'@Serial' annotation can be used

Reports methods and fields in the Serializable and Externalizable classes that are suitable to be annotated with the java.io.Serial annotation. The quick-fix adds the annotation.

Example:

class Main implements Serializable {
  private static final long serialVersionUID = 7874493593505141603L;

  private void writeObject(ObjectOutputStream out) throws IOException {
  }
}

After the quick-fix is applied:

  class Main implements Serializable {
    @Serial
    private static final long serialVersionUID = 7874493593505141603L;

    @Serial
    private void writeObject(ObjectOutputStream out) throws IOException {
    }
}

Example:

  class Main implements Externalizable {
    protected Object readResolve() throws ObjectStreamException {
      return "SomeObject";
    }
  }

After the quick-fix is applied:

  class Main implements Externalizable {
    @Serial
    protected Object readResolve() throws ObjectStreamException {
        return "SomeObject";
    }
  }

For more information about all possible cases, refer to the Javadoc of the java.io.Serial class.

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.

MissingSerialAnnotation

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 | Serialization issues

This inspection depends on the Java feature '@Serial annotation', which is available since Java 14.

New in 2020.3

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 MissingSerialAnnotation

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