Launching Understand from the terminal gives you access to several flags that can streamline opening specific projects, files and can even open the Understand context menu. Below is a list of flags and what they can do:
| Switch | Functionality |
| -help | Show command line flags available to user. |
| -no_splashscreen | Don't display the splashscreen on startup. |
| -wait | When used with -existing this causes this instance to block while waiting for the other instance to finish the given command. |
| -existing | Detect a running instance and to send command-line to that instance. |
| -new | Force creation of a new instance of Understand. |
| -noproject | Ignore all project load requests on startup. Also clears the "Open Last Project" application setting. |
| -lastproject | Open the last project opened by the application. |
| -db | Open the specified project file. |
| -visit | filename [line-number column-number] (Open the file "filename" in an editor window. Optionally position caret at line-number and column-number. |
| -contextmenu -line -col -text | Open the context menu for the specified location. |
| -quiet_startup | disables all dialogs, message-boxes and splashscreens that may show at startup. |
| -cwd | manually set the working directory. |
| -lastproject_cwd | Use the directory of the last opened project as the current working directory. |
| -diff | filepath_left filepath_right (compare two files or folders). |
| -graphicssystem native | Enable faster rendering when exporting the X11 display. |
| -translation conf/translations/understand_zh_CN.qm | Launch with Chinese or other translation. |
| -importusertools | Required parameter: <importfile.ini> (Import UserTools from an .ini file.). |
| -resetlicenseconfig | Cleans the licensing file. |