Emacs: disable automatic file search in ido mode

Question

I use ido mode. Here is how I set in .emacs

(require 'ido)
(setq ido-enable-flex-matching t)
(setq ido-everywhere t)
(ido-mode t)

When I open a file, I do C-x C-f my_file and if it doesn't exist in current directory, emacs will try to search for it in other recent used directories in about a second. However, most of the time I was just trying to create new files. I had to type the file name really fast and then C-j to confirm it. How can I stop ido from doing this?

alias 'open new file' as some key other then C-x C-f (M-x find-file is the right name of the action) — user2141046, Aug 01 '13 at 06:00
@user2141046 @woodings From `ido-find-file` you can just hit `C-x C-f` again to drop down into the traditional `find-file` interface — assem, Aug 01 '13 at 06:02
@assem I don't want to fall back to normal `find-file`. I need `ido` but not search in other directories. — woodings, Aug 01 '13 at 06:05

score 42 · Answer 1 · answered Aug 06 '13 at 19:42

42

The following will completely disable the feature:

(setq ido-auto-merge-work-directories-length -1)

I've never seen any value in it, so disabling it completely might make sense for a lot of people.

answered Aug 06 '13 at 19:42

Bozhidar Batsov

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M-x customize-variable ido-auto-merge-work-directories-length – Lassi Mar 09 '20 at 18:52

score 16 · Answer 2 · edited Jul 04 '15 at 19:25

Here is another option using Ido:

Type C-x C-f as usual.
Find the directory you want to create the new file in using Ido search.
At any moment type C-f again, and Emacs will go back to the old find-file functionality.

You can then type the file name you want and Emacs will create a new buffer. So, if you type C-x C-f C-f file_name RET it will create a buffer called file_name temporarily in the current directory.

score 12 · Accepted Answer · edited Jul 04 '15 at 19:26

12

I found an easy solution:

(setq ido-auto-merge-delay-time 9)

The time here is in seconds. I could set a very large number to completely disable this feature.

edited Jul 04 '15 at 19:26

itsjeyd

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answered Aug 01 '13 at 06:10

woodings

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or set `ido-auto-merge-work-directories-length` to `-1` to disable – assem Aug 01 '13 at 11:00
@woodings, this problem really annoyed me for a while when I use ido, finally, I decided to search the solution. Before I got this page, I found that when you using ido, you can just use C-f to go back to normal mode instead of ido, but your solution seems better. Thank you! – CodyChan Jan 15 '14 at 20:05

Emacs: disable automatic file search in ido mode

3 Answers3