PhpStorm 2020.2 Help

Increase the memory heap of the IDE

The Java Virtual Machine (JVM) running PhpStorm allocates some predefined amount of memory. The default value depends on the platform. If you are experiencing slowdowns, you may want to increase the memory heap.

  1. From the main menu, select Help | Change Memory Settings.

  2. Set the necessary amount of memory that you want to allocate and click Save and Restart.

This changes the value of the -Xmx option used by the JVM and restarts PhpStorm with the new setting.

PhpStorm also warns you if the amount of free heap memory after a garbage collection is less than 5% of the maximum heap size:

low memory warning

Click Configure to increase the amount of memory allocated by the JVM:

change -Xmx in Memory Settings

Click Save and Restart and wait for PhpStorm to restart with the new memory heap setting.

Enable the memory indicator

PhpStorm can show you the amount of used memory in the status bar. Use it to judge how much memory to allocate.

  • Right-click the status bar and select Memory Indicator.

Last modified: 18 November 2020