IntelliJ IDEA is the smartest IDE for Java development. It's also the base of the official Android IDE i.e. Android Studio used for Android mobile application development. This tutorial provides all the steps required to install IntelliJ Idea on Windows 10 for Java development. The same installation can be used for Android application development using either Java or Kotlin. The steps should be the same for other versions of Windows systems.
It assumes that Java is already installed on the system. You may also be interested in How To Install OpenJDK 12 On Windows and How To Install Java 11 On Windows.
Download IntelliJ IDEA
Click here to navigate to the IntelliJ IDEA's download page. It will open the download page as shown below.
Fig 1
The IntelliJ IDEA provides two different installers i.e. Ultimate and Community. The Ultimate edition is commercial version whereas the Community edition can be used for free. This tutorial shows the steps required to install the Community edition. The differences between both the editions are shown in Fig 2.
Fig 2
The Community Edition provides essential features required to develop Java applications. It supports Java, Kotlin, Groovy, Scala, Android, Maven, Gradle, SBT, Git, Svn, and Mercurial out of the box. The Ultimate edition also provides more advanced features including Perforce, JavaScript, TypeScript, Database Tools, Duplicates Detection, and supports frameworks including Spring, Play, Grails, etc.
Install IntelliJ IDEA
To start the installation, execute the Community Edition downloaded in the previous section. The steps remain the same for the Ultimate Edition. It will ask for system permission before starting the download. Allow permission to continue with the installation. It will show the welcome screen as shown in Fig 3.
Fig 3
Click on the Next Button to continue with the installation. It will provide options to choose the installation location as shown in Fig 4. Make sure that you have sufficient space available on the selected drive since it will consume around 1 GB storage.
Fig 4
Click on the Next Button after choosing the appropriate installation path. It will show installation options as shown in Fig 5.
Fig 5
The installation options screen provides options to configure system path, create 64-bit desktop launcher icon, Open Folder as Project, and file association for Java, Groovy, and Kotlin files. I have selected the option to create a desktop launcher icon. You may choose the options based on your requirements.
Now click on the Next Button to continue with the installation. The next screen shows options to configure the Start Menu Folder as shown in Fig 6.
Fig 6
Click on the Install Button after selecting the Start Menu Folder option. It will show the installation progress as shown in Fig 7.
Fig 7
It will show the final screen after successfully installing IntelliJ IDEA as shown in Fig 8.
Fig 8
Click on the Finish
Fig 9
Choose the location to import setting or simply skip it as shown in Fig 9. Click on OK button to launch the IDE. It will show the options to configure the IDE on the first launch. The very first option is to choose a theme as shown in Fig 10. I have skipped the rest of the options with default settings.
Fig 10
Click on the Skip Remaining and Set Defaults Button to start the IDE. You may further configure by clicking on the button at button right corner. It will also ask to create a new project or Import Project for the first time as shown in Fig 11.
Fig 11
We will create the first project i.e. Hello World. Click on the Create New Project option to start creating the project. It will show the screen to configure the project as shown in Fig 12.
Fig 12
I have kept the default options as shown in Fig 12. Now click on the Next Button to continue with project setup. The next screen provides options to choose Project Template as shown in Fig 13.
Fig 13
Click on the Next Button to configure project name and location as shown in Fig 14. I have provided the project name as Hello World and select an appropriate location to store project files.
Fig 14
Now click on the Finish
Fig 15
Click on the OK Button to grant permission. It will launch the IDE showing Tip of the Day as shown in Fig 16.
Fig 16
The IDE will show the Hello World project set up on the left panel with all the default options.
Hello World
In the previous sections, we have downloaded and installed IntelliJ IDEA for Java development and also create the Hello World project as part of the process to launch the IDE. In this section, we will write our first Java program and execute it to print Hello Java on the console.
Expand the Project Hello Word and right-click on the src folder, hover on New Option and click on Java Class Option as shown in Fig 17.
Fig 17
Fig 18
It will show the New Java Class
Fig 19
I have updated the HelloJava class to print Hello Java !! on the console as shown in Fig 20.
Fig 20
Now right click on the HelloJava class file and choose Run HelloJava.main() Option or press Ctrl + Shift + F10 to compile and execute the program as shown in Fig 21. It will also build the project.
Fig 21
The final output of the program will be displayed on the console as shown in Fig 22.
Fig 22
This is how we can install IntelliJ IDEA on Windows 10 and create the Hello World project to execute our first program in Java.
