Opening, reopening, and closing projects
PhpStorm lets you open several projects simultaneously in different windows. By default, each time you open a project while another one is opened, PhpStorm prompts you to choose whether to open the project in the same window or in a new window.
If necessary, choose one of the options in the Project Opening section of the System Settings page to change this behavior:
Open project in new window to open a new PhpStorm window each time a new project is opened.
Open project in the same window to stay in the same PhpStorm window.
Confirm window to open project in to keep the default behavior and display a dialog to choose how to open each new project.
Opening projects
Open a project
Click Open on the Welcome screen or select File | Open from the main menu.
In the Select Path dialog, select the directory that contains the project to open.
tip
Drag the desired project from your file chooser right to the Open Project dialog without locating it there. The respective file in the dialog will be found automatically.
Specify whether you want to open the project in a new window, close the current project and reuse the existing window, or open the new project in the same window with the current one. Refer to the Opening Multiple Projects section for details.
Open a project from the command line
In the command prompt, type:
<PhpStorm> <path_to_the_project folder>See Open files from the command line for more information.
Reopening recent projects
PhpStorm keeps the history list of the recent projects, from which you can select the desired one.
When PhpStorm starts, the most recent project reopens by default (unless this option is disabled on the System Settings page of the Settings/Preferences dialog Ctrl+Alt+S.
Reopen a recent project
Call File | Open Recent from the main menu and select the desired project from the list.
Specify whether you want to open the project in a new window, reuse the current window, or attach it to the currently opened project.
On the Welcome screen, click Projects in the left-hand pane and then select the project of interest in the right-hand pane where the list of your recent projects is shown. Start typing in the Search projects field to filter the list of recent projects.
Remove a project from the list of recent projects
From the main menu, select File | Open Recent and click Manage Projects at the very bottom of the recent projects list. From the list of recent projects, select the project to remove and then click the closing icon for the project to remove.
The selected project will be removed from the list of the recent project in the Project window and on the Welcome screen.
To remove a project only from the list on the Welcome Screen, right-click the target project and select Remove Selected from Welcome Screen.
Closing projects
When you have only one open project and you close it, PhpStorm displays the Welcome screen. In case of multiple projects, each one is closed with its window.
Close a project
From the main menu, select File | Close Project.
Close all projects
From the main menu, select File | Close All Projects.
This action closes all projects that are currently opened in PhpStorm.
Close all but the current project
From the main menu, select File | Close Other Projects.
This action closes all opened projects except the current one.