How do I create a directory from within Emacs?

emacs directory command

Ray · Oct 1, 2008 · Viewed 44.6k times · Source

How exactly can I create a new directory using Emacs? What commands do I use? (If possible, please provide an example)

Answer

to create the directory dir/to/create, type:
```
M-x make-directory RET dir/to/create RET
```
to create directories dir/parent1/node and dir/parent2/node, type:
```
M-! mkdir -p dir/parent{1,2}/node RET
```
It assumes that Emacs's inferior shell is bash/zsh or other compatible shell.

or in a Dired mode

It doesn't create nonexistent parent directories.

Example:

C-x d *.py RET ; shows python source files in the CWD in `Dired` mode
+ test RET     ; create `test` directory in the CWD

CWD stands for Current Working Directory.

or just create a new file with non-existing parent directories using C-x C-f and type:
```
M-x make-directory RET RET
```

Emacs asks to create the parent directories automatically while saving a new file in recent Emacs versions. For older version, see How to make Emacs create intermediate dirs - when saving a file?