"Open Project" button in Eclipse is disabled

Question

I have just downloaded Eclipse, started it and found that "Open Project" button is disabled. So how do I open my project =) ?

This is more suited to http://superuser.com. StackOverflow is a programming related Q&A site. If you have troubles using some program you have downloaded this is not the place to ask. Once you make it running and start writing actual code, if you encounter some specific problem with your code, don't hesitate to post it here. — Darin Dimitrov, Jul 10 '11 at 10:38
Eclipse is a programmer's tool, not something just any superuser would use. I argue that this question does belong here on SO. — dgw, Jan 17 '15 at 04:39
Great question, it shows how un-intuitive Eclipse interface is - to a degree of bringing new Eclipse users who previously used other Java IDEs to a complete stallmate. — ajeh, Feb 19 '15 at 16:22
I agree it's a great question. Even after managing to "import" an existing project it appears to be impossible to open/view source files from the tree view. So un-intuitive that it must be sponsored by the more expensive compiler/toolchain providers — sergeantKK, Nov 11 '16 at 21:19

score 30 · Accepted Answer · answered Jul 12 '11 at 01:36

30

"Open Project" button will only be enabled when there is a project selected in the active view. If you just downloaded Eclipse and started on a brand new workspace without any project created or imported, you would need to use File > New > Project... or File > Import... to add a project in your workspace.

answered Jul 12 '11 at 01:36

Yun

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Ok, how do you "select a project in the active view"? – dicroce Jun 18 '12 at 01:11
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If you already have a project in the workspace, you could select it in Project Explorer view or Navigator view. You could see a list of views in Window > Show View > Other... – Yun Jun 18 '12 at 05:44
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Not really obvious set of actions. – dmitry Aug 27 '12 at 10:47

score 6 · Answer 2 · answered Apr 18 '14 at 17:26

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Go to File->Import and select "General" and from the list select "Existing Projects into Workspace" then click "Next". After that in the next dialog, for the root directory, if your project exists in the "D:\Projects\Android\Test" folder (for example), type "D:\Projects\Android" and click on "Refresh" button. You will see your project(s) in the result list. Click on "Finish" and done.

answered Apr 18 '14 at 17:26

Amir Dashti

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But this is a good and more elaborate answer which actually helps to find proper UI for the task. – ajeh Feb 19 '15 at 16:21
I just encountered this (Open Project) greyed out, and got here directly by googling for it, so I guess this is far from a solved issue :) – BjornW Dec 12 '17 at 15:20
After all, it seems like a pretty common thing to do with an IDE :) (open an existing project, that is) – BjornW Dec 12 '17 at 15:21
this one has to be the correct answer. Thanks. – Sayed Hussainullah Sadat Dec 01 '21 at 05:56

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Nov 14 '18 at 13:09

The Reason is that if anyone is using the IDE for the first time the option of "open Project" is unavailable ,thus one may have to migrate to file->import->general->Existing Projects into Work space.That's it and browse up to that location as well select the type of project that means if you have unzipped type of files then select "select Root directory" option and if you have a zip version of it then select "select archive file" option.

"Open Project" button in Eclipse is disabled

3 Answers3