Conditional can be replaced with Optional

Reports null-check conditions and suggests replacing them with Optional chains.

Example:

return str == null ? "" : str.trim();

After applying the quick-fix:

return Optional.ofNullable(str).map(String::trim).orElse("");

While the replacement is not always shorter, it could be helpful for further refactoring (for example, for changing the method return value to Optional).

Note that when a not-null branch of the condition returns null, the corresponding mapping step will produce an empty Optional possibly changing the semantics. If it cannot be statically proven that semantics will be preserved, the quick-fix action name will contain the "(may change semantics)" notice, and the inspection highlighting will be turned off.

Locating this inspection

By ID

Can be used to locate inspection in e.g. Qodana configuration files, where you can quickly enable or disable it, or adjust its settings.

ConditionalCanBeOptional

Via Settings dialog

Path to the inspection settings via IntelliJ Platform IDE Settings dialog, when you need to adjust inspection settings directly from your IDE.

Settings or Preferences | Editor | Inspections | Java | Code style issues

This inspection depends on the Java feature 'Stream and Optional API', which is available since Java 8.

New in 2018.1

Suppressing Inspection

You can suppress this inspection by placing the following comment marker before the code fragment where you no longer want messages from this inspection to appear:

//noinspection ConditionalCanBeOptional

More detailed instructions as well as other ways and options that you have can be found in the product documentation:

IntelliJ IDEA 2025.2

Inspection Details
By default bundled with:	IntelliJ IDEA 2025.2, Qodana for JVM 2025.2,

Last modified: 18 September 2025