Managing Projects Under Version Control

This section contains information related to sharing IntelliJ IDEA project files with the other developers:

• Directory based project format
• Legacy project format
• Sharing run/debug configurations
• Sharing inspection profiles
• Project settings files to share

Directory based project format

The project settings are stored in the .idea directory. This format is used by all the recent IntelliJ IDEA versions by default. Here is what you need to share:

• All the files under .idea directory in the project root except workspace.xml and tasks.xml, storing user-specific settings.
• All the .iml module files that can be located in different module directories.

Legacy project format

The project settings are stored in the .ipr/.iml/.iws files.

Share the project .ipr file and all the .iml module files, don't share the .iws file as it stores user specific settings.

Sharing run/debug configurations

You might want to share run/debug configurations. To do that, just select the check box Share in the selected run/debug configuration dialog box.

The shared run/debug configurations are kept in separate xml files under .idea\runConfigurations folder, while the local run/debug configurations are kept in the .idea\workspace.xml.

Sharing inspection profiles

To share inspection profiles, make sure to select the check box Share profile on the Inspections page of the Settings dialog.

The shared inspection profiles are stored in separate xml files under .idea\inspectionProfiles folder, while the local profiles are kept in the .idea\workspace.xml.

Project settings files to share

The config directory has several subfolders that contain xml files with your personal settings. You can easily share your preferred keymaps, color schemes, etc. by copying these files into the corresponding folders on another IntelliJ IDEA installation. Prior to copying, make sure that IntelliJ IDEA is not running, because it can erase the newly transferred files before shutting down.

The following is the list of some of the subfolders under the config folder, and the settings contained therein.

Folder name	User Settings
codestyles	Contains code style schemes.
colors	Contains editor colors and fonts customization schemes.
filetypes	Contains user-defined file types.
inspection	Contains code inspection profiles.
keymaps	Contains IntelliJ IDEA keyboard shortcuts customizations.
options	Contains various options, for example, feature usage statistics and macros.
templates	Contains user-defined live templates.
tools	Contains configuration files for the user-defined external tools.
shelf	Contains shelved changes.