My Top 7 Most Underrated IntelliJ IDEA Features

After many years I still meet new people amused when they find out about these features

1. Find anything

It is difficult to recall every key combination and keep track of everything IntelliJ IDEA can accomplish. Therefore, I frequently "Google" within IntelliJ IDEA. It allows me to locate the appropriate menu items, tools, settings, and even files in a single location.


2. Know where you are

Before I found this feature I was using the “Select Opened File” button to show the currently edited file in my project tree.

Now IntelliJ IDEA does it for me. This is not the default option so you would need to set it for every new or existing project.


3. SQL optimization

Did you know that the default database plugin in your IDE is more than an SQL executor? Given a fact that a persistence layer (Input/Output) is always the slowest part of an application, I always make sure that my SQL queries have a good Execution Plan when working with Relational Databases.

SQL execution plan

4. Multiline editing

You might have used it in Sublime Text Editor before but you don't have to anymore.

Multiline (column) editing: ⇧⌘ 8 (Alt+Shift+Ins for Win/Linux)

Honestly, I am using only multiline editing but there are lots more. If you are interested, go ahead and check the following article.


5. Go Back / Forward

I really often navigate to the place I was before by clicking the ‘back’ or ‘forward’ buttons

Go back/forward: ⌥⌘+Left/Right Arrow (Ctrl+Alt+Left/Right Arrow for Win/Linux)

To open recent files press ⌘E (Ctrl+E for Win/Linux))


6. Bookmark

I bookmark important parts of code to quickly jump to them at any point in time.

Add bookmark: ⌃⇧+<number> (Ctrl+Shift+<number> for Win/Linux)

To go to bookmark press ⌃+<number> (Ctrl+<number> for Win/Linux).

I need to say that I am not using more than 3 bookmarks at the same time as then it becomes hard to remember what are they for.


7. One editor for all

I used to open other Text Editors like Visual Studio Code or Sublime to save parts of the code, JSON, XML etc. to refer it after. It was something that is not really part of the code base (project) and IntelliJ IDEA clearly states it when you try to create or edit something like this. Then I saw one of my colleagues using Snippets and realized how brilliant it is.

New Snippet file: ⇧⌘N (Shift+Ctrl+N for Win/Linux)

Snippets are available and synced across all your projects' windows. I often use it to format some JSONs or SQLs that I got from somewhere else to look closer to it.