Spellchecking

Last modified: 29 May 2024

Configure: Settings | Editor | Natural Languages | Spelling

Inspection: Settings | Editor | Inspections | Proofreading | Typo

IntelliJ IDEA looks for spelling errors in identifier names, string literals, comments, markdown files, and commit messages. For this purpose, IntelliJ IDEA provides a dedicated Typo inspection which is enabled by default.

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Fix a misspelled word

  1. Place the caret at a word highlighted by the Typo inspection.

  2. Press or click the yellow bulb icon to the left of the caret to show the available actions.

  3. Select one of the suggested ways to fix the spelling.

In string literals and comments, only the spelling of this particular word at caret changes. For code identifiers, such as variables, functions, classes, and other symbols, the inspection also suggests changing all occurrences via the Rename refactoring.

Save a word to dictionary

If a detected typo is actually a valid word, you can add it to a user-defined dictionary that extends built-in dictionaries.

  1. Place the caret at a word highlighted by the Typo inspection.

  2. Press or click the yellow bulb icon to the left of the caret to show the available actions.

  3. Select Save to dictionary to add the word to the user's dictionary and do not report it in the future.

    If you have added the word by mistake, press to remove it from the dictionary.

By default, IntelliJ IDEA saves words to the global application-level dictionary. You can choose to save words to the project-level dictionary if the spelling is correct only for this particular project and/or should be shared with the team working on that project. For more information, refer to Select the default dictionary for saving words.

tip

Press and to step through all problems in the current file, including typos.

Find all spelling errors

You can run the Typo inspection on your entire project or a set of files.

  1. Press or go to Code | Analyze Code | Run Inspection by Name in the main menu.

  2. In the Enter inspection name popup, find and select the Typo inspection.

  3. In the Run 'Typo' dialog, select the scope in which you want to run the inspection, and other options, such as a file mask filter. Then click OK.

IntelliJ IDEA will run the Typo inspection on all files in the selected scope and show all found typos in a separate tab of the Problems tool window.

Configure the Typo inspection

By default, the Typo inspection checks code identifiers, string literals, and comments in all scopes.

  1. Press to open settings and then select Editor | Inspections.

  2. Expand the Proofreading node and click Typo in the central pane.

  3. In the right-hand pane, configure the Typo inspection:

    Severity

    Specify the severity level and the scope in which to apply this level.

    For example, if you want typos to stand out more, select Error or Warning to highlight typos similar to syntax errors or warnings in your code.

    Options

    Specify the type of content to check:

    • Process code: check code identifiers , such as names of classes, fields, and methods.

    • Process literals: check text inside string literals.

    • Process comments: check text inside comments.

To disable the Typo inspection entirely, clear the checkbox next to it.

Suppress the Typo inspection

Like with any other inspection, you can suppress the Typo inspection for specific files and code elements.

  1. Place the caret at a word highlighted by the Typo inspection.

  2. Click the Intention action button or press to show the available intention actions.

  3. On one of the suggested fixes, press the right arrow key or click the More Actions menu and select Suppress for class or another relevant suppress action.

    How to suppress the Typo inspection

Depending on the language and code element, this adds a special annotation or comment that tells the editor to suppress the relevant inspection in the corresponding scope. For example, in case of Java, suppressing the Typo inspection for a class adds the following annotation before the class declaration: 

@SuppressWarnings("SpellCheckingInspection")

This suppresses all spelling checks within the class scope.

For more information, refer to Suppress inspections.

Disable spellchecking

Disable the Typo inspection

  1. Press to open settings and then select Editor | Inspections.

  2. Expand the Proofreading node.

  3. Clear the checkbox next to the Typo inspection.

Disable spellchecking in commit messages

  1. Press to open settings and then select Version Control | Commit.

  2. In the Commit Message Inspections, clear the Spelling checkbox.

Disable spellchecking for new projects

  1. Go to New Projects Setup | Settings for New Projects.

  2. Clear the checkboxes described above. This will affect the projects created or opened for the first time after you save the settings.

Dictionaries

IntelliJ IDEA includes bundled dictionaries for all configured languages. You cannot change them directly, but you can extend the spellchecker in other ways:

  • Save words to a built-in global or project dictionary.

  • Add plain-text files with the .dic extension that contain lists of words.

  • Add Hunspell dictionaries, each of which consists of two files: the DIC file that contains a list of words with the applicable modification rules and the AFF file that lists prefixes and suffixes regulated by a specific modification rule. For example, en_GB.dic and en_GB.aff.

Configure spellchecker dictionaries

  1. Press to open settings and then select Editor | Natural Languages | Spelling.

  2. Configure the list of custom dictionaries:

    • To add a new custom dictionary to the list, click the Add button or press and specify the location of the required file.

    • To edit the contents of a custom dictionary in IntelliJ IDEA, select it and click the Edit button or press . The corresponding file will open in a new editor tab.

    • To remove a custom dictionary from the list, select it and click the Remove button or press .

Select the default dictionary for saving words

By default, IntelliJ IDEA saves words to the global application-level dictionary. You can choose to save words to the project-level dictionary if the spelling is correct only for this particular project and/or should be shared with the team working on that project.

  1. Press to open settings and then select Editor | Natural Languages | Spelling.

  2. If you want to choose the dictionary manually every time you save a highlighted word, clear the checkbox next to the Use single dictionary for saving words option.

  3. If you want to save highlighted words on the project level, leave the checkbox selected and choose project-level next to that option.

Add accepted words manually

  1. Press to open settings and then select Editor | Natural Languages | Spelling.

  2. Add words to the Accepted words list. IntelliJ IDEA always adds manually accepted words to the project-level dictionary.

    You can't add words that are already present in one of the dictionaries and mixed-case words, such as CamelCase and snake_case.

The Accepted words list also shows words that you saved to any of the built-in dictionaries using the menu.

It does not show words added to the shared project-level dictionary by other users and words from other custom dictionaries, but these words will be still ignored by the spellchecker.

Share dictionaries

IntelliJ IDEA stores the built-in project-level dictionary in the d.xml file in the .idea subdirectory of your project directory with other project-related files.

When you share this file with your project team through VCS, other team members using IntelliJ IDEA will be able to access the dictionary to share the list of ignored words.

To share your application-level dictionary, use the bundled Settings Sync plugin.

See also

Concepts