Unused expression

Reports unused expressions, which often indicate incomplete code or a missing return statement.

If the unused expression is the last statement in a function and its type matches the function's return type, a quick fix is available to automatically add the return keyword.

Example:

fun example(): Int {
    val x = 10
    x // Warning: Expression is unused
}

After the quick-fix is applied:

fun example(): Int {
    val x = 10
    return x
}

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.

UnusedExpression

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 | Kotlin | Probable bugs

Inspection ID: UnusedExpression

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 UnusedExpression

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

IntelliJ IDEA 2025.3

Inspection Details
By default bundled with:	IntelliJ IDEA 2025.3, Qodana for JVM 2025.3,

Last modified: 03 December 2025