How can you speed up Eclipse?

Question

How can you make the experience with Eclipse faster?

For instance: I disable all the plugins I don\'t need (Mylyn, Subclipse, …).<

Answer 1

Along with the latest software (latest Eclipse and Java) and more RAM, you may need to

• Remove the unwanted plugins (not all need Mylyn and J2EE version of Eclipse)
• unwanted validators
• disable spell check
• close unused tabs in Java editor (yes it helps reducing Eclipse burden)
• close unused projects
• disable unwanted label declaration (SVN/CVS)
• disable auto building

reference:making-eclipse-ide-faster

Answer 2

Close any open projects which are not in current use.

Try to switch off the auto publish mode during development.

Answer 3

While not directly related to Eclipse:

If you're running Windows 7 (and presumably Windows Vista), be sure to disable the file indexing of your workspace folder if your stuff is is in the default place - your home folder. Windows by default indexes everything in you home folder, and it's normally just a waste for your workspace. (Right click the workspace folder in explorer , Properties -> Advanced.)

Answer 4

Best practices in this thread are implemented in the free Optimizer For Eclipse, from ZeroTurnaround.

What does it help with?

• Insufficient memory allocation
• Class verification overhead
• Excessive indexes and history
• Obsolete or slow JDK
• Eclipse being out of date
• Lengthy build and redeploy times

For more details, check out this article from RebelLabs.

Answer 5

The three most influential factors for Eclipse speed are:

• Using the latest version of Eclipse (2020-06 as on 26 June 2020)
  Note that David Balažic's comment (July 2014) contradicts that criteria which was working six years ago:

The "same" workspace in Indigo (3.7.2) SR2 loads in 4 seconds, in Kepler SR2 (4.3.2) in 7 seconds and in Luna (4.4.0) in 10 seconds. All are Java EE bundles. Newer versions have more bundled plugins, but still the trend is obvious. (by "same" workspace I mean: same (additionally installed) plugins used, same projects checked out from version control).

• Launching it with the latest JDK (Java 14 at the time of writing, which does not prevent you to compile in your Eclipse project with any other JDK you want: 1.4.2, 1.5, 1.6 older...)

    -vm jdk1.6.0_10\jre\bin\client\jvm.dll
  

• Configuring the eclipse.ini (see this question for a complete eclipse.ini)

    -Xms512m
    -Xmx4096m
    [...]
  

The Xmx argument is the amount of memory Eclipse will get (in simple terms). With -Xmx4g, it gets 4 GB of RAM, etc.

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Note:

1. Referring to the jvm.dll has advantages:

• Splash screen coming up sooner.
• Eclipse.exe in the process list instead of java.exe.
• Firewalls: Eclipse wants access to the Internet instead of Java.
• Window management branding issues, especially on Windows and Mac.

Answer 6

Add -Xverify:none to your eclipse.ini file.

It will cut down your Eclipse startup time considerably (50% in my case if not more). This will tell the VM not to validate all the .class files it is loading.

Consider this: Never Disable Bytecode Verification in a Production System (as mentioned in the comments)