What’s New in IntelliJ IDEA 2020.3? Top 9 Features Boosting Your Productivity

1. New Welcome Window

IDEA's welcome window now includes three tabs—Customize, Plugins, and Learn IntelliJ IDEA—alongside the existing Projects tab. The Learn IntelliJ IDEA page offers interactive courses and shortcuts to improve coding efficiency.

2. Reader Mode

Read‑only files now open in Reader Mode by default, with formatted comments for easier reading. Users can toggle the mode via the "Reader Mode" button on the top‑right.

3. Easier Window Splitting

The new "Split and Move Right" feature lets users split editor windows and move tabs with a simple drag, eliminating the need to manually switch files after splitting.

4. Refined Refactoring

The Extract Method dialog is streamlined, and the Rename refactor now optionally updates strings inside comments as well.

5. Debugging Enhancements

During debugging, variable values appear on the right side; clicking a variable opens an inline viewer, and values can be edited directly. New "Inline Watch" shows a single variable value in context.

The debugger also offers memory analysis tools: "Show referring objects" to find shortest paths to GC roots, and "Calculate retained size" to compute object retention size.

6. Smarter Code Completion

IDEA now uses machine‑learning models trained on millions of real‑world code completions to rank suggestions, making method selection faster.

7. Search Everywhere Improvements

Search Everywhere now supports searching by Git commit hash, tags, branches, and even simple arithmetic expressions.

8. Java 15 Feature Support

IDEA adds full support for record syntax, allowing creation of pure data carrier classes without boilerplate, and provides quick conversion between records and regular classes. It also supports the new sealed keyword with appropriate refactoring and code‑insight features.

9. Other Notable Changes

IDEA's built‑in database tool now allows SQL queries against MongoDB.

Lombok is bundled as an official plugin, eliminating compatibility issues.

The VCS menu is streamlined and renamed according to the active version‑control system.

Overall, IDEA 2020.3 focuses on polishing the user experience rather than adding brand‑new features, preparing the ground for the upcoming major release.