How to prevent open last projects when IntelliJ IDEA starts?

Question

By default IntelliJ IDEA opens the last project when starting.

How to start IntelliJ without opening last project?

Answer 1

IntelliJ 2016.x keeps this information in its own file now. On my MacBook Pro w/OSX:

~/Library/Preferences/IntelliJIdea2016.2/options/recentProjects.xml

If IntelliJ hangs on startup, force quit the app then rename this file to something like "recentProjects.xml.bak."

Upon restart you'll get the option screen for creating or opening a project.

Note: the actual path may vary depending upon which version of IntelliJ you have installed eg.

IntelliJIdea2016.1/ IntelliJIdea2016.2/ IntelliJIdea2016.3/