config-system-plugins-logs.adoc

Configuration, system, plugins and logs directories

Table of Contents

• Space savings
• What are these files
• How to move them
• Important notes
• Official documentation

Space savings

• At least: ~300 MB (per JetBrains application, if used actively)

• Usual: ~600 MB (per JetBrains application)

What are these files

• config - JetBrains configuration directory. Contains configuration for the IDE.

• log - application logs.

• plugins - contains installations of all IDE plugins;

• system - caches, indexes, history, temporary files, code coverage data,…​

How to move them

Open your JetBrains IDE and go to "Help > Edit Custom Properties…​". This will open a configuration text file where you can specify various IDE settings.

To move the directories, enter the following to that configuration file, save it, and restart the IDE. Of course, change the location to your own.

idea.config.path=I:/JetBrains/PhpStorm/config
idea.system.path=I:/JetBrains/PhpStorm/system
idea.plugins.path=I:/JetBrains/PhpStorm/plugins
idea.log.path=I:/JetBrains/PhpStorm/log

Important notes

• Forward slashes must be used, even on Windows. Using backslashes will produce a directory like I:\JetBrainsPhpStormconfig.

• This will not move the IDE installation directory (binaries). To do that, follow this guide: Changing IDE installation directory.

• On first restart after configuration change, the IDE will offer to import previous configuration. Do that, because otherwise, you will have to configure your IDE and install all plugins again.

Official documentation

• Changing IDE default directories used for config, plugins, and caches storage