JetBrains IDEs (PhpStorm, IntelliJ IDEA, WebStorm, Rider, etc.) only bundle an English dictionary. If your project uses Norwegian labels, variable names, or comments, the spell checker flags all of it. This guide adds a Norwegian Hunspell dictionary so that stops happening.

Step 1: Download the dictionary files

Norwegian Hunspell dictionaries are maintained in the official LibreOffice/dictionaries repository, under the no/ folder. Each dictionary is two files: a .dic file (the word list) and a .aff file (affix rules for prefixes/suffixes). Both files must sit in the same folder.

Download Bokmål:

• nb_NO.dic
• nb_NO.aff

Download Nynorsk, if you need it:

• nn_NO.dic
• nn_NO.aff

Or grab both from the terminal:

mkdir -p ~/Dictionaries/no && cd ~/Dictionaries/no
curl -O https://raw.githubusercontent.com/LibreOffice/dictionaries/master/no/nb_NO.dic
curl -O https://raw.githubusercontent.com/LibreOffice/dictionaries/master/no/nb_NO.aff
curl -O https://raw.githubusercontent.com/LibreOffice/dictionaries/master/no/nn_NO.dic
curl -O https://raw.githubusercontent.com/LibreOffice/dictionaries/master/no/nn_NO.aff

Keep the files somewhere permanent. If you move or delete the folder later, the IDE loses the dictionary.

Step 2: Add the dictionary in the IDE

1. Open Settings with Ctrl+Alt+S (Cmd+, on macOS).
2. Go to Editor, then expand Natural Languages by