Downloading all maven dependencies to a directory NOT in repository?

Question

The maven dependency plugin can potentially solve your problem.

If you have a pom with all your project dependencies specified, all you would need to do is run

mvn dependency:copy-dependencies

and you will find the target/dependencies folder filled with all the dependencies, including transitive.

Adding Gustavo's answer from below: To download the dependency sources, you can use

mvn dependency:copy-dependencies -Dclassifier=sources

(via Apache Maven Dependency Plugin doc).

I finally figured out a how to use Maven. From within Eclipse, create a new Maven project.

Download Maven, extract the archive, add the /bin folder to path.

Validate install from command-line by running mvn -v (will print version and java install path)

Change to the project root folder (where pom.xml is located) and run:

mvn dependency:copy-dependencies

All jar-files are downloaded to /target/dependency.

To set another output directory:

mvn dependency:copy-dependencies -DoutputDirectory="c:\temp"

Now it's possible to re-use this Maven-project for all dependency downloads by altering the pom.xml

Add jars to java project by build path -> configure build path -> libraries -> add JARs..

Based on @Raghuram answer, I find a tutorial on Copying project dependencies, Just:

1. Open your project pom.xml file and find this:

   <project>
     [...]
     <build>
       <plugins>
         ...
       </plugins>
     </build>
     [...]
   </project>
   

2. Than replace the <plugins> ... </plugins> with:

   <plugins>
     <plugin>
       <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
       <artifactId>maven-dependency-plugin</artifactId>
       <version>3.0.0</version>
       <executions>
         <execution>
           <id>copy-dependencies</id>
           <phase>package</phase>
           <goals>
             <goal>copy-dependencies</goal>
           </goals>
           <configuration>
             <outputDirectory>${project.build.directory}/alternateLocation</outputDirectory>
             <overWriteReleases>false</overWriteReleases>
             <overWriteSnapshots>false</overWriteSnapshots>
             <overWriteIfNewer>true</overWriteIfNewer>
           </configuration>
         </execution>
       </executions>
     </plugin>
   </plugins>
   

3. And call maven within the command line mvn dependency:copy-dependencies

After it finishes, it will create the folder target/dependency within all the jar's dependencies on the current directory where the pom.xml lives.

I found the next command

mvn dependency:copy-dependencies -Dclassifier=sources

here maven.apache.org