Manage plugins

Last modified: 09 August 2021

Plugins extend the core functionality of WebStorm. For example, by installing plugins, you can get the following features:

integration with version control systems, Docker, Kubernetes, and other technologies
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

The following video gives a short overview of the plugin subsystem.

By default, WebStorm includes a number of 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).

Open plugin settings

In the Settings/Preferences dialog Ctrl+Alt+S, 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.

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

Install plugin from repository

Install plugin from disk

Remove plugin

Disable plugin

Custom plugin repositories

By default, WebStorm is configured to use plugins from the JetBrains Plugin Repository. This is where all the community plugins are hosted, and you are free to host your plugins there. 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 WebStorm:

Press Ctrl+Alt+S to open IDE settings and select Plugins.
On the Plugins page, click and then click Manage Plugin Repositories.
In the Custom Plugin Repositories dialog, click and specify your repository URL. It must point to the location of the updatePlugins.xml file. The file can be on the same server as your custom plugins, or on a dedicated one.

Gif
Click OK in the Custom Plugin Repositories dialog to save the list of plugin repositories.
Click OK in the Settings/Preferences dialog to apply the changes.

To browse the custom plugin repository, type repository: followed by the URL of the repository in the Marketplace tab of the Plugins page. For example:

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

Alternatively, you can replace the default JetBrains Plugin Repository with your custom repository URL. This can be helpful if you want only your custom repository plugins to be available from WebStorm. To do this, edit the platform properties or VM options file as described below. For more information, see Advanced configuration.

Use a custom plugin repository

If you replace the default plugin repository with a custom one, the search field on the Marketplace tab of the Plugins dialog will browse only the plugins in your custom repository.

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 WebStorm 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 that the required plugin is installed.
Press Ctrl+Alt+S to open 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.

tip
To specify the required version of WebStorm itself, add IDE Core to the list of required plugins.

After the required plugin is added, when you open the project in WebStorm, it will notify you if the 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.

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 alphabetically by name:
```
/tag:Languages /sortBy:name
```
Gif
Or you can search for all outdated plugins among the installed by typing:
```
/outdated
```
Gif

Manage plugins﻿

Open plugin settings﻿

Install plugin from repository﻿

Install plugin from disk﻿

Remove plugin﻿

Disable plugin﻿

Custom plugin repositories﻿

Use a custom plugin repository﻿

Required plugins﻿

Add a required plugin for your current project﻿

tip

Productivity tips﻿

Filter and sort search results﻿