IntelliJ IDEA makes it possible to find and download libraries from the public Maven repositories, bypassing the pom.xml file. This way, you can keep abreast with ever-changing external libraries stored in public Maven repositories, without creating a Maven project. So doing, one can use the Maven coordinates to uniquely identify the required libraries.

To download libraries from the public Maven repositories
  1. Open the Project Structure dialog (e.g. ⌘;⌘;⌘;^ ⇧ ⌥ S^ ⇧ ⌥ S).
  2. Under Project Settings, click Libraries.
  3. In the central part of the Libraries page, click ../../Shared/new.png to add a new library.
  4. In the New Project Library window, select From Maven to add a new library from the Maven repository.
  5. In the dialog box that opens, specify the following parameters:
    • The desired Maven coordinates, class name or a keyword.
    • The path to the target directory.

    You can also opt to download sources and documentation, by selecting the corresponding check boxes.

    ../../Shared/maven_download_from_repos.png

  6. Click OK. IntelliJ IDEA downloads the library and stores it in the specified location. In the right part of the Project Settings page, you can see the details of the added library and perform the following actions:
    • Edit library.
    • ../../Shared/new.png add or ../../Shared/delete.png detach library files.

You can add your company repository to the list of searched repositories, if it is managed by Nexus. To do that, provide the Nexus URL in the section Artifactory or Nexus service URLs in the Repository Indices node of the Settings dialog.