Multiple IntelliJ configurations with unified IntelliJ
Prior to the 2025.3 release, I had two versions of IntelliJ installed on my system. Once was a licensed copy, paid for by my employer, with the plugins installed that I use for my work development. The other was a CE copy which I used for personal projects, which had different settings, different plugins, different recent projects, etc. I've used two IntelliJ this way for many years.
With the release of the unified IDE, I now have a single IntelliJ with only one set of settings. IntelliJ saves a backup copy of settings, so I still have the one that's no longer used, but I don't know how to go back to the functionality I had before.
Is there an official way to set up IntelliJ to do this? The support Chatbot recommended creating a custom properties file with a number of paths set, but that seems like a fragile solution, assuming I could get it working. I'm using IntelliJ on MacOS.
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Hi Phil Shapiro. Thanks for reaching out.
You can keep separate “work” and “personal” IntelliJ IDEA setups on macOS using the Toolbox App:
In Toolbox, install the same IntelliJ IDEA version a second time (use “Other versions”). See the screenshots I’ve attached.
Open Settings for one of the two installs in Toolbox and set a separate “System, config and logs directory” to a new, empty folder. Do not reuse the same folder for both instances.
Thanks, this helped a lot. It would've been nice for the unified Intellij startup to recognize the different settings and at least warn that it would cause the settings to be merged as well. And the Support Assistant chatbot didn't suggest this solution either, it was recommending setting up the vmoptions file manually. But maybe this is not a common enough use case.
Hi Phil Shapiro. Thanks for the note. The solution I provided uses two IntelliJ IDEA installs, each pointed to its own System/Config/Plugins/Logs directory, so the work and personal profiles stay fully separate. The Support Assistant’s suggestion also works if you prefer to run a single IntelliJ instance.
Another option is to use two user accounts on your device (one for work, one for personal). Each account will naturally keep its own IDE settings, and you can even run different IDE versions per account if you like.