Maven profiles

IntelliJ IDEA lets you declare profiles explicitly in the POM of your project. Using code completion, you can place a number of different configurations inside the profiles tags and override the default configurations specified in your POM for Maven plugins, dependencies, repositories, and so on.

Alternatively, you can declare profiles using one of the following ways:

• You can define them locally in the Maven settings directory %USER_HOME%/.m2/settings.xml.

• You can define them globally in the global Maven settings ${maven.home}/conf/settings.xml.

• You can define them in the profile descriptor located in the project's base directory (profiles.xml). Note that this option is not supported in Maven 3. See Maven 3 compatibility notes.

You can activate a profile in the Maven tool window using the Profiles node and the corresponding profiles' checkboxes.

You can also activate profiles automatically, according to a range of contextual conditions. For example, JDK version, OS name and version, presence or absence of a specific file or property, but you still need to specify all the parameters inside your POM.

note

If you use profile activation with the JDK condition (JDK tags in the POM: <jdk></jdk>), IntelliJ IDEA will use the JDK version of the Maven importer instead of the project's JDK version when syncing the project and resolving dependencies. Also, if you use https certificates, you need to include them manually for the Maven importer as well as for the Maven runner.

You can declare a Maven profile with the activeByDefault tag in the POM that activates only if Maven does not find any other active profiles. For more information, refer to Maven profiles.

note

Remember to sync every time you change your pom.xml file to view the changes in the Maven tool window. When the pom.xml is changed, a popup is displayed suggesting to import the changes. You can also click on the toolbar of the Maven tool window.

IntelliJ IDEA displays the activeByDefault profile in the Maven tool window with the selected checkbox that is greyed out.

You can manually deactivate this profile by clicking the checkbox. Also note that if you manually activate any other profile, the activeByDefault profile will be de-activated.

When you work with multi-module projects, keep in mind that if you specified the activeByDefault profile in your POM it will be deactivated when you manually activate any other profile even if it is declared in the POM of a different module.

If you need to deactivate the profile, follow these steps: