Load *.py scripts on startup.

diegoev2026

Hi! im trying to understand if a .py can be placed on a folder to be automatically loaded on Zbrush Startup, just like any other plugin but i'm failing to find the information.

Found about Zbrush loading init.py at statup but I see that init.py contains the Python scripting menu.
Sorry i'm not catching up if there is a default folder that loads the py scripts at statup or if the init.py must be modified in order to define a default "auto loading" folder.
Any help? thanks!

davide

Hi @diegoev2026

Welcome to the Maxon developers forum and its community, it is great to have you with us!

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About your Question

Good question, and indeed we wouldn’t recommend modifying the init.py file in the installation directory.
Instead, ZBrush provides a dedicated folder for this type of user customization, you can quickly navigate to it from the ZBrush menu: Preferences > Asset Directory > Open Directory.
You can find more details about that here, if you are looking for further detail : https://help.maxon.net/zbr/en-us/Content/html/user-guide/customizing-zbrush/user-content/user-content.html

In order to execute your own script at startup, it should be sufficient to replicate the setup you see in the ZBrush directory by creating a Python directory inside your asset directory with an init.py in it.
If you are using the default location for the asset directory, the path would look something like C:\Users\[UserName]\AppData\Roaming\Maxon\ZBrush_[HashValue]\Python\init.py.

On top of the init.py scripts, ZBrush also allows running Python scripts as plugins from a directory you can configure through the environment variable in ZBRUSH_PLUGIN_PATH. You can find more details on how to set those up here: https://developers.maxon.net/docs/zbrush/py/2026_1_0/manuals/python_environment.html#zbrush-plugin-path
The user asset directory I mentioned above is also part of the ZBRUSH_PLUGIN_PATH by default, meaning you can just drop your plugins in there.

Let us know if you need any further clarification!

Regards,
Davide