Documentation Project: http://www.tldp.org/ # The Linux Cookbook: http://www.tldp.org/LDP/linuxcookbook/html/ # Greg's Wiki http://mywiki.wooledge.org/ # Setup some default paths. Note that this order will allow user installed # software to override 'system' software. # Modifying these default path settings can be done in different ways. # To learn more about startup files, refer to your shell's man page. MSYS2_PATH="/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin" MANPATH="/usr/local/man:/usr/share/man:/usr/man:/share/man:${MANPATH}" INFOPATH="/usr/local/info:/usr/share/info:/usr/info:/share/info:${INFOPATH}" MINGW_MOUNT_POINT= if [ -n "$MSYSTEM" ] then case "$MSYSTEM" in MINGW32) MINGW_MOUNT_POINT=/mingw32 PATH="${MINGW_MOUNT_POINT}/bin:${MSYS2_PATH}:${PATH}" PKG_CONFIG_PATH="${MINGW_MOUNT_POINT}/lib/pkgconfig:${MINGW_MOUNT_POINT}/share/pkgconfig" ACLOCAL_PATH="${MINGW_MOUNT_POINT}/share/aclocal:/usr/share/aclocal" MANPATH="${MINGW_MOUNT_POINT}/share/man:${MANPATH}" ;; MINGW64) MINGW_MOUNT_POINT=/mingw64 PATH="${MINGW_MOUNT_POINT}/bin:${MSYS2_PATH}:${PATH}" PKG_CONFIG_PATH="${MINGW_MOUNT_POINT}/lib/pkgconfig:${MINGW_MOUNT_POINT}/share/pkgconfig" ACLOCAL_PATH="${MINGW_MOUNT_POINT}/share/aclocal:/usr/share/aclocal" MANPATH="${MINGW_MOUNT_POINT}/share/man:${MANPATH}" ;; MSYS) PATH="${MSYS2_PATH}:/opt/bin:${PATH}" PKG_CONFIG_PATH="/usr/lib/pkgconfig:/usr/share/pkgconfig:/lib/pkgconfig" ;; *) PATH="${MSYS2_PATH}:${PATH}" ;; esac else PATH="${MSYS2_PATH}:${PATH}" fi MAYBE_FIRST_START=false SYSCONFDIR="${SYSCONFDIR:=/etc}" # TMP and TEMP as defined in the Windows environment must be kept # for windows apps, even if started from msys2. However, leaving # them set to the default Windows temporary directory or unset # can have unexpected consequences for msys2 apps, so we define # our own to match GNU/Linux behaviour. ORIGINAL_TMP=$TMP ORIGINAL_TEMP=$TEMP #unset TMP TEMP #tmp=$(cygpath -w "$ORIGINAL_TMP" 2> /dev/null) #temp=$(cygpath -w "$ORIGINAL_TEMP" 2> /dev/null) #TMP="/tmp" #TEMP="/tmp" case "$TMP" in *\\*) TMP="$(cygpath -m "$TMP")";; esac case "$TEMP" in *\\*) TEMP="$(cygpath -m "$TEMP")";; esac test -d "$TMPDIR" || test ! -d "$TMP" || { TMPDIR="$TMP" export TMPDIR } # Define default printer p='/proc/registry/HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/Microsoft/Windows NT/CurrentVersion/Windows/Device' if [ -e "${p}" ] ; then read -r PRINTER < "${p}" PRINTER=${PRINTER%%,*} fi unset p print_flags () { (( $1 & 0x0002 )) && echo -n "binary" || echo -n "text" (( $1 & 0x0010 )) && echo -n ",exec" (( $1 & 0x0040 )) && echo -n ",cygexec" (( $1 & 0x0100 )) && echo -n ",notexec" } # Shell dependent settings profile_d () { local file= for file in $(export LC_COLLATE=C; echo /etc/profile.d/*.$1); do [ -e "${file}" ] && . "${file}" done if [ -n ${MINGW_MOUNT_POINT} ]; then for file in $(export LC_COLLATE=C; echo ${MINGW_MOUNT_POINT}/etc/profile.d/*.$1); do [ -e "${file}" ] && . "${file}" done fi } for postinst in $(export LC_COLLATE=C; echo /etc/post-install/*.post); do [ -e "${postinst}" ] && . "${postinst}" done if [ ! "x${BASH_VERSION}" = "x" ]; then HOSTNAME="$(/usr/bin/hostname)" profile_d sh [ -f "/etc/bash.bashrc" ] && . "/etc/bash.bashrc" elif [ ! "x${KSH_VERSION}" = "x" ]; then typeset -l HOSTNAME="$(/usr/bin/hostname)" profile_d sh PS1=$(print '\033]0;${PWD}\n\033[32m${USER}@${HOSTNAME} \033[33m${PWD/${HOME}/~}\033[0m\n$ ') elif [ ! "x${ZSH_VERSION}" = "x" ]; then HOSTNAME="$(/usr/bin/hostname)" profile_d zsh PS1='(%n@%m)[%h] %~ %% ' elif [ ! "x${POSH_VERSION}" = "x" ]; then HOSTNAME="$(/usr/bin/hostname)" PS1="$ " else HOSTNAME="$(/usr/bin/hostname)" profile_d sh PS1="$ " fi if [ -n "$ACLOCAL_PATH" ] then export ACLOCAL_PATH fi export PATH MANPATH INFOPATH PKG_CONFIG_PATH USER TMP TEMP PRINTER HOSTNAME PS1 SHELL tmp temp test -n "$TERM" || export TERM=xterm-256color if [ "$MAYBE_FIRST_START" = "true" ]; then sh /usr/bin/regen-info.sh if [ -f "/usr/bin/update-ca-trust" ] then sh /usr/bin/update-ca-trust fi clear echo echo echo "###################################################################" echo "# #" echo "# #" echo "# C A U T I O N #" echo "# #" echo "# This is first start of MSYS2. #" echo "# You MUST restart shell to apply necessary actions. #" echo "# #" echo "# #" echo "###################################################################" echo echo fi unset MAYBE_FIRST_START 

