Instantiation of utility class

Reports instantiation of utility classes using the new keyword.

In utility classes, all fields and methods are static. Instantiation of such classes is most likely unnecessary and indicates a mistake.

Example:

  class MyUtils {
    public static double cube(double x) {
      return x * x * x;
    }
  }
  class Main {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
      // Instantiation of utility class
      MyUtils utils = new MyUtils();
    }
  }

To prevent utility classes from being instantiated, it's recommended to use a private constructor.

Locating this inspection

By ID

Can be used to locate inspection in e.g. Qodana configuration files, where you can quickly enable or disable it, or adjust its settings.

InstantiationOfUtilityClass

Via Settings dialog

Path to the inspection settings via IntelliJ Platform IDE Settings dialog, when you need to adjust inspection settings directly from your IDE.

Settings or Preferences | Editor | Inspections | Java | Probable bugs

Suppressing Inspection

You can suppress this inspection by placing the following comment marker before the code fragment where you no longer want messages from this inspection to appear:

//noinspection InstantiationOfUtilityClass

More detailed instructions as well as other ways and options that you have can be found in the product documentation:

IntelliJ IDEA 2025.2

Inspection Details
By default bundled with:	IntelliJ IDEA 2025.2, Qodana for JVM 2025.2,

Last modified: 18 September 2025