PhpStorm 2016.1 Help

Tuning PhpStorm

In this section:

Changing PhpStorm properties

You can make PhpStorm work faster by editing the default Java Virtual Machine (JVM) settings. These operations require certain understanding of the JVM functionality and may cause unexpected problems. Therefore it is strongly recommended that you address the JetBrains Support whereupon you will be provided with detailed instructions regarding which settings you need to update and what values should be assigned to them.

See also Reporting Issues and Sharing Your Feedback.

PhpStorm makes it possible to change *.vmoptions and idea.properties files without editing them in the PhpStorm installation folder.

To create an empty idea.properties file or to copy *.vmoptions file, choose the Help | Edit Custom Properties or Help | Edit Custom VM Options on the main menu respectively. Refer to the menu items description for details.

Managing *.vmoptions file

For Mac OS X systems: The file /Applications/PhpStormXX.app/Contents/bin/phpstorm.vmoptions should be copied to ~/Library/Preferences/WebIde XX/phpstorm.vmoptions

For *NIX and Windows systems:

To avoid editing files in the PhpStorm installation folder, one should:

  1. Do one of the following:
    • Copy the existing file from the PhpStorm installation folder somewhere and save the path to this location in the environment variable WEBIDE_VM_OPTIONS.
    • Copy the existing file <PhpStorm installation folder>/bin/phpstorm$BITS.vmoptions from the PhpStorm installation folder into the location under user home:
      • For *NIX:
        $HOME/.WebIde XX/phpstorm$BITS.vmoptions
      • For Windows:
        %USERPROFILE%\.WebIde XX\phpstorm%BITS%.exe.vmoptions

      The value of the variable BITS depends in the JVM used to run PhpStorm:

      • For 32-bit JVM it is empty.
      • For 64-bit JVM it is 64.

      Refer to the support article Selecting the JDK version the IDE will run under for details.

  2. Edit this file in the new location.

If WEBIDE_VM_OPTIONS environment variable is defined, or the *.vmoptions file exists, then this file is used instead of the file located in the PhpStorm installation folder.

Example: Increasing the heap size

To increase PhpStorm heap size, you should copy the original phpstorm.vmoptions file to the above-mentioned location, and then modify the -Xmx setting.

Managing IDEA.properties file

The file idea.properties, located in the bin directory of the PhpStorm installation folder, should not be edited. Instead of editing the original idea.properties, create file idea.properties in the location specified below, open it for editing and add the required properties.

So, depending on your platform:

  • For Windows: in %USERPROFILE%\.WebIde XX
  • For *NIX: in ~/.WebIde XX
  • For Mac OS X: in ~/Library/Preferences/WebIde XX

Example: Changing case of unicode literals

PhpStorm allows defining whether non-ascii characters should use literals like '\u00AB' or '\00ab'.

This behavior is controlled by the system property idea.native2ascii.lowercase. By default, upper case characters are used.

If it is desirable to use lower case characters, create the file idea.properties in the location specified above, open it for editing and add the following line:

idea.native2ascii.lowercase=true

Specifying custom JDK, properties or vmoptions files across platforms

A custom JDK, *.properties and *.vmoptions files are specified across platforms in a unified way.

All the launchers look at the following environment variables:

  • $<IDE-NAME>_JDK (<IDE-NAME>_JDK_64)
  • $<IDE-NAME>_PROPERTIES
  • $<IDE-NAME>_VM_OPTIONS

See Also

Last modified: 12 July 2016