Thanks for the info, I will look into reporting the issue with the emacs bug-tracker and for now use the per file "STARTUP:" option. thanks again On Wednesday, May 4, 2022, 11:04:42 a.m. EDT, Robert Pluim wrote: >>>>> On Wed, 04 May 2022 22:46:56 +0800, Ihor Radchenko said:     Ihor> Robert Pluim writes:     Ihor> This is no different. org-startup-folded controls loading of Org mode.     Ihor> However, Emacs applies directory-local variables and file-local     Ihor> variables _after_ loading Org mode. Org cannot do much about it without     Ihor> hacking Emacs defaults.     >>     >> Weʼre in agreement there. My point is that itʼs not a bug (although I     >> guess you could ask for a feature to apply local/directory variables     >> before applying the mode     Ihor> It's not exactly a bug, but feature request to Emacs is exactly what I     Ihor> was implying. Right. My predictatron says itʼs unlikely to be greeted enthusiastically.     >> , but in this case thereʼs an easy     >> workaround).     Ihor> I am not sure which workaround you are referring to.     Ihor> Setting org-startup-folded globally? On per-file basis? the former is     Ihor> global and will apply to broader scope than a directory-local variable.     Ihor> The latter only works in a single file (and works instead of file-local     Ihor> variable). I was talking about #+STARTUP: (Iʼm assuming #+SETUPFILE: also works, but I haven't tried it). Robert --