Notepad3 stores its settings in a portable INI file (Notepad3.ini). Press Ctrl+F7 to open it directly in the editor. Most [Settings2] changes require restarting Notepad3.
This section can redirect to a different settings file. Useful when a non-elevated user cannot write to the Notepad3 program directory:
Notepad3.ini=%APPDATA%\Rizonesoft\Notepad3\Notepad3.iniOr for per-user settings:
Notepad3.ini=%WINDIR%\Notepad3-%USERNAME%.iniThese settings are managed through Notepad3's user interface (Menu → Settings). For example:
Advanced settings that can only be edited manually. Press Ctrl+F7 to open the INI file.
The default value is determined by the OS language setting. Fallback: en-US.
Available languages:
| Language | Locale Code |
|---|---|
| English/United States | en-US (internal default) |
| Afrikaans/South Africa | af-ZA |
| Belarusian/Belarus | be-BY |
| German/Germany | de-DE |
| Greek/Greece | el-GR |
| English/United Kingdom | en-GB |
| Spanish/Spain | es-ES |
| French/France | fr-FR |
| Hindi/India | hi-IN |
| Hungarian/Hungary | hu-HU |
| Indonesian/Indonesia | id-ID |
| Italian/Italy | it-IT |
| Japanese/Japan | ja-JP |
| Korean/Korea | ko-KR |
| Dutch/Netherlands | nl-NL |
| Polish/Poland | pl-PL |
| Portuguese/Brazil | pt-BR |
| Portuguese/Portugal | pt-PT |
| Russian/Russia | ru-RU |
| Slovak/Slovakia | sk-SK |
| Swedish/Sweden | sv-SE |
| Turkish/Turkey | tr-TR |
| Vietnamese/Vietnam | vi-VN |
| Chinese Simplified/China | zh-CN |
| Chinese Traditional/Taiwan | zh-TW |
Locale-dependent short format. Specify the short date/time format using strftime() syntax.
Locale-dependent long format.
Default: \$Date:[^\$]+\$ — Find pattern to match timestamps for update.
Default: $Date: %Y/%m/%d %H:%M:%S $
This pattern is used by Shift+F5 to update timestamps, e.g., $Date: 2018/04/26 00:52:39 $.
Notes:
- All
DateTimeformats acceptstrftime()format strings. TimeStampFormatalso accepts%sas a placeholder for aDateTimeFormat-formatted current date/time string (mixingstrftime()codes with%sis not allowed).- If you define a custom
TimeStampFormat, define a matchingTimeStampRegExso that "Update Timestamps" can find and replace them correctly.
Default directory for open/save dialogs when no file is open. Paths can be relative to the Notepad3 program directory.
Default extension for saved files (omit the leading dot).
External program launched by the Browse toolbar button. Defaults to MiniPath.
Additional command line switches can be appended. The currently opened file is passed as the last argument.
Note: Pathnames with spaces need quadruple quoting (
""path to/file.exe"") when no arguments follow, or double quoting ("path to/file.exe" /arg) with arguments.
Alternative file browsers:
filebrowser.exe=explorer.exe— Windows Explorerfilebrowser.exe=Explorer++.exe— Explorer++filebrowser.exe=Q-Dir_x64+.exe— Q-Dir
Integrated search-and-replace tool with regex support. Launch via:
- File → Launch → Search in Files
- Edit → Search → Search in Files
- Ctrl+Shift+F
Interval in milliseconds to check for external file modification. Min: 200 ms (notify immediately if ≤ 200).
Custom filters for open/save dialogs. Example:
Text Files|*.txt;*.wtx;*.log;*.asc;*.doc;*.diz;*.nfo|All Files|*.*
Size limit (MB) for large-file warning. Set to 0 to disable.
Set to 1 to allow multiple files on the command line. Default (0) accepts a single file like Windows Notepad. Use + and - command-line switches to override; /z behaves like -.
Set to 1 to disable language detection for .cgi and .fcgi files.
Set to 1 to disable HTML/XML detection for files without extensions.
Set to 1 to prevent Ctrl+C from copying the current line when nothing is selected.
Set to 1 to prevent Ctrl+X from cutting the current line when nothing is selected.
NoFadeHidden=0
Set to 1 to disable fading of hidden objects in file lists (Favorites, etc.).
Set to 1 to disable file variable parsing. Encoding tag parsing can be disabled separately in Menu → File → Encoding → Default.
Notepad3 parses Emacs-style variables in the first and last 512 bytes of a file:
| Variable | Effect |
|---|---|
coding: utf-8; |
File encoding tag |
mode: python; |
Syntax scheme (name or extension) |
tab-width: 8; |
Tab width |
c-basic-indent: 2; |
Indentation size |
indent-tabs-mode: nil; |
Insert tabs as spaces (nil/false/0) or not (true/1) |
c-tab-always-indent: true; |
Tab key reformats whitespace (true/1) or not |
fill-column: 64; |
Long-line limit (does not auto-show the visual marker) |
truncate-lines: false; |
Word wrap: enable (nil/false/0), disable (true/1) |
enable-local-variables: false; |
Disable variable parsing but keep encoding tags |
To bypass both file variable and encoding tag parsing, reload the file with Alt+F8.
