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In practice, the drilling path of horizontal directional drilling (HDD) projects is usually constructed by trial and error based on a preliminary designing trajectory. This study aimed to propose and test a method to predesign and optimize the drilling paths automatically, with the view of improving the efficiency of HDD design preparations. Alternating straight and curvilinear segments is a commonly used method for designing drilling paths, especially the “straight—curvilinear—horizontal straight—curvilinear—straight” five-segment arrangement. The catenary method was proposed to design the drilling path with the advantage of lower friction for the mechanical constraints. However, it is difficult to be implemented with technology limitations due to its continuously changing curvature. In this study, five-segment trajectories were combined with the catenary trajectory to utilize their advantages using the improved radial movement optimization (IRMO) algorithm. Drilling mud pressure was considered in the processes of the mechanical design to avoid collapse or possible instability. Two different examples were tested in different scenarios, theoretical and practical. The results show that the IRMO algorithm has a great potential for automatically designing and optimizing preliminary drilling paths with low time-consumption and high feasibility.