How to start IDE from the command line

Updated August 14, 2024 04:05

Below are examples on how to start IDE from the command line on different OS. You should substitute the product name and version/build number in path according to your installation.

- Windows

- macOS

- Linux

Windows

For 2024.2+ IDE versions:

Click Windows start menu, type cmd.exe to find and open cmd app. To get additional debug logging for troubleshooting launcher issues, run command below first to set debug environment variables before starting the IDE:

set IJ_LAUNCHER_DEBUG=true

Run commands below to start IDE (replacing the IDE installation path, IDE name, and version number with your installed ones):

cd "C:\Program Files\JetBrains\IntelliJ IDEA 2024.2\bin"
.\idea64.exe

If you are using a different IDE, you need to use the corresponding command .\<IDE name>64.exe such as .\pycharm64.exe, .\goland64.exe, .\datagrip64.exe or another IDE file name to start it.

If you use Toolbox (see this comment on how to find IDE path quickly):

cd "%LOCALAPPDATA%\Programs\IntelliJ IDEA Ultimate\bin"
.\idea64.exe

For old versions:

Click Windows start menu, type cmd.exe to find and open cmd app, and run commands below to start IDE (replacing the IDE installation path, IDE name, and version number with your installed ones):

cd "C:\Program Files\JetBrains\IntelliJ IDEA 2023.3\bin"
.\idea.bat

If you are using a different IDE, you need to use the corresponding command .\<IDE name>.bat such as .\pycharm.bat, .\goland.bat, .\datagrip.bat or another IDE file name to start it.

If you use Toolbox (see this comment on how to find IDE path quickly):

cd "%LOCALAPPDATA%\Programs\IntelliJ IDEA Ultimate\bin"
.\idea.bat

macOS

Open the Terminal app. To get additional debug logging for troubleshooting launcher issues, run command below first to set debug environment variables before starting the IDE:

export IJ_LAUNCHER_DEBUG=true
export IDEA_LAUNCHER_DEBUG=true

Run commands below to start IDE (replacing the IDE installation path and IDE name to your installed ones):

cd /Applications
./IntelliJ\ IDEA.app/Contents/MacOS/idea

If you are using a different IDE, you need to use the corresponding command ./<IDE app name>.app/Contents/MacOS/<IDE name> like ./GoLand.app/Contents/MacOS/goland, ./PyCharm.app/Contents/MacOS/pycharm to start it. Also, make sure you have added \ before each space character in path for escaping.

If you use Toolbox (see this comment on how to quickly find IDE path):

cd ~/Applications
./IntelliJ\ IDEA\ Ultimate\ 2023.3.app/Contents/MacOS/idea

Linux

For 2024.2+ IDE versions:

Open a terminal app. To get additional debug logging for troubleshooting launcher issues, run command below first to set debug environment variables before starting the IDE:

export IJ_LAUNCHER_DEBUG=true

Run commands below to start IDE (replacing the installation path, IDE name and version number with your installed ones):

cd '~/Software/IntelliJ IDEA 2024.2/bin'
./idea

If you are using a different IDE, you need to use the corresponding command ./<IDE name> such as ./pycharm, ./goland, ./datagrip or another IDE file name to start it.

If you use Toolbox (see this comment on how to quickly find IDE path):

cd ~/.local/share/JetBrains/Toolbox/apps/intellij-idea-ultimate/bin
./idea

For old versions:

Open a terminal app. Run commands below to start IDE (replacing the installation path, IDE name and version number to your installed ones):

cd '~/Software/IntelliJ IDEA 2023.3/bin'
./idea.sh

If you are using a different IDE, you need to use the corresponding command ./<IDE name>.sh such as ./pycharm.sh, ./goland.sh, ./datagrip.sh or another IDE file name to start it.

If you use Toolbox (see this comment on how to quickly find IDE path):

cd ~/.local/share/JetBrains/Toolbox/apps/intellij-idea-ultimate/bin
./idea.sh

18 comments

Josef Reichardt

Updated April 02, 2024 16:01

Is there an easy way to get a shell script to start IntelliJ IDEA from a WSL2 (Ubuntu) Terminal. It should start the IntelliJ IDEA installed in the Windows Host.

Such an Shell Script is default for VS Code (just run code example.xml in an WSL2-Ubuntu-Terminal and the VS Code installed on windows opens the requested file) but I'm not able to do the same for IntelliJ IDEA yet. Is there any way to do the same?

Solid Tester

Updated August 26, 2021 22:22

For Windows:

pycharm.bat is now (February 2021) the executable (from \bin)
which should be launched from Command Prompt.