Store recent file paths relative to My Documents for USB portability across Windows versions. Enabled by default when RelativeFileMRU=1.
Window opacity (%) in transparent mode.
Find/Replace dialog opacity (%) in transparent mode.
Store recent file paths as relative when on the same drive/share as Notepad3.exe.
Managed by Notepad3 (Menu → Settings → Window → Reuse Window, Ctrl+Shift+L). When enabled, new instances hand off to the existing window.
Whether to prompt for save when closing an untitled document that contains only whitespace.
Set to 1 to prevent indentation guides from jumping across empty lines.
Managed by Notepad3.
Controls taskbar grouping, Jump List, and system MRU behavior. See Replacing Windows Notepad for details.
Managed by Notepad3 (Menu → View → Position → Sticky Window Position). Remembers current position on restart instead of last-closed position.
Set to true for old selection behavior: single click selects the visible sub-line, double click selects the entire wrapped line.
Set to 1 for legacy brace-matching style.
Display scale percent threshold to switch to larger file-type icons.
Additional ASCII characters treated as word delimiters for Accelerated Word Navigation.
Set automatically for CJK input languages. Custom character sets limit the auto-completion word list to words composed of these characters only (case-insensitive).
Characters that accept an auto-completion item. For Enter-to-complete behavior:
AutoCompleteFillUpChars=\r\nTo also accept on ( or .:
AutoCompleteFillUpChars=\r\n(.String appended/removed after comment tags on line-comment toggle. Double-quote if it contains spaces:
LineCommentPostfixStrg=" "External application for Ctrl+Click on URLs. If empty, the OS default handler is used.
Command-line arguments for the URL application. Use ${URL} as placeholder:
HyperlinkShellExURLCmdLnArgs="--incognito "${URL}""ShellExecuteEx verb: "" (default), "edit", "explore", "find", "open", "print", "properties", "runas".
CodeFontPrefPrioList="Cascadia Code,Cascadia Mono,Cousine,Fira Code,Source Code Pro,Roboto Mono,DejaVu Sans Mono,Inconsolata,Consolas,Lucida Console"
Font priority list for the "Common Base" scheme.
TextFontPrefPrioList="Cascadia Mono,Cousine,Roboto Mono,DejaVu Sans Mono,Inconsolata,Consolas,Lucida Console"
Font priority list for the "Text Files" scheme.
Timeout in milliseconds. Set to 1 (clamped to 10 ms minimum) to make nearly every keystroke a separate undo action. 0 disables the timer.
Reserved for future use.
Show encoding detector (UCHARDET) info in the title bar for debugging.
Confidence threshold for the encoding reliability indicator.
Bias added to confidence when the system's ANSI code page matches the detected encoding.
Enable # as a line-comment character in MySQL-dialect SQL. Set to 0 to disable.
Controls ESC key behavior:
- 2 (default): Cancel each state separately (message boxes → selection → exit)
- 1: Cancel message boxes, skip selection state
- 0: Cancel all states and proceed to exit (if configured)
Zoom tooltip display duration in milliseconds. Set to 0 to disable.
Search wrap-around tooltip duration in milliseconds. Set to 0 to disable.
Customize the status bar layout: number, order, width, and prefix/postfix text of fields.
Defines visible fields and their order:
| Section | Content |
|---|---|
| 0 | Ln — Line number / Total lines |
| 1 | Col — Column number / Long-line limit |
| 2 | Sel — Selected characters |
| 3 | Sb — Selected bytes (UTF-8) |
| 4 | SLn — Selected lines |
| 5 | Occ — Marked occurrences |
| 6 | File size (UTF-8 mode) |
| 7 | Encoding (double-click to open Encoding dialog) |
| 8 | EOL mode (toggle CR+LF / LF / CR) |
| 9 | INS/OVR mode toggle |
| 10 | STD/2ND text mode toggle |
| 11 | Current scheme (double-click to open scheme selector) |
| 12 | Ch — Character count from line start |
| 13 | Repl — Replaced occurrences |
| 14 | Eval — TinyExpr evaluation |
| 15 | U+ — Unicode code point (UTF-16) at caret |
Redefine display prefixes. Comma-separated; spaces are significant.
Redefine display postfixes. Comma-separated; spaces are significant.
Relative field widths. 0 = auto-fit, negative = fixed pixel width (text truncated).
Start column counting at 0 or 1.
Start character counting at 0 or 1.
Display function names next to toolbar icons:
01=New
02=Open
03=Browse
04=Save
05=Undo
06=Redo
07=Cut
08=Copy
09=Paste
10=Find
11=Replace
12=Word Wrap
13=Zoom In
14=Zoom Out
15=Scheme
16=Customize Schemes
17=Exit
18=Save As
19=Save Copy
20=Delete
21=Print
22=Favorites
23=Add to Favorites
24=Toggle Folds
25=Execute Document
26=Focused View
27=Monitoring Log
28=History
29=Always On Top
30=Search in Files
31=Reset Zoom
32=New Empty WindowManaged by Notepad3 (Menu → View → Position → Save as Default Position). Recall with Ctrl+Shift+P.