IntelliJ IDEA 13 uses Java 1.5 despite setting to 1.7

Question

Despite specifying JDK 1.7 in all project settings (including in File -> Project Structure -> Project :: Project SDK), the following error is produced by

Answer 1

File->Project structure->Project Settings->Project->Project Language level

File->Project structure->Project Settings->Modules->Language level

Change level using drop down

Answer 2

First, you need to change the "project bytecode version" under File > Settings, Compiler > Java Compiler

Second, do a full rebuild.

Answer 3

One more thing that could cause this is having incorrect version of the <parent> project.

In my case it was pointing to a non-existing project and for some reason IntelliJ downgraded version in settings to 1.5 and later when I fixed it, it was still interpreting target code version as 5 (despite setting it to 11).

Answer 4

If nothing of this helps (my case), you can set it in your pom.xml, like this:

<properties>
  <maven.compiler.source>1.7</maven.compiler.source>
  <maven.compiler.target>1.7</maven.compiler.target>
</properties>

As this cool guy mentioned here: https://stackoverflow.com/a/25888116/1643465

Answer 5

Alternatively, you can apply maven-compiler-plugin with appropriate java version by adding this to your pom.xml:

<build>
    <plugins>
        <plugin>
            <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
            <artifactId>maven-compiler-plugin</artifactId>
            <configuration>
                <source>1.8</source>
                <target>1.8</target>
            </configuration>
        </plugin>
    </plugins>
</build>

Answer 6

I have same problem but with different situation. I can compile without any issue with maven in command line (mvn clean install), but in Intellij I always got "java: diamond operator is not supported in -source 1.5" compile error despite I have set the maven-compiler-plugin with java 1.8 in the pom.xml.

It turned out I have remote repository setting in my maven's settings.xml which the project depends on, but Intellij uses his own maven which doesn't have same setting with my local maven.

So my solution was changing the Intellij's maven setting (Settings -> Build, execution, Deployment -> Maven -> Maven home directory) to use the local maven.