Is there an easy way to put my entire installation of Intellij on a USB stick?

Question

I'm considering switching from Eclipse to Intellij. One thing I like about Eclipse is that the whole installation is just a folder, and I can put that on a USB stick and copy it to another computer if I want. All of my plugins, settings, and everything else come with me and all I have to do is simply copy a folder.

Is there any way I could do this with Intellij?

Answer 1

Yes, it's possible, just copy the installation directory to the flash drive, then edit IDEA_HOME\bin\idea.properties file, change the values of idea.config.path and idea.plugins.path to the relative location, like: ../config and ../user-plugins (locations are relative to IDEA bin directory).

Now copy your original settings and third-party plug-ins (if any):

• ${user.home}/.IntelliJIdea10/config => usb:/IDEA_HOME/config
• ${user.home}/.IntelliJIdea10/config/plugins => usb:/IDEA_HOME/user-plugins

Note that it's not recommended to change idea.system.path variable, so that it remains on the fast local drive, otherwise it could affect IDEA performance and occupy a lot of USB drive space.