How can I tell IntelliJ's "Find in Files" to ignore generated files?

Question

I need to do a find in files. I want to ignore or exclude generated files, like JAX-WS artifacts or classes in target folders. How can I tell IDEA to exclude these files from the find?

Answer 1

I know this is late to the party, and Rob's answer is a decent one. I'd just like to add the following alternative though: if you chose the Custom scope (as in Rob's answer), then leave the selection at Project Files, this will make IntelliJ search a bit more selectively than by default. I don't know what the exact differences are, but of particular interest is that if you mark a directory as Excluded either using the Modules tab in the Project Structure settings, or by right-clicking on a directory and selecting Mark Directory As -> Excluded.

If the files you want to exclude are in a single or relatively few directories so you can easily manually set up these exclusion rules, this is a really nice way of getting the same result without needing to configure a custom scope.

I tested this in IntelliJ Ultimate 14.1.4. I have no idea how it behaves in other versions, but I suspect most of v14 at least will behave the same.

Answer 2

You can also put the search file filter starting with ! sign to exclude. Example to search code not in Test Java files: !*Test.java

If you have a few types of files you can separate with , sign. Example to search in Kotlin and Groovy files only: *.kt,*.groovy

This might be also helpful.

Answer 3

Skip generated files pattern

I use the next pattern to exclude generated files

!file:*intermediates*/&&!file:*generated*/&&!lib:*..*

[How to add a new pattern follow and skip tests pattern]

Answer 4

I use this filter to create a custom scope to exclude the target folder in play framework applications:

(src:*..*||test:*..*)&&!file:target//*

Also, this is the language reference for the scope definition language: https://www.jetbrains.com/help/idea/scope-language-syntax-reference.html