PhpStorm - Change home directory

You can start PhpStorm with -Duser.home=<your preferred location> (for example, try modifying the PhpStorm.bat accordingly)

How do I "start PhpStorm with -Duser.home=<your preferred location>"? And if I try to add it to phpstorm.bat it doesn't work.

try modifying the COMMON_JVM_ARGS in phpstorm.bat - add -Duser.home to the list of options

Still doesn't work

works fine for me. What does your changed .bat file look like? What do you mean saying that it 'doesn't work'?

My PhpStorm.bat looks like this: (changed area)

:: ---------------------------------------------------------------------
:: Collect JVM options and properties.
:: ---------------------------------------------------------------------

<<.............>>

SET COMMON_JVM_ARGS="-Xbootclasspath/a:%IDE_HOME%/lib/boot.jar" -Didea.paths.selector=WebIde50 %IDE_PROPERTIES_PROPERTY% -Duser.home="C:\Users\Nadav\Internet"

<<.............>>

The <<...>> areas represent other parts of the file... I have underlined what I've added to the file. I've also tried it without "quotes".

similar .bat (with ot without "" around option value) works fine to me. Is the .WebIde50 folder created in C:\Users\Nadav\Internet\ folder after starting the phpstorm.bat?

Well now I realized that I actually have to open PhpStorm.bat and not PhpStorm(.exe). ("after starting the phpstorm.bat?").

Now it worked great. Well - you had to be more clear, but thanks about that! Marked as answered.

Sorry to bring this up again, but this only appears to work if you run the batch file, then you have a command window open for the *entire* time WS is open.

I go to great pains to keep my User & Documents folder clear of unwelcome files and folders, and it was a real disappointment to see PHPStorm dumping not one but THREE(!!!!) hidden folders in there!

Changing the value to -Duser.home="%APPDATA%\JetBrains" sorted out the .WebIDE60 folder only, but installing unwanted folders and having to hackily run a batch file to move only one of them out of the main User folder is not really up to the mark.

Can we please have instead:

• ALL folders installed to %APPDATA%/JetBrains by default
• a prompt upon installing in case you do want to change this, with the locations of Snapshots, WebIDE60 and the other junk folder, configurable
  
• a single, easy to edit configuration file (XML or ini)
• a solution that runs without hacks

It would be great if this got addressed in the current Beta.

Thanks,
Dave

Hi Dave,

instead of modifying the .bat file you can specify the  -Duser.home option in PhpStorm.exe.vmoptions file, and then use PhpStorm.exe to run the application. Also, the config/system files location can be explicitly changed in idea.properties file, idea.config.path, idea.system.path, idea.plugins.path and idea.log.path. But note that the latter option won't change your user home, and the corresponding link in file chooser will still lead to your user home, not to a new config files location

Best regards,
Lena

Good to see updates! Elena, your new fix is way better than the previous! Until now I used your previous fix but had the same problems as Dave's. To make the CMD not stay there forever, I used Quiet to load it without the CMD. However the new fix is better.

Hey Elena, that is indeed great news!

It would be fab if the latest release defaulted to %APPDATA%/JetBrains though, like the nice, well behaved programme it is :)

UPDATE - the right code for %APPDATA% in this file is:

-Duser.home=${APPDATA}\JetBrains

So, the last piece of the puzzle is the .yjp folder, which looks to be something to do with java profiling (not my area)

It looks like the location of this can be changed, so it would be great if this is moved to the appdata folder too (uness of course, this is a beta-only issue!)

http://forums.yourkit.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=3899

Cheers,
Dave