Greetings, I was surprised to open a file and find it in a fully expanded state. I took a moment to try and figure out what one should do on a global level. I searched "orgmode startup folded" and got here: https://orgmode.org/manual/Initial-visibility.html
This points me to org-startup-folded, which has documentation here: https://orgmode.org/manual/In_002dbuffer-Settings.html #+begin_quote The first set of options deals with the initial visibility of the outline tree. The corresponding variable for global default settings is org-startup-folded with a default value of showeverything. ‘overview’ Top-level headlines only. ‘content’ All headlines. ‘showall’ No folding on any entry. ‘show2levels’ Headline levels 1-2. ‘show3levels’ Headline levels 1-3. ‘show4levels’ Headline levels 1-4. ‘show5levels’ Headline levels 1-5. ‘showeverything’ Show even drawer contents. #+end_quote In addition, M-x customize-variable for org-startup-folded says: #+begin_quote org-startup-folded: "overview" State : CHANGED outside Customize. (mismatch) Non-nil means entering Org mode will switch to OVERVIEW. Hide This can also be configured on a per-file basis by adding one of the following lines anywhere in the buffer: #+STARTUP: fold (or ‘overview’, this is equivalent) #+STARTUP: nofold (or ‘showall’, this is equivalent) #+STARTUP: content #+STARTUP: showeverything #+end_quote Using the following min-config, I am unable to get a file to open in folded state: #+begin_example (add-to-list 'load-path "~/.elisp/org/lisp/") (add-to-list 'load-path "~/.elisp/org/contrib/lisp/") (setq org-startup-folded "overview") #+end_example #+begin_example * head1 asdf * head2 asdf #+end_example With emacs -Q and M-x load-file path/to/min-config, it opens expanded with either of these: (setq org-startup-folded "fold") (setq org-startup-folded "overview") This does work: (setq org-startup-folded t) Is this the fact that I still don't really understand emacs inner workings/elisp... or am I sane in feeling that the documentation and behavior is not intuitive? Interestingly this reddit thread poses the exact same question, yet one user thinks this is completely expected? That said, he/she both says "non-nil" and therefore `t` works... but not why "overview" or "fold" are also not equivalent to "non-nil"? https://www.reddit.com/r/emacs/comments/izf6xe Thanks for taking a look, John