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intellij-ideaideeditor

How to open file as read-only in IntelliJ Idea, without changing its attributes?

In IntelliJ IDEA, I am sometimes opening files from outside the project, and want to protect them against my accidental changes.

Is it possible to toggle the editor to read-only mode? They have the Reader mode which activates automatically if the file itself is read-only or when I open a library source code. However I don't know how to force the reader mode for an arbitrary file.

I am not asking how to change the file attribute to read-only.
I want to keep the file editable in the file system, and just have it read-only in IntelliJ IDEA.

Solution

  • I got an official answer from JetBrains:

    Unfortunately, it seems there is no possibility for now to enter Reader Mode without making a file itself read-only.

    EDIT:

    On 04 Mar 2024 JetBrains created a change request Have a readonly mode without changing file attributes. Let's see how it is progressing :)