org-inhibit-startup

Emacs feature: org

An undocumented variable. Seems to be intended for internal use: Org functions bind it to t dynamically when they open Org files “in the background”.

As of <2025-07-01 Tue>, it seems that its only usage site is the following block in org-mode.

(unless org-inhibit-startup
  (when (or org-startup-align-all-tables org-startup-shrink-all-tables)
    (org-table-map-tables
     (cond ((and org-startup-align-all-tables
                 org-startup-shrink-all-tables)
            (lambda () (org-table-align) (org-table-shrink)))
           (org-startup-align-all-tables #'org-table-align)
           (t #'org-table-shrink))
     t 'org))
  ;; Suppress modification hooks to speed up the startup.
  ;; However, do it only when text properties/overlays, but not
  ;; buffer text are actually modified.  We still need to track text
  ;; modifications to make cache updates work reliably.
  (org-unmodified
   (when org-startup-with-beamer-mode (org-beamer-mode))
   (when org-startup-with-inline-images (org-link-preview '(16)))
   (when org-startup-with-latex-preview (org-latex-preview 'buffer))
   (unless org-inhibit-startup-visibility-stuff (org-cycle-set-startup-visibility))
   (when org-startup-truncated (setq truncate-lines t))
   (when org-startup-numerated (require 'org-num) (org-num-mode 1))
   (when org-startup-indented (require 'org-indent) (org-indent-mode 1))))

Generally speaking, its purpose appears to be disabling Org Mode cosmetic stuff.