How to manage projects under Version Control Systems

To share IDE project files with other developers, follow the guidelines below.

Default project format (.idea directory)

Directory-based. The default format used across all present-day versions of Intellij-based IDEs.

What needs to be shared:

1. All files under the .idea directory in the project root except the items that store user-specific settings:
   • workspace.xml
   • usage.statistics.xml
   • shelf directory
2. All the .iml module files (can be located in different module directories) -> applies to IntelliJ IDEA

Note that starting with version 2019.1, IntelliJ is capable of adding everything that needs sharing to Version Control automatically.

Items you need to be cautious about:

• Android artifacts that produce a signed build (will contain keystore passwords)
• In IDEA 13 and earlier, the dataSources.ids and datasources.xml files can contain database passwords. IDEA 14 solves this problem.

Items you may want to exclude from sharing:

• .iml files and .idea/modules.xml file for the Gradle or Maven based projects since these files will be generated on import
• gradle.xml file, see this discussion
• user dictionaries folder (to avoid conflicts if other developer has the same name)
• XML files under .idea/libraries in case they are generated from Gradle or Maven project

Legacy project format (.ipr/.iml/.iws files)

File-based. Outdated and not recommended for use.

• Share the project's .ipr file and all the .iml module files.
• Do not share the .iws file as it stores user specific settings.

For Git, you can use this .gitignore as the starting point.