How do I share IntelliJ Run/Debug configurations between projects?

Question

The best way to do this is to click the "share" checkmark next to Name field when you edit/create the configuration. You can get to this Dialog with Run > Edit Configurations.

The share check-mark pulls the setting out of your workspace.xml and instead puts it in the directory .idea\runConfigurations. This is designed so you can share the setting with others. You could copy this file and put it in the same location in all your idea projects.

However, in the future, you might want to consider using source control branches for app versions rather than separate projects. IntelliJ handles these very well.

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UPDATE (June 2021): IntelliJ now puts this in the .run folder as its own file, no longer in .idea/runConfigurations.

Run configurations are stored in .idea/workspace.xml by default. First alternative is to share this file but it is not feasible because you also share a lot of unnecessary configurations. As already said, the first step is to check "share" option to separate run configurations from workspace.xml.

After that, I recommend adding runConfigurations to source control. But the main problem is, probably you have already marked .idea folder as ignored. You can unignore the folder by configuring your source control system. For example, if you are using git, you can change .gitignore file as follows:

.idea/*
!/.idea/runConfigurations

don't forget adding * after .idea/

As the last step, add your run configurations to source control and enjoy your shared configurations!

goto

Run > Edit Configuration > create or select existing configuration you want to use > click save and persist it on file system > click on share check mark

now copy this file from

 PROJECT_ROOT_DIRECTORY/.idea/runConfigurations/ConfigurationName.xml

to your NEW_PROJECT_ROOT_DIRECTORY/.idea/runConfigurations at the same place and it is available now to your run configuration

You should copy the folder

~/your-old-project/.idea/runConfigurations 

to

~/your-new-project/.idea/

That's the folder that contains the run configurations.

An update for this question with the new IntelliJ updates:

Now you can "Store as project file" which will create a folder named ".run" and export your setting to that folder. In the example below, I did it for all my test settings. This removes the requirement of editing .gitignore since files are now not outside of ./idea