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Where is my personal ado directory?

Title   Personal ado directory
Author Stata Technical Support

  • If you use Windows, it is probably c:\ado\personal, but it might be someplace else.
  • If you use Mac, it is probably ~/Documents/Stata/ado, but it might be someplace else. See Accessing personal ado-files to learn how Stata determines which folder to use.
  • If you use Unix, it is ~/ado/personal (ado/personal in your home directory).

In any case, the way to find out for sure is to enter Stata as you ordinarily do and then type sysdir:

        . sysdir
          ...
        PERSONAL:  c:\ado\personal\
          ...

Your personal ado directory is the one listed next to PERSONAL. There are other folders reported by sysdir that are likely in the same ado folder as your personal ado directory. These other folders correspond to PLUS and OLDPLACE.

OLDPLACE is for users who had a version of Stata prior to Stata 6. This is where they would have stored personal ado-files when they used that older version of Stata.

PLUS is where Stata installs ado-files from the SJ and STB and ado-files that you have downloaded from the Internet through the help system or with the net command.