In Eclipse, just include the Spring Boot Dev Tools dependency, then the hot swapping and static file reload will be enabled magically. For Intellij IDE, we need extra steps to enable it.

1. Spring Boot Dev Tools

With Spring Boot Dev Tools enabled :

• Any changes to views or resources can be seen in the browser directly, no need restarts, just refresh the browser.
• Any changes to the code that will restart the Spring container automatically.

First, include the Spring Boot Dev Tools dependency :

  <!-- hot swapping, enable live reload -->
  <dependency>
      <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
      <artifactId>spring-boot-devtools</artifactId>
      <optional>true</optional>
  </dependency>

2. Build Project Automatically

File –> Setting –> Build, Execution, Deployment –> Compiler –> check this Build project automatically

3. Intellij Registry

3.1 Press SHIFT+CTRL+A (Win/*nix) or Command+SHIFT+A (Mac) to open a pop-up windows, type registry

3.2 Find and enabled this option compiler.automake.allow.when.app.running

Done. Now, the hot swapping & static files auto reload should be enabled.