On the command line the following options are available at program start:

--	After this option all arguments wil be interpreted as file names. This permits that file names may start with a hyphen.
--help	Display all options and terminate.
--show-board	Change to board tab after initialization.
--re-open	Open all databases immediately after initialization which where open at the end of the last session.
--fast-load	Load only the required data files after initialization, this enables a significant faster program start. It is not recommended to use this option except for testing.
--first-time	Start the program as it would be the first time; this means reset all user options, delete the recovery files, and copy all standard board themes into the userown directory, unless the modified ones. This option may be useful if the initialization fails due to an error in the option file.
--elo-only	Do not load other rating files than ELO rating. This speeds up program initialization.
--print-recovery-files	Show all recovery files which where generated at the end of last session due to unsaved modifications, and terminate. The output is empty if no recovery file exists.
--delete-recovery-files	Delete all recovery files from last session and terminate the program. It is not a phyisical removal, with option --recover-old it is possible to reuse these files.
--dont-recover	Start the program without using the recovery files (which contains unsaved modified games from last session). The removal is not physical, with option --recover-old it is possible to reuse these files.
--recover-old	Recover unsaved games from older sessions. Unsaved games from last session will be discarded.
--update-player-photos	Update or install player photos. Afterwards the program will be terminated. The basic recommendation is to use the update or install functionality via the graphical user interface. Unix: If called with super-user rights the update will be done in the shared directory (normally /usr/​local/​share/​scidb-beta/). Otherwise the update will be done in user directory ~/.scidb-beta/.
--single-process	Force another instance of Scidb. This option is intented only for testing.
--force-grab	The program is supressing grabs automaticaly if started inside a debugger, because gras may lead to frozen screens. With this option grabbing the screen will be allowed also in debug mode.

The following options will be recognized by the Tk library:

-geometry GEOMETRY	Use the geometric information for the main window. For example the argument -geometry 600x800+20+10 will resize the main window to 600x800, and the position of the window will have the screen coordinates 20,10.
-display DISPLAY	Name of screen on which to create window.
-sync	Use synchronous mode for display server.