[java] How to increase IDE memory limit in IntelliJ IDEA on Mac?

I'm using IDEA 12 Leda on Mountain Lion. I wanted to increase the maximum memory that IDE can use. I set the VMOptions in Info.plist file to be -Xmx2048m -ea -XX:+HeapDumpOnOutOfMemoryError -Xverify:none -Xbootclasspath/a:../lib/boot.jar

When I open up IDEA, I still see the maximum memory to be 711m.

jps -v shows my VMOptions has been loaded but it's replaced by the following options.

29388  **-Xmx2048m** -ea -XX:+HeapDumpOnOutOfMemoryError -Xverify:none -Xbootclasspath/a:../lib/boot.jar -Xms128m **-Xmx800m** -XX:MaxPermSize=350m -XX:ReservedCodeCacheSize=64m -XX:+UseCodeCacheFlushing -XX:+UseCompressedOops -Didea.paths.selector=IdeaIC12 -Dsun.java2d.noddraw=true -Didea.max.intellisense.filesize=2500 -Didea.dynamic.classpath=false -Didea.jars.nocopy=false -Dsun.java2d.d3d=false -Dapple.awt.fullscreencapturealldisplays=false -Dapple.laf.useScreenMenuBar=true -Djava.endorsed.dirs= -Dswing.bufferPerWindow=false -Didea.fatal.error.notification=enabled -Didea.cycle.buffer.size=1024 -Didea.popup.weight=heavy -Didea.xdebug.key=-Xdebug -Dapple.awt.graphics.UseQuartz=true -Dsun.java2d.pmoffscreen=false -Didea.no.launcher=false -DCVS_PASSFILE=~/.cvspass -Didea.use.default.antialiasing.in.editor=false -Dcom.apple.mrj.application.live-resize=false -Didea.smooth.progress=false
29392 Jps -Dapplication.home=/System/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/1.6.0.jdk/Contents/Home -Xms8m

Where does -Xmx800 come from? I need to remove it.

OSX 10.9, if you dont bother about signed application you might just change

/Applications/IntelliJ\ IDEA\ 12\ CE.app/bin/idea.vmoptions

It looks like IDEA solves this for you (like everything else). When loading a large project and letting it thrash, it will open a dialog to up the memory settings. Entering 2048 for Xmx and clicking "Shutdown", then restarting IDEA makes IDEA start up with more memory. This seems to work well for Mac OS, though it never seems to persist for me on Windows (not sure about IDEA 12).

I use Mac and Idea 14.1.7. Found idea.vmoptions file here: /Applications/IntelliJ IDEA 14.app/Contents/bin

details

go to that path "C:\Program Files (x86)\JetBrains\IntelliJ IDEA 12.1.4\bin\idea.exe.vmoptions" and change size to -Xmx512m

  -Xms128m
  -Xmx512m
  -XX:MaxPermSize=250m
  -XX:ReservedCodeCacheSize=64m
  -XX:+UseCodeCacheFlushing
  -ea
  -Dsun.io.useCanonCaches=false
  -Djava.net.preferIPv4Stack=true

hope its will work

Some addition to the top answer here https://stackoverflow.com/posts/13581526/revisions

1. Change memory as you wish in .vmoptions
2. Enable memory view as told here https://stackoverflow.com/a/39563251/5515861

And you'll have something like this in the bottom right

Here is a link to the latest documentation as of today http://www.jetbrains.com/idea/webhelp/increasing-memory-heap.html

As for the intellij2018 version I am using the following configuration for better performance

-server
-Xms1024m
-Xmx4096m
-XX:MaxPermSize=1024m
-XX:ReservedCodeCacheSize=512m
-XX:+UseCompressedOops
-Dfile.encoding=UTF-8
-XX:+UseConcMarkSweepGC
-XX:+AggressiveOpts
-XX:+CMSClassUnloadingEnabled
-XX:+CMSIncrementalMode
-XX:+CMSIncrementalPacing
-XX:CMSIncrementalDutyCycleMin=0
-XX:-TraceClassUnloading
-XX:+TieredCompilation
-XX:SoftRefLRUPolicyMSPerMB=100
-ea
-Dsun.io.useCanonCaches=false
-Djava.net.preferIPv4Stack=true
-Djdk.http.auth.tunneling.disabledSchemes=""
-XX:+HeapDumpOnOutOfMemoryError
-XX:-OmitStackTraceInFastThrow
-Xverify:none

-XX:ErrorFile=$USER_HOME/java_error_in_idea_%p.log
-XX:HeapDumpPath=$USER_HOME/java_error_in_idea.hprof

Helpful trick I thought I'd share on this old thread.

You can see how much memory is being used and adjust things accordingly using the Show memory indicator setting.

It shows up in the lower right of the window.

On my machine this only works in bin/idea.vmoptions, adding the setting in ~/Library/Preferences/IntelliJIdea12/idea.vmoptions causes the IDEA to hang during startup.

For IDEA 13 and OS X 10.9 Mavericks, the correct paths are:

Original: /Applications/IntelliJ IDEA 13.app/Contents/bin/idea.vmoptions

Copy to: ~/Library/Preferences/IntelliJIdea13/idea.vmoptions

More recent versions of IntelliJ (certainly WebStorm and PhpStorm) have made this change even easier by adding a Help >> Change Memory Settings menu item that opens a dialog where the memory limit can be set.