Dangling Javadoc comment

Reports Javadoc comments that don't belong to any class, method or field. The Javadoc tool ignores dangling Javadoc comments and doesn't include them in the HTML documentation it generates.

Example:

  class A {
    /**
     * Dangling comment
     */
    /**
     * Method javadoc
     */
     public void m(){}
  }

A quick-fix is available to delete such comments completely or convert them into a block comment. After the quick-fix is applied:

  class A {
    /*
      Dangling comment
    */
    /**
     * Method javadoc
     */
    public void m(){}
  }

Locating this inspection

By ID

Can be used to locate inspection in e.g. Qodana configuration files, where you can quickly enable or disable it, or adjust its settings.

DanglingJavadoc

Via Settings dialog

Path to the inspection settings via IntelliJ Platform IDE Settings dialog, when you need to adjust inspection settings directly from your IDE.

Settings or Preferences | Editor | Inspections | Java | Javadoc

Use the Ignore file header comment in JavaDoc format option to ignore comments at the beginning of Java files. These are usually copyright messages.

Inspection options

Here you can find the description of settings available for the Dangling Javadoc comment inspection, and the reference of their default values.

Ignore file header comment in JavaDoc format: Default value:
Selected

Suppressing Inspection

You can suppress this inspection by placing the following comment marker before the code fragment where you no longer want messages from this inspection to appear:

//noinspection DanglingJavadoc

More detailed instructions as well as other ways and options that you have can be found in the product documentation:

IntelliJ IDEA 2025.2

Inspection Details
By default bundled with:	IntelliJ IDEA 2025.2, Qodana for JVM 2025.2,

Last modified: 18 September 2025