1.5 Work in a Project

The files on your computer are organised into folders. RStudio Projects live in your computer’s normal folders - they placemark the working directory of each analysis project. These project folders can be viewed or moved around the same way you normally work with files and folders on your computer.

The top-right corner of your RStudio should never say “Project: (None)”. If it does, click on it and create a New Project. After clicking on New Project, you can decide whether to let RStudio create a New Directory (folder) on your computer. Alternatively, if your data files are already organised into an “Existing folder”, use the latter option.

Every set of analysis you are working on must have its own folder and RStudio project. This enables you to switch between different projects without getting the data, scripts, or output files all mixed up. Everything gets read in or saved to the correct place. No more exporting a plot and then going through the various Documents, etc., folders on your computer trying to figure out where your plot might have been saved to. It got saved to the project folder.