Collapse src blocks in org-mode by default

Question

When I open an org file, I want all the src blocks to start collapsed and stay that way until I explicitly org-cycle them.

I can't find any variable to control this behavior. Perhaps I'm overlooking something? Or maybe someone has an elisp solution?

Answer 1

You can achieve what you want by adding the org-hide-block-all command to org-mode-hook:

(add-hook 'org-mode-hook 'org-hide-block-all)

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For my personal configuration, I've extended this solution a bit:

(defvar org-blocks-hidden nil)

(defun org-toggle-blocks ()
  (interactive)
  (if org-blocks-hidden
      (org-show-block-all)
    (org-hide-block-all))
  (setq-local org-blocks-hidden (not org-blocks-hidden)))

(add-hook 'org-mode-hook 'org-toggle-blocks)

(define-key org-mode-map (kbd "C-c t") 'org-toggle-blocks)

With this in place, org-mode collapses SRC blocks by default and lets me toggle visibility of all SRC blocks by hitting C-c t. (If you decide to use this code you can of course adapt the key binding to your liking.)