Overly broad 'throws' clause

Reports throws clauses with exceptions that are more generic than the exceptions that the method actually throws.

Example:

  public void createFile() throws Exception { // warning: 'throws Exception' is too broad, masking exception 'IOException'
    File file = new File("pathToFile");
    file.createNewFile();
  }

After the quick-fix is applied:

  public void createFile() throws IOException {
    File file = new File("pathToFile");
    file.createNewFile();
  }

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.

OverlyBroadThrowsClause

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 | Error handling

Configure the inspection:

Use the Maximum number of hidden exceptions to warn field to ignore exceptions, that hide a larger number of other exceptions than specified.
Use the Only warn on RuntimeException, Exception, Error or Throwable option to have this inspection warn only on the most generic exceptions.
Use the Ignore exceptions declared on methods overriding a library method option to ignore overly broad throws clauses in methods that override a library method.
Use the Ignore exceptions which hide others but are themselves thrown option to ignore any exceptions that hide other exceptions but still may be thrown from the method body and thus are technically not overly broad.

Inspection options

Here you can find the description of settings available for the Overly broad 'throws' clause inspection, and the reference of their default values.

Maximum number of hidden exceptions to report: Default value:
10
Only warn on RuntimeException, Exception, Error or Throwable: Default value:
Not selected
Ignore exceptions declared on methods overriding a library method: Default value:
Not selected
Ignore exceptions which hide others but are themselves thrown: Default value:
Not selected

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 OverlyBroadThrowsClause

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