On Windows and Linux platforms IDEA stores its caches, configuration and plugins in the user's home directory (profile directory).
On Windows platform it's usually \Documents and Settings\\.IntelliJIdeaXX.
On Windows Vista, Windows 7 and later Windows versions the profile directory is \Users\.
For Unix/Linux the home directory is ~/.IntelliJIdeaXX (~ is usually an alias for /home/)
XX represents product version and can be (50, 60, 70, 80, 90, etc).
Under the .IntelliJIdeaXX directory the following subdirectories can be found:
Config: /config
Plugins: /config/plugins
Caches: /system
Logs: /system/log(also contains automatic thread dumps)
On Mac OS X IDEA uses the following directories:
Config: ~/Library/Preferences/IntelliJIdeaXX
System: ~/Library/Caches/IntelliJIdeaXX
Plugins: ~/Library/Application Support/IntelliJIdeaXX
Logs: ~/Library/Logs/IntelliJIdeaXX (starting from IDEA 9.0, older versions keep logs under System location)
For other products based on IDEA platform look for the product name instead of IntelliJIdea:
WebIde for WebStorm/PhpStorm
PyCharm
RubyMine
In some environments user's home directory is located on the mapped network drive which is unacceptable for IntelliJ IDEA. You'll notice the huge performance degradation. You may also want to move system directory to the faster or larger drive partition.
Config directory stores global IDEA configuration which is not specific to a project
System directory contains project caches, indices, compiler caches, jar caches, logs and thread dumps (except Mac), version control system caches, and some other system files
Plugins directory keeps third-party plug-ins which you install via Plugin Manager (bundled plug-ins are located in IDEA_HOME\plugins)
Locations of these directories can be modified in IDEA_HOME\bin\idea.properties file.
You will need to adjust the following parameters:
idea.config.path
idea.system.path
idea.plugins.path
Note for Mac OS X users: most likely you will not need to change the defaults, but if for some reason you want to do it, you can find the related settings in the Info.plist file located in IDEA Application directory.
For IntelliJ Idea 11.1 Community Edition (IC-117.117) on Mac OS X (10.6) following seems to be the location:
Config: ~/Library/Preferences/IdeaIC11
System: ~/Library/Caches/IdeaIC11
Plugins: ~/Library/Application Support/IdeaIC11
Logs: ~/Library/Logs/IdeaIC11