How you launch or start MATLAB depends on your operating system.
Windows
By default the MATLAB installer will create a desktop shortcut to MATLAB and it will also add MATLAB to your Start Menu. If you don’t see MATLAB in your Start Menu, check in “All Programs.”
If the MATLAB installer did not create a shortcut to MATLAB on your desktop or in your Start Menu, matlab.exe is located here by default:
C:\Program Files\MATLAB\R20XXx\bin\matlab
If you have multiple releases of MATLAB installed, each one will have its own folder within C:\Program Files\MATLAB. If you installed 32-bit MATLAB on 64-bit Windows, then the MATLAB folder will be located in C:\Program Files (x86).
macOS
By default MATLAB is installed here:
/Applications/MATLAB_R20XXx
If you have multiple releases of MATLAB installed you will have multiple icons for MATLAB in your /Applications folder corresponding to each release of MATLAB.
Linux
By default the MATLAB installer will create a symbolic link in /usr/local/bin/. This means you should be able to invoke MATLAB by typing “matlab” the command prompt.
If you see an error saying that the command “matlab” was not found, you can launch MATLAB from the MATLAB installation directory. By default this is located here:
/usr/local/MATLAB/R20XXx/bin/matlab
For example, to launch MATLAB R2016b first navigate to the bin directory inside the MATLAB installation directory:
cd /usr/local/MATLAB/R2016b/bin/
Then run "matlab":
./matlab
Creating a shortcut or link for MATLAB
If you would rather not navigate to the location where MATLAB is installed every time you need to launch it, there are a number of ways you can create shortcuts for launching MATLAB. See “How do I create a shortcut or link to MATLAB“ for instructions.
