Intellij IDEa automatically excludes folders with a name like "target" for example. I want to define a rule for automatically exclude some folders depending on a specific pattern instead of excluding all of them manually.
Go into your project settings
-> Modules
menu.
Choose the right module and mark the folder you don't want to index as excluded
.
This is the only way to do it. There is no automatic way to that.
If you have really to many folders to exclude, you can go into your PROJECT/.idea/modules
folder.
You should have an iml
file for every module in your project.
You will find a structure like
<content url="file://$MODULE_DIR$/../..">
<excludeFolder url="file://$MODULE_DIR$/../../.gradle" />
<excludeFolder url="file://$MODULE_DIR$/../../build" />
<excludeFolder url="file://$MODULE_DIR$/../../node_modules" />
<excludeFolder url="file://$MODULE_DIR$/../../target" />
</content>
<orderEntry type="inheritedJdk" />
You should be able to add all your exclude folders using some bash magic.
HTH