Edited by Solid Tester February 17, 2021 12:41

Serge Baranov

Updated July 01, 2022 15:41

Junkbot Exe+jetbrains You can try with 1>/dev/null 2>/dev/null &

Lejia Chen

Updated January 03, 2024 04:15

@S29268 Please try the suggestion here to see if it helps: https://intellij-support.jetbrains.com/hc/en-us/articles/360007568559-Start-Failed-Internal-error-recovering-IDE-to-the-working-state-after-the-critical-startup-error

S29268

Updated October 20, 2023 09:02

I am getting the same error and after running the .bat file I am getting following output

CompileCommand: exclude com/intellij/openapi/vfs/impl/FilePartNodeRoot.trieDescend bool exclude = true
Error: Unable to initialize main class com.intellij.idea.Main
Caused by: java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: kotlin/KotlinNothingValueException

Serge Baranov

Updated October 05, 2023 19:49

Toolbox 2.0 versions changed the locations of the installed apps on Windows and macOS, but on Linux it should remain the same, see https://blog.jetbrains.com/toolbox-app/2023/08/toolbox-app-2-0-overhauls-installations-and-updates/#install-and-update-reworked-from-the-ground-up.

The app folder names changed as well, for example:

IntelliJ IDEA Ultimate
WebStorm
RubyMine
RustRover

Edited by Serge Baranov October 05, 2023 19:49

Edward Statham

Updated October 05, 2023 19:44

This is outdated. The directory suggested no longer exists.

```

$ ls ~/.local/share/JetBrains/Toolbox/apps/IDEA-U/ch-2/
ls: cannot access '/home/ed/.local/share/JetBrains/Toolbox/apps/IDEA-U/ch-2/': No such file or directory
$ ls ~/.local/share/JetBrains/Toolbox/apps/IDEA-U/
ls: cannot access '/home/ed/.local/share/JetBrains/Toolbox/apps/IDEA-U/': No such file or directory
$ ls ~/.local/share/JetBrains/Toolbox/apps
aqua dataspell goland intellij-idea-ultimate-2 pycharm-professional space-desktop webstorm
clion Fleet intellij-idea-ultimate intellij-idea-ultimate-2.vmoptions rustrover Toolbox
```

markus.heinrichs

Updated September 15, 2023 08:11

On Mac:

Without the toolbox, adding an alias such as

alias idea='cd /Applications; ./IntelliJ\ IDEA.app/Contents/MacOS/idea; popd'

to .zshrc or your preferred shell startup script could help, too.

Serge Baranov

Updated September 13, 2022 16:53

sparker Please try the steps from https://intellij-support.jetbrains.com/hc/en-us/articles/360007568559. If the issue persists, contact support at https://intellij-support.jetbrains.com/hc/requests/new with the thread dumps attached using jstack, see https://intellij-support.jetbrains.com/hc/en-us/articles/206544899 for the instructions.

sparker

Updated September 13, 2022 05:53

I am running PyCharm 2022.2.1 in Win11 and the IDE won't start by double clicking the icon or by running from command line. The following is the output when running from command line. Please advise.