So, $HOME is what I need to modify.

However I have been unable to find where this mythical $HOME variable is set so I assumed it was a Linux system version of PATH or something.

Git 2.23 (Q3 2019) is quite explicit on how HOME is set.

See commit e12a955 (04 Jul 2019) by Karsten Blees (kblees).
^{(Merged by Junio C Hamano -- gitster -- in commit fc613d2, 19 Jul 2019)}

mingw: initialize HOME on startup

HOME initialization was historically duplicated in many different places, including /etc/profile, launch scripts such as git-bash.vbs and gitk.cmd, and (although slightly broken) in the git-wrapper.

Even unrelated projects such as GitExtensions and TortoiseGit need to implement the same logic to be able to call git directly.

Initialize HOME in Git's own startup code so that we can eventually retire all the duplicate initialization code.

Now, mingw.c includes the following code:

/* calculate HOME if not set */ if (!getenv("HOME")) { /* * try $HOMEDRIVE$HOMEPATH - the home share may be a network * location, thus also check if the path exists (i.e. is not * disconnected) */ if ((tmp = getenv("HOMEDRIVE"))) { struct strbuf buf = STRBUF_INIT; strbuf_addstr(&buf, tmp); if ((tmp = getenv("HOMEPATH"))) { strbuf_addstr(&buf, tmp); if (is_directory(buf.buf)) setenv("HOME", buf.buf, 1); else tmp = NULL; /* use $USERPROFILE */ } strbuf_release(&buf); } /* use $USERPROFILE if the home share is not available */ if (!tmp && (tmp = getenv("USERPROFILE"))) setenv("HOME", tmp, 1); } 

I know this is an old question, but it is the top google result for "gitbash homedir windows" so figured I'd add my findings.

