Changing the root directory (/) of git bash

Question

Is there a way to change the root (/) directory of git bash on windows.

By default it is set to the installation folder. Setting it to c:\ instead would save needing to type the drive letter e.g. /c/some/path on all absolute paths.

Even if this was possible it would make both "C:\D\" and "D:\" correspond to same /D/ — max630
– max630, Commented Sep 1, 2016 at 9:59
It could perhaps add a mount 'drives', so you could do /drives/d. In android its /storage/sdcard0, etc. Which gives the root as / but also access to other drives. — 79E09796
– 79E09796, Commented Sep 1, 2016 at 10:18

agilob · Accepted Answer · 2016-08-31 14:26:13Z

14

echo 'cd /c/' >> ~/.bashrc

Automatically go to /c/ directory when opening bash cli.

answered Aug 31, 2016 at 14:26

agilob

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2 Comments

EverPresent Over a year ago

Why was this downvoted? I upvoted it. It works great for me and is way better than copying folders into the root C: drive like the accepted answer suggests.

79E09796 Over a year ago

If it helps your use case it's great, I wouldn't downvote it. However it doesn't allow unix style absolute paths for the c drive, so can't accept it as the answer either.

max630 · Accepted Answer · 2016-09-01 10:08:17Z

3

What you can do is mount some windows paths to a root-based msys2 paths:

mount c:/src /src

Then you can access C:/src/... as /src/...

answered Sep 1, 2016 at 10:08

max630

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2 Comments

79E09796 Over a year ago

This is a good workaround, it's limited to mapping individual directories in Cygwin, but something that works in git bash for all directories might not be possible.

max630 Over a year ago

Right, mounting to root does not work. But I did not propose it.

Andr · Accepted Answer · 2018-04-18 14:22:34Z

If you installed git right, then two commands will appear in the file explorer menu when you call it with right-click. You will see nice color-full icons for both two commands: - Git GUI Here - Git bash Here took me 3 days... so you can run both from anywhere.. just go there and run from there!!

Jim Davis · Accepted Answer · 2018-10-18 01:27:08Z

What worked for me (Windows 10) was to edit the shortcut.

Previously the Target was "C:\Program Files\Git\git-bash.exe" --cd-to-home Start in: was my homedir

I changed Start in to be C: and removed --cd-to-home

Now bash starts in /c

yaas · Accepted Answer · 2019-06-14 18:58:37Z

In your .bashrc file :

function cd { cd "/c/${1}" }

I would think this should work for all cases. This would limit you to C Drive absolute paths though.

aalbagarcia · Accepted Answer · 2021-06-01 09:12:41Z

I fixed it by searching the bash.rc file in my file explorer, opening the file with code and replacing everything with cd /C:\Users\windows/

Ryan Wang · Accepted Answer · 2024-04-20 09:15:59Z

change the git bash lnk's target , remove the --cd-to-home

then add the path into start in:

here is mine enter image description here

then open git bash to test

enter image description here

Vale Guzman · Accepted Answer · 2025-02-26 18:26:54Z

I fixed it by deleting --cd-to-home from the Target field, so I only kept the path to the .exe file in the "Target" field. After that, I set the required path in the 'Start in' field. I hope this helps someone.

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