Plugins

Plugins extend the core functionality of CLion. For example, install plugins to get the following features:

Integration with version control systems, issue trackers, build management servers, and other tools.
Coding assistance support for various languages and frameworks.
Shortcut hints, live previews, File Watchers, and so on.
Coding exercises that can help you to learn a new programming language.

Open plugin settings

Press Control+Alt+S to open the IDE settings and select Plugins.

Use the Marketplace tab to browse and install plugins from the JetBrains Plugin Repository or from a custom plugin repository.

Use the Installed tab to browse bundled and installed plugins, enable, disable, update, or remove them. Disabling unnecessary plugins can increase performance.

Most plugins can be used with any JetBrains product. Some are limited only to commercial products, others require a separate license.

If a plugin depends on some other plugin, CLion will notify you about the dependencies. If your project depends on certain plugins, add them to the list of required plugins.

If existing plugins do not provide some functionality that you need, you can create your own plugin for CLion. For more information, see Develop plugins for CLion.

By default, CLion includes several bundled plugins. You can disable bundled plugins, but they cannot be removed. You can install additional plugins from the plugin repository or from a local archive file (ZIP or JAR).

Install plugin from Marketplace

Press Control+Alt+S to open the IDE settings and select Plugins.
Find the plugin in the Marketplace and click Install.

To install a specific version, go to the plugin page in the JetBrains Plugin Repository, download and install it as described in Install plugin from disk. For example, you can do it if the most recent version of the plugin is broken.

Install plugin from disk

Download the plugin archive (ZIP or JAR).
Press Control+Alt+S to open the IDE settings and select Plugins.
On the Plugins page, click and then click Install Plugin from Disk….
Select the plugin archive file and click OK.
Click OK to apply the changes and restart the IDE if prompted.

Install plugin from command line

Quit the IDE on which you want to install the plugin.
From the JetBrains Marketplace page, find a page of the required plugin, select the Versions tab, and click any version to copy pluginId.
pluginId is a short name of the plugin you want to install. For example, org.rust.lang.
Install the plugin:
Navigate to the bin directory under your CLion installation directory and run the following command:
clion64.exe installPlugins <PluginID>
For example:
clion64.exe installPlugins org.rust.lang CLion
Run the following command:
open -na "CLion.app" --args installPlugins <PluginID>
For example:
open -na "CLion.app" --args installPlugins org.rust.lang
Navigate to the bin directory under your CLion installation directory and run the following command:
clion.sh installPlugins <PluginID>
For example:
clion.sh installPlugins org.rust.lang
If you are using the Toolbox App, you can run this command using the shell script generated by Toolbox App. You can find the scipt name and location in Toolbox App, in the IDE settings. For more information, refer to Shell scripts generated by the Toolbox App.

Remove plugin

Press Control+Alt+S to open the IDE settings and select Plugins.
Open the Installed tab and find the plugin that you want to remove.
Click on the plugin's description pane and select Uninstall.

Disable plugin

You can disable a plugin without removing it if you do not need the corresponding functionality.

Press Control+Alt+S to open the IDE settings and select Plugins.
Open the Installed tab, find and select the plugin that you want to disable.
Click on the plugin's description pane and select Disable.
Alternatively, you can use the checkboxes in the list of plugins or the Disable all buttons for plugin categories.

You can disable or enable all manually installed plugins at once (non-bundled) in the menu under .

Required plugins

A project may require plugins that provide support for certain technologies or frameworks. You can add such plugins to the list of required plugins for the current project, so that CLion will verify that the plugins are installed and enabled. It will notify you if you forget about some plugin, or someone on your team is not aware about the dependency as they work on the project.

Add a required plugin for your current project

Make sure the required plugin is installed.
Press Control+Alt+S to open the IDE settings and select Build, Execution, Deployment | Required Plugins.
On the Required Plugins page, click and select the plugin. Optionally, specify the minimum and maximum version of the plugin.

The list of required plugins is stored in the .idea/externalDependencies.xml file of your project. When you open the project in CLion, it will notify you if the required plugin is disabled, not installed, or requires an update.

Click the link in the notification message to quickly enable, install, or update the required plugin.

Suggested plugins

When you open a project, CLion can suggest installing and enabling plugins based on libraries used in your project. Do not confuse suggested plugins with required plugins that you can manually add to a project so that your teammates also use it.

If you don't need a particular plugin, you can prevent CLion from suggesting it. You can also use your notification settings to disable or enable notifications of all plugin suggestions and the way they are displayed.

Disable suggestions of a plugin

When a notification of a suggested plugin appears, click Don't suggest this plugin.

Next time when you open a project, CLion will not suggest this plugin. You can still check your project for suggested plugins.

Check a project for suggested plugins

Press Control+Shift+A and start typing Check Suggested Plugins.
Select the Check Suggested Plugins action.
If CLion has a plugin applicable to your project, you'll see the notification message. Click the link in the notification message to install or enable the suggested plugin.

Custom plugin repositories

By default, CLion is configured to use plugins from the JetBrains Plugin Repository. This is a public repository where everyone can host their plugins. However, if you develop plugins for internal use only, you can set up a custom plugin repository for them.

For information about setting up a custom plugin repository, see the IntelliJ Platform SDK documentation.

Once you set up your plugin repository, add it to CLion:

Add custom repositories

Press Control+Alt+S to open the IDE settings and select Plugins.
On the Plugins page, click and select Manage Plugin Repositories….
In the Custom Plugin Repositories dialog, click and specify your repository URL. It must point to the location of the XML file that describes your plugin, for example, updatePlugins.xml. The file can be on the same server as your custom plugins, or on a dedicated one.
Click OK in the Custom Plugin Repositories dialog to save the list of plugin repositories.
Click OK in the Settings dialog to apply the changes.

When you search for plugins, CLion will show you results both from the default JetBrains Plugin Repository and any custom repositories that you specify. To browse only a certain custom plugin repository, type repository: followed by the URL of the repository in the search field on the Marketplace tab of the Plugins page. For example:

repository:http://plugins.example.com:8080/updatePlugins.xml myPlugin

Alternatively, you can add your custom plugin repositories using the idea.plugin.hosts property:

From the main menu, select Help | Edit Custom Properties.
Add the idea.plugin.hosts property to the platform properties file and specify the URL of the XML file that describes your plugin. For example:
idea.plugin.hosts="http://plugins.example.com:8080/updatePlugins.xml"
To add multiple URLs, separate them with semicolons ;.
Restart CLion.

You may want to replace the default JetBrains Plugin Repository with your custom plugin repository. This can be helpful if you want only your custom repository plugins to be available from CLion.

Replace the default plugin repository

From the main menu, select Help | Edit Custom Properties.
Add the idea.plugins.host property to the platform properties file and specify the URL of the application that can properly handle requests from CLion, that is, act as the default plugin repository application instead of JetBrains Plugin Repository.
In particular, it should handle the following requests:
- Get the list of plugins
- Download the latest plugin update
Restart CLion.

If you replace the default plugin repository, the search field on the Marketplace tab of the Plugins dialog will browse only the plugins in the new default repository and any custom repositories that you add.

Productivity tips

Filter and sort search results

Type a forward slash / in the search string to see options for filtering and sorting search results. For example, you can add the following options to your search string to list only language-related plugins and sort them by the number of downloads:
/tag:Languages /sortBy:downloads

Last modified: 12 June 2023