C:\Program Files\JetBrains\PyCharm 2022.2.1\bin>pycharm.bat
2022-09-13 08:44:20,515 [   3056]   WARN - #c.i.o.a.i.ActionManagerImpl - keymap "Visual Studio" not found PluginDescriptor(name=IDEA CORE, id=com.intellij, descriptorPath=plugin.xml, path=C:\Program Files\JetBrains\PyCharm 2022.2.1\lib, version=222.3739.56, package=com.intellij.feedback, isBundled=true)
2022-09-13 08:44:20,528 [   3069]   WARN - #c.i.o.a.i.ActionManagerImpl - keymap "Eclipse" not found PluginDescriptor(name=IDEA CORE, id=com.intellij, descriptorPath=plugin.xml, path=C:\Program Files\JetBrains\PyCharm 2022.2.1\lib, version=222.3739.56, package=com.intellij.feedback, isBundled=true)
2022-09-13 08:44:20,530 [   3071]   WARN - #c.i.o.a.i.ActionManagerImpl - keymap "NetBeans 6.5" not found PluginDescriptor(name=IDEA CORE, id=com.intellij, descriptorPath=plugin.xml, path=C:\Program Files\JetBrains\PyCharm 2022.2.1\lib, version=222.3739.56, package=com.intellij.feedback, isBundled=true)
2022-09-13 08:44:20,531 [   3072]   WARN - #c.i.o.a.i.ActionManagerImpl - keymap "Visual Studio" not found PluginDescriptor(name=IDEA CORE, id=com.intellij, descriptorPath=plugin.xml, path=C:\Program Files\JetBrains\PyCharm 2022.2.1\lib, version=222.3739.56, package=com.intellij.feedback, isBundled=true)
2022-09-13 08:44:20,619 [   3160]   WARN - #c.i.o.a.i.ActionManagerImpl - keymap "Visual Studio" not found PluginDescriptor(name=HTML Tools, id=HtmlTools, descriptorPath=plugin.xml, path=C:\Program Files\JetBrains\PyCharm 2022.2.1\plugins\htmltools, version=222.3739.56, package=null, isBundled=true)
2022-09-13 08:44:20,635 [   3176]   WARN - #c.i.o.a.i.ActionManagerImpl - keymap "Eclipse" not found PluginDescriptor(name=GitHub, id=org.jetbrains.plugins.github, descriptorPath=plugin.xml, path=C:\Program Files\JetBrains\PyCharm 2022.2.1\plugins\github, version=222.3739.56, package=org.jetbrains.plugins.github, isBundled=true)
2022-09-13 08:44:20,642 [   3183]   WARN - #c.i.o.a.i.ActionManagerImpl - keymap "Eclipse" not found PluginDescriptor(name=Space, id=com.jetbrains.space, moduleName=intellij.space.vcs, descriptorPath=intellij.space.vcs.xml, path=C:\Program Files\JetBrains\PyCharm 2022.2.1\plugins\space, version=222.3739.56, package=com.intellij.space.vcs, isBundled=true)
2022-09-13 08:44:20,645 [   3186]   WARN - #c.i.o.a.i.ActionManagerImpl - keymap "Eclipse" not found PluginDescriptor(name=JavaScript and TypeScript, id=JavaScript, descriptorPath=plugin.xml, path=C:\Program Files\JetBrains\PyCharm 2022.2.1\plugins\JavaScriptLanguage, version=222.3739.56, package=null, isBundled=true)
2022-09-13 08:44:20,646 [   3187]   WARN - #c.i.o.a.i.ActionManagerImpl - keymap "Visual Studio" not found PluginDescriptor(name=JavaScript and TypeScript, id=JavaScript, descriptorPath=plugin.xml, path=C:\Program Files\JetBrains\PyCharm 2022.2.1\plugins\JavaScriptLanguage, version=222.3739.56, package=null, isBundled=true)
2022-09-13 08:44:20,667 [   3208]   WARN - #c.i.o.a.i.ActionManagerImpl - keymap "Eclipse" not found PluginDescriptor(name=Python, id=Pythonid, descriptorPath=plugin.xml, path=C:\Program Files\JetBrains\PyCharm 2022.2.1\plugins\python, version=222.3739.56, package=null, isBundled=true)
2022-09-13 08:44:20,668 [   3209]   WARN - #c.i.o.a.i.ActionManagerImpl - keymap "NetBeans 6.5" not found PluginDescriptor(name=Python, id=Pythonid, descriptorPath=plugin.xml, path=C:\Program Files\JetBrains\PyCharm 2022.2.1\plugins\python, version=222.3739.56, package=null, isBundled=true)
2022-09-13 08:44:20,672 [   3213]   WARN - #c.i.o.a.i.ActionManagerImpl - keymap "Visual Studio" not found PluginDescriptor(name=Python, id=Pythonid, descriptorPath=plugin.xml, path=C:\Program Files\JetBrains\PyCharm 2022.2.1\plugins\python, version=222.3739.56, package=null, isBundled=true)
2022-09-13 08:44:20,673 [   3214]   WARN - #c.i.o.a.i.ActionManagerImpl - keymap "Eclipse" not found PluginDescriptor(name=Python, id=Pythonid, descriptorPath=plugin.xml, path=C:\Program Files\JetBrains\PyCharm 2022.2.1\plugins\python, version=222.3739.56, package=null, isBundled=true)

Junkbot Exe+jetbrains

Updated July 01, 2022 08:40

I can start webstorm by command line on linux but i didn't find any solution to detach it from the shell even with "&" at the end of the line, is there a way to achieve that ?

Jetbrains Com

Updated February 01, 2022 16:11

In Linux, this path works for me:

/snap/phpstorm/current/bin/ltedit.sh

Ella Molnar

Updated January 21, 2022 15:02

cd /Applications

./PhpStorm.app/Contents/MacOS/phpstorm

For PHPStorm without Toolbox.

Permanently deleted user

Updated July 08, 2021 12:52

I think this needs updates if you are using the Jetbrains ToolBox, my path on Mac OS X was:

~/Applications/JetBrains Toolbox/IntelliJ IDEA Ultimate.app

Caleb Cushing

Updated January 15, 2021 20:35

This article is inaccurate for PowerShell (with toolbox) please update. This works, at least to get you to the outside directory, then you have to dive into the right versions, which is not static.

```
cd $env:LOCALAPPDATA\JetBrains\Toolbox\apps\IDEA-U
```

Edited by Caleb Cushing January 15, 2021 20:35