Have you ever opened a Maven project in IntelliJ IDEA on your Mac only to find every single file marked as “Modified” or “New,” even though you haven’t touched a line of code?
This is a common headache for developers moving between Windows and macOS environments. The culprit isn’t your code. It’s how different operating systems handle the invisible characters at the end of every line.
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The Problem: CRLF vs. LF
Windows uses CRLF (Carriage Return + Line Feed) to end lines, while macOS and Linux use LF (Line Feed). When you clone a project created on Windows onto your Mac, Git may detect these line-ending differences as actual file changes. This results in IntelliJ showing blue (modified) or green (new) status for files that should be clean.
The Quick Fix: core.autocrlf input
The most effective way to resolve this globally on your Mac is to tell Git to normalize these line endings automatically.
Step-by-Step Solution
- Open your Terminal.
- Run the following command:
git config --global core.autocrlf inputThis tells Git to convert CRLF to LF when you commit code, but to keep things as-is when you check them out on your Mac.
- Refresh IntelliJ IDEA.
Once the config is set, your file status colors should return to normal. If they don’t immediately change, try running git status in your terminal to force a refresh.
Secondary Fix: Registering Directory Mappings
If the files still show “not in git” or “unregistered,” you may need to tell IntelliJ where your Git root is.
- Go to Settings (⌘ + ,) > Version Control > Directory Mappings.
- If you see an “Unregistered root” at the bottom, click the + icon to add it.
- Ensure the VCS column is set to Git.
Pro-Tip: Use .gitattributes
To prevent this issue for everyone on your team (regardless of their OS), add a .gitattributes file to your project root with the following line:
* text=autoThis ensures Git handles line endings consistently across all developer machines.