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Unlock IntelliJ Community: 10 Power Tips for 2025

Supercharge your workflow with IntelliJ Community Edition! Discover 10 powerful, lesser-known tips for 2025 to code faster, refactor smarter, and debug easier.

Alexei Petrov

A pragmatic software engineer passionate about developer productivity and clean code.

September 8, 20257 min read13 views

Unlock Your Coding Potential, For Free

Hey fellow developers! We all know and love IntelliJ IDEA. But if you're rocking the free Community Edition, you might feel like you're missing out on some of the 'pro' features. What if I told you the Community Edition is a sleeping giant, packed with powerful tools that most people never discover?

In 2025, it's time to stop coding with one hand tied behind your back. We're going to dive into 10 game-changing tips that will supercharge your workflow, boost your productivity, and make you feel like you've got the Ultimate edition—without spending a dime. Let's unlock the true power of your IDE.

1. Master the 'Search Everywhere' Double-Shift

This is the master key to the entire IDE. Forget clicking through endless menus. The first shortcut you should burn into your muscle memory is double-tapping the Shift key. This brings up the Search Everywhere dialog, your central command hub.

Use it to find:

Classes: Just start typing the class name.
Files: Works for any file, not just Java.
Symbols: Find methods or fields instantly.
Actions: This is the real power move. Can't remember how to reformat code or toggle distraction-free mode? Just search for it here.

The more you use it, the smarter it gets, learning your common actions and files. Make this your first reflex before your mouse hand even twitches.

2. Leverage Live Templates for Boilerplate

How often do you type public static void main(String[] args) or System.out.println()? Stop it. IntelliJ has you covered with Live Templates.

Type psvm and hit Tab. You get your main method.
Type sout and hit Tab. You get a print statement.

But the real magic is creating your own. Go to Settings / Preferences > Editor > Live Templates. You can create a custom template for a new JUnit 5 test, a logger field, or any other repetitive code block. For example, create a template with the abbreviation testm that expands to:

@Test
void $NAME$() {
    // Arrange

    // Act

    // Assert
    $END$
}

Now, typing testm + Tab in a test class will generate this structure for you, saving you time and enforcing consistency.

3. Harness Postfix Completion Magic

Postfix completion feels like the IDE is reading your mind. It lets you wrap an expression with a code construct after you've typed it. It completely changes your coding flow.

Here are a few examples to try right now:

Have a list called users? Type users.for and press Tab. IntelliJ generates a for-each loop.
Need to print a value? Type myVariable.sout and press Tab.
Want to assign a method call to a variable? Type getSomeData().var and press Tab. IntelliJ creates the local variable with the correct type.
Got a boolean? Type isReady.if and press Tab to generate an if statement.

You can see all available postfix templates in Settings / Preferences > Editor > General > Postfix Completion.

4. Navigate Like a Pro with Bookmarks

When you're deep in a complex feature, jumping between a service, a controller, and a repository is a mental drain. Use bookmarks to create instant waypoints.

Quick Bookmark: Press F11 (or Fn + F11) on a line to toggle a bookmark. A small checkmark will appear in the gutter. Press Shift + F11 to see a list of all bookmarks and jump to them.
Mnemonic Bookmark: This is next level. Press Ctrl + F11 (Cmd + F11 on Mac) and assign a number (0-9) to a line. Now, you can jump directly to that line from anywhere in the project by holding Ctrl and pressing the corresponding number. Use this for key locations in your current task.

5. Use the Integrated Terminal Effectively

Stop Alt-Tabbing to a separate terminal window. Press Alt + F12 (Option + F12 on Mac) to open IntelliJ's integrated terminal. It opens right in your project's root directory, keeping you in context.

You can split the terminal horizontally or vertically to run a backend server in one pane while running Git commands or build scripts in another. Keeping everything in one window reduces friction and helps you stay in the flow state.

6. Install the String Manipulation Power-up

This one isn't built-in, but it's a free plugin from the JetBrains Marketplace that's an absolute must-have. Go to Settings / Preferences > Plugins, search for "String Manipulation," and install it.

Now, highlight any text, press Alt + M (Ctrl + Option + M on Mac), and you'll get a menu with dozens of powerful actions:

Switch case (camelCase, snake_case, kebab-case, PascalCase, etc.)
Sort lines alphabetically, numerically, or by length
Filter, grep, or remove duplicate lines
Encode/Decode (Base64, URL, Hex)
Increment/decrement numbers

It's a swiss-army knife for text that you'll wonder how you ever lived without.

7. Refactor with Confidence (Safely!)

Refactoring is a core strength of IntelliJ, and the Community edition has the most important ones. Never, ever rename a method with find-and-replace again. Let the IDE do the heavy lifting.

Rename (Shift + F6): The safest way to rename a variable, method, or class. It updates all usages across your entire project, including comments and strings if you choose.
Extract Method (Ctrl + Alt + M / Cmd + Option + M): Highlight a block of code and turn it into its own method. IntelliJ automatically figures out the required parameters and return type.
Introduce Variable (Ctrl + Alt + V / Cmd + Option + V): Take any expression and put it into a new local variable, correctly typed.

Using these built-in refactorings ensures you don't break your code. The IDE understands the code's structure; a simple text search doesn't.

8. Instantly Analyze Any Stack Trace

Ever get a huge stack trace from a log file and have to manually find each file and line number? Never again.

Copy the entire stack trace to your clipboard.
In IntelliJ, go to Analyze > Analyze Stack Trace or Thread Dump...
Paste the trace into the window and click OK.

IntelliJ creates a beautiful, clickable report right inside your IDE. Clicking any line in the trace takes you directly to that exact spot in your code. This transforms a 10-minute debugging headache into a 10-second task.

9. Collaborate with 'Code With Me'

Think pair programming is only for fancy setups or paid tools? Think again. The "Code With Me" plugin is bundled with all recent versions of IntelliJ Community.

You can start a session and share a link with a colleague. They can join your IDE session from their own computer—they don't even need IntelliJ, as they can join from a web browser! You can code together in real-time, follow each other's cursors, and even use built-in audio and video calls. It's fantastic for mentoring, debugging a tricky issue, or collaborative design.

10. Customize Your Workspace with Scopes

As a project grows, finding things can get noisy. The Project view is cluttered, and searches return too many results. Scopes are your solution. A scope is a custom, filtered view of your project files.

Go to Settings / Preferences > Appearance & Behavior > Scopes. You can create scopes based on powerful patterns. For example:

"My Feature": A scope that includes only the files in a specific feature module or package.
"No Tests": A scope that includes all production code but excludes files in test directories.

Once defined, you can select your custom scope in the Project view dropdown, in the Find in Files dialog, and in the Search Everywhere dialog to dramatically narrow your focus and find what you need faster.

Conclusion: Become the Power User

And there you have it—10 ways to make IntelliJ Community Edition work harder for you. The gap between the free and paid versions is much smaller than you think when you know how to leverage these powerful features.

Don't try to learn them all at once. Pick one or two that sound most useful to your current workflow, practice them for a week, and let them become second nature. Before you know it, you'll be navigating and writing code faster and more efficiently than ever.

What are your favorite hidden IntelliJ features? Share them in the comments below!