How to restore IDE settings lost after update

Problem

The IDE settings were lost during the update; when opening the new IDE version for the first time, the theme is reset to default, plugins are not installed, custom keymaps are not found, etc.

Cause

For each major IDE version (2023.3, 2024.1, 2024.2), the separate configuration directory is used. Usually, when the IDE is updated to the new major version, the corresponding directory is created for this version, and the settings are automatically copied from the previous IDE configuration directory to the new one. There is at least one known scenario in which this functionality wouldn't work as expected: when the EAP (Early Access Program) version of the new IDE was installed before.

• When the EAP version is installed, it is a new IDE instance not related to the previous IDE versions, so the new IDE configuration folder is created from scratch;
• since the IDE is not updated from the previous version, the settings are not copied, so the EAP IDE instance starts with the default settings;
• even if the EAP version is uninstalled, the configuration directory for this new IDE version is not removed;
• if, after that, the IDE is updated from the previous IDE version to the new one, the IDE configuration directory is not created - it already exists;
• in this case, since there was no process of creating a new directory, the settings are subsequently not copied to the new IDE version configuration directory.

Resolution

It's possible to import settings from the previous version via File | Manage IDE Settings | Import Settings... and selecting the previous IDE version's configuration directory.

If it's not an option, manually copying settings from the previous IDE version's configuration directory to the new IDE version's configuration directory should solve the problem. Please ensure that the IDE is closed in the process.