No matter what I tried I couldn't get git-bash to start in anywhere but my network drive,(U:) in my case making every operation take 15-20 seconds to respond. (Remote employee on VPN, network drive hosted on the other side of the country)

I tried setting HOME and HOMEDIR variables in windows.

I tried setting HOME and HOMEDIR variables in the git installation'setc/profile file.

I tried editing the "Start in" on the git-bash shortcut to be C:/user/myusername.

"env" command inside the git-bash shell would show correct c:/user/myusername. But git-bash would still start in U:

What ultimately fixed it for me was editing the git-bash shortcut and removing the "--cd-to-home" from the Target line.

I'm on Windows 10 running latest version of Git-for-windows 2.22.0.

Quick summary

Run the following commands inside Git Bash.

Open up your Windows File Explorer inside your Git Bash root directory:

cd / explorer . 

For many people, this will open up inside the C:\Users\my_username\AppData\Local\Programs\Git directory. For others, it may open up inside C:\Program Files\Git.

In either case, open up the etc\profile file located there and add the following to the very top of it:

# Set my desired home dir. This sets it to my user's default Windows home dir. HOME="/c/Users/$(whoami)" 

Save and close the file. Note that this will require admin privileges if it is located inside the C:\Program Files\Git directory.

Restart all instances of Git Bash to make this take effect.

Confirm that the change took effect:

echo ~ 

This will output:

/c/Users/my_username 

Explanation

Adding HOME="/c/Users/$(whoami)" to the top of your Git Bash profile file makes your HOME (~) directory get set to C:\Users\my_username. Forcing this manually may be necessary if you have a networked or work computer, as otherwise your HOME directory may point to a network drive, which can:

1. make Git Bash run really slowly, and
2. prevent your custom C:\Users\my_username\.bashrc file from being sourced properly.

From @Paul Wintz's answer here: Git Bash (mintty) is extremely slow on Windows 10 OS:

Per @Alexandre Jobin's comment, Git Bash can be very slow if your HOME variable points to a shared network folder.

Local vs network home directories

If you are on a networked computer at work, your HOME directory may be set by IT to a network drive, such as u:\, H:\, Z:\, etc. Following my instructions above and setting HOME="/c/Users/$(whoami)" undoes this, in Git Bash at least, and sets your HOME directory to your local drive at C:\Users\my_username instead.

Whether or not you want this, however, is user preference. There are pros and cons to each approach.

The benefit of using the network drive as your home drive is that if you frequently log into many different computers, such as logging into test computers to run software or hardware tests on your work projects, all login sessions on different computers get access to the same home directory, ssh keys, development setup, repositories, etc. You don't have to set up custom ssh keys and ~/.bashrc files for every single computer you log into.

The downside is that if you leave the office with your work laptop, lose the internet at work, have a flaky internet connection, or work remotely, you may lose access to your network home directory and not be able to do anything during that time. Also, Git Bash may sometimes run really slowly if your HOME directory is set to a network drive.

So, if you want the network drive to be your home directory, that's okay, but understand the limitations.

For me, I do both. On my main work laptop I set my HOME directory to my local drive via HOME="/c/Users/$(whoami)", but on the many test computers I use remotely or in person at work I force it to be the u:\ network drive via HOME=/u so I can share everything between those test computers and not have to configure each one individually.

Using mixed network and local home directories on a shared computer

If multiple people are sharing the same computer (ex: a test host computer at work), and each person has their own login information and user account, and Git for Windows (which contains Git Bash) has been installed globally for all users, but some users want to use the local C:\ drive at C:\Users\my_username as their home directory and some want to use the network u:\ drive, for example, as their home directory, then I recommend you do the following:

1. Make the default HOME directory the local C drive for everyone, by doing the HOME="/c/Users/$(whoami)" entry in the etc\profile file as shown above. This makes each user's HOME directory be their local C:\Users\my_username directory.

