How to increase PHPStorm 9 heap size?

Question

I have installed the EAP of PHPStorm 9 and I am trying to increase my allocated heap size without any luck.

I am on Mac OS X Yosemite and I am following the instructions on this page: https://www.jetbrains.com/phpstorm/help/tuning-phpstorm.html

The file /Applications/PhpStorm.app/Contents/bin/idea.vmoptions should be copied to

~/Library/Preferences/WebIdeXX/idea.vmoptions

Any advice would be greatly appreciated! Didn't have any issues with doing the exact same thing for PHPStorm 8.

Answer 1

What you have to do

• Go to your PhpStorm installation directory
• open the .vmoptions file (learn more on JetBrains help)
• increase the value of the Xmx-Setting to a reasonable amount
• restart PhpStorm and enjoy your bigger heap

Two things are important

• Heap size < total amount of RAM

• Keep your Java installation updated

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Here are some links for a little more background on what to change and why:

• Check the JetBrains help site for detailed instructions on what files to change
• Learn more about the configuration options of JVM (the info also applies to JDK and JRE)
• Check out my vmoptions on pastebin as an example
• Read about why increasing heap size is a good idea
• If you're interested in getting even better performance with PhpStorm read this post

Note: this settings also apply to WebStorm and IntelliJ IDEA.

Answer 2

Solved, in case anyone needs the solution:

I followed the instructions from the "Tuning PHPStorm" page however this time I copied phpstorm.vmoptions into my Library/Preferences folder, working like a charm.