PyCharm Power Save Mode: which inspections and indexing tasks actually stop running
0 reputation · 05 Nov 2024, 07:20 UTC
I run PyCharm (2024.x Professional, though Community behaves similarly here) on a small low-traffic project and want to cut CPU and memory usage. Power Save Mode is documented as suspending background code analysis, but the documentation I have found does not enumerate exactly which subsystems are paused versus merely throttled.
My specific goal is to keep syntax error highlighting and basic code completion working while dropping the expensive background work (full-project indexing, unused-code inspections, refactoring pre-analysis). It is unclear to me whether Power Save Mode is all-or-nothing, or whether individual inspection profiles still run on the currently open file while project-wide analysis is suspended.
I also cannot tell from the docs whether the mode affects only on-demand analysis or also scheduled tasks like VCS change tracking and automatic re-indexing after external file changes.
Which inspections and background tasks does Power Save Mode actually disable versus keep active on the open file? Is there a supported way to selectively suspend only project-wide analysis while retaining real-time error detection, or is the mode strictly binary?