2. For users who wish to use the network u:\ drive as their home directory, they can create a custom .bashrc file at C:\Users\my_username\.bashrc and put the following into it:

   # Set the HOME directory back to the network drive at "u:\" HOME="/u" # cd into their new network home directory cd ~ # Source the .bashrc file in their home dir on the network drive # at "u:\.bashrc" . ~/.bashrc 

   This will set their HOME directory back to the network drive at u:\ and then source their custom .bashrc file located there. Now, all is well and everyone gets what they want.

   The default is the C drive, but users who want the network drive get it via this simple, custom .bashrc file in their local C:\Users\my_username directory.

   If you don't know what "source" means, read my answer here: What is the difference between source and export?

More Details

I like to set the HOME (~) directory by setting it at the lowest level possible in the Git Bash system: namely, in the profile file which Bash sources (imports, or runs) as it opens up, rather than messing with Windows Environment variables or other things.

So, here's how I do it:

Set your HOME directory in Git Bash

Open up the C:\Users\my_username\AppData\Local\Programs\Git\etc\profile file in a text editor, such as Microsoft VSCode.

Add this to the very top of the file:

# CUSTOM CHANGE: change your home (`~`) dir to `C:\Users\my_username`. # - Or, set it to whatever else you want here. HOME="/c/Users/$(whoami)" # OR (same thing) # HOME="/c/Users/$USERNAME" 

If you want a different HOME directory than that, customize it to your liking, of course.

Close and re-open all Git Bash terminals to see the changes take effect.

Confirm the change by running echo "$HOME" and echo ~ in Git Bash, which should now show your new HOME directory. I see /c/Users/gabriel, for example.

Done!

How did I find the path to the C:\Users\my_username\AppData\Local\Programs\Git\etc\profile file?

I opened Git Bash and ran this:

# navigate to what Git Bash has declared the "root" of this filesystem; # since we are in Windows, I know this is a fake root cd / # Now, force Windows Explorer to open up in this directory so I can see # where it is! explorer . 

Voila! Windows Explorer opened up in C:\Users\gabriel\AppData\Local\Programs\Git. Now, I know from experience on Linux Ubuntu that one of the core files loaded in Bash is the profile file located at /etc/profile. So, I looked in Windows Explorer there and sure enough, there's an etc/ directory there and a profile file inside it. So, I tried setting the HOME directory there, and it worked!

More details on paths in Git Bash and MSYS2

Above, I am setting your HOME directory to be C:\Users\my_username, where it cleverly uses the whoami command to get your username, so that everyone can use the same code above regardless of your username, since it will be automatically filled in for you.

Note that since Git Bash is based on the MSYS2 MINGW64 environment, which is a native Windows environment which gives you access to Linux-like tools and things, you can use a variety of path styles in the file above, including the following. I have personally tested each of these to work:

# Unix-style paths (my preference) HOME="/c/Users/$(whoami)" # Windows-style paths # NOTE: You must escape the 2nd backslash in this case with another backslash # or else it mistakenly escapes the next character (`$`) HOME="C:\Users\\$(whoami)" # mixed paths (using both / and \), again escaping the backslash before # the $ sign HOME="/c\Users\\$(whoami)" # OR HOME="C:/Users\\$(whoami)" # OR HOME="C:\Users/$(whoami)" # funky weirdness paths with extra slashes HOME="///C:\\Users\\///\\$(whoami)" # etc. 

Beware that multiple forward slashes (/) in a row is fine. But, backslashes (\) are escape characters in Unix/Linux, so they must generally come in pairs. Therefore, this does not work: HOME="C:////\\Users\\///\\\$(whoami)". The reason is that the \\\$ part near the end is invalid. The first two backslashes there are fine because the first one escapes the second one, but then the \$ part is an escaped dollar sign $, which breaks the command substitution $(whoami).

I prefer to use the Unix-style paths, like this: HOME="/c/Users/$(whoami)", wherever possible.

