Top 12 Must‑Have IntelliJ IDEA Plugins to Supercharge Your Java Development

1. Installing Plugins

Open Settings (Ctrl+Alt+S or File → Settings) and select the Plugins option.

You can browse JetBrains plugins, third‑party plugins, or install a locally downloaded plugin package.

2. Popular Plugins

activate‑power‑mode & Power mode II

Ported from Atom’s activate‑power‑mode , these plugins make the editor shake and display colorful effects while you type.

Background Image Plus

Allows you to set a custom background image for the editor, giving IDEA a unique look.

Grep Console

Enables custom log coloring in the console, allowing different log levels to be displayed with distinct styles.

Free MyBatis Plugin

Provides an editor for mybatis.xml that behaves like Java code, adding a green arrow in the gutter to jump directly to the corresponding XML file.

MyBatis Log Plugin

Shows the exact SQL statements executed by MyBatis in the console, ready to be copied and run.

String Manipulation

A powerful tool for converting strings between various naming conventions (camelCase, snake_case, SCREAMING_SNAKE_CASE, kebab-case, PascalCase, etc.) and for case‑changing selected text.

Alibaba Java Coding Guidelines

Implements Alibaba’s Java coding standards as an inspection plugin.

Lombok

Reduces boiler‑plate by generating getters, setters, constructors, and other methods via annotations such as @Getter, @Setter, @Data, etc.

Key Promoter

Shows shortcut hints when you use mouse actions, helping you learn and remember IDE key bindings.

GsonFormat

Generates Java POJOs from JSON data instantly; paste JSON, press Alt+Insert (or Alt+S), and the plugin creates the corresponding class.

RestfulToolkit

Helps locate controller methods for a given URL, generate test data, and invoke tests directly from the IDE.

JRebel

A hot‑deployment tool that applies code changes instantly without restarting the application, eliminating the typical rebuild‑restart cycle.