Maven – Always download sources and javadocs

Is there a way I can configure maven to always download sources and javadocs? Specifying -DdownloadSources=true -DdownloadJavadocs=true everytime (which usually goes along with running mvn compile twice because I forgot the first time) becomes rather tedious.

Open your settings.xml file ~/.m2/settings.xml (create it if it doesn't exist). Add a section with the properties added. Then make sure the activeProfiles includes the new profile.

<settings>

   <!-- ... other settings here ... -->

    <profiles>
        <profile>
            <id>downloadSources</id>
            <properties>
                <downloadSources>true</downloadSources>
                <downloadJavadocs>true</downloadJavadocs>
            </properties>
        </profile>
    </profiles>

    <activeProfiles>
        <activeProfile>downloadSources</activeProfile>
    </activeProfiles>
</settings>

Edit: As mentioned by Jingguo Yao, this works with Eclipse IDE only - the same can also be configured in your IDE of choice. In Elcipse via Window -> Preferences -> Maven menu, though this probably has to done at every workspace level and for fresh Eclipse installations.

Alternatively configure the maven-dependency-plugin in your pom.xml in a separate profile and run it as required - keeping it in the main build will lead to build times (needlessly elongating (not to mention space) at places like your build nodes that don't need either sources or java docs. Preferable this should configured in some org or division parent pom.xml, otherwise it has be repeated everywhere in different places