Paths in Git Bash and MSYS2 can be very confusing at times, because the MSYS2 and Git Bash terminals automatically do path conversion from Unix-style paths to Windows-style paths for you. But, sometimes there are nuances with how absolute paths are handled. Take my problem, for instance, where I lost many days of debugging: the question: checking size of mp_limb_t... 0 and configure: error: Oops, mp_limb_t doesn't seem to work when compiling the Microchip XC32 compiler from source. My answer: The fix: when compiling in an MSYS2 terminal in Windows, absolute #include paths are not allowed in C and C++!. In short, I had to use relative, not absolute, paths.

Read more about how MSYS2 and Windows vs Unix paths work, here:

1. https://www.msys2.org/docs/filesystem-paths/
2. https://github.com/msys2/MINGW-packages/issues/6711#issuecomment-1797982823

See also

1. My answer: How to change HOME directory and start directory on MSYS2?
2. Here are my full instructions for setting up MSYS2: Installing & setting up MSYS2 from scratch, including adding all 7 profiles to Windows Terminal. I do something similar to set the HOME directory there, too.
   • The Git Bash terminal is best for doing git commands during software development.
   • The MSYS2 terminal is best for running gcc or g++ build commands during software development. So, I recommend installing both systems separately. See the link just above for more detail. Ex: from the MSYS2 UCRT64 (or similar) terminal, you can run gcc build commands like this from my eRCaGuy_hello_world repo: https://github.com/ElectricRCAircraftGuy/eRCaGuy_hello_world/blob/master/c/hello_world_extra_basic.c#L24:

     gcc -Wall -Wextra -Werror -O3 -std=gnu17 hello_world_extra_basic.c -o bin/a -lm && bin/a 

3. My general instructions & screenshots: Installing Git For Windows
4. My answer: Python doesn't work in Git Bash (it just hangs or freezes forever); and getting Linux hash-bangs to work in Windows

The same: $HOME for git bash on Windows 10 was set to a network drive (slow responsiveness). I do not have permissions to change system environment variables, Git profile, etc. I could add HOME variable for my user:

• in Start search for "Environment"
• go to "Edit environment variables for your account" (not "Edit the system environment variables")
• in "Environment Variables" window, "User variables for XYZXYZ" --> "New"
• in "New User Variable" -->
  • "Variable name:" set to "HOME"
  • "Variable value:" set to "C:\Users\XYZXYZ" (or whatever you need), click "Ok"
• restart (or close/open) git bash, test ls ~

I faced exactly the same issue. My home drive mapped to a network drive. Also

1. No Write access to home drive
2. No write access to Git bash profile
3. No admin rights to change environment variables from control panel.

However below worked from command line and I was able to add HOME to environment variables.

rundll32 sysdm.cpl,EditEnvironmentVariables

Here's a step-by-step guide on how to do it in Windows (it might work in other OSes, too) (please pardon any grammatical/dumb errors (like how I say to use a specific text editor)):

Steps:

• edit (as admin) the file git-prompt.sh, but please make a copy first so you have something to fall back on when you inevitably make a hash out of this
• this file will live wherever you installed git, probably in this directory: C:\Program Files\Git\etc\profile.d
• change line 15 from PS1="$PS1"'\u@\h ' to PS1="$PS1"'YourName '
• change line 17 from PS1="$PS1"'$MSYSTEM ' to PS1="$PS1"' '
• change line 19 from PS1="$PS1"'\w' to PS1="$PS1"'c\' or PS1="$PS1"'d\path\to\some\directory'

Based on the answer https://stackoverflow.com/a/32233667/4849403 I would like to supplement it suddenly will be useful.

We have GPOs set up in our company, and therefore, no matter what changes we make, they will be replaced by group policies. HOME folder, for example T:, is configured for all users as a DFS-based network share (most likely), then to create files in the root of the T: drive is not present, and when trying to clone a repository or to create a user .gitconfg, an error occurs. I reconfigured the HOME variable in the git/etc/profile file as follows:

HOME=/c/users/${USERNAME} 

And to perform operations, like clone, I use git bash, because in Windows CMD still "HOME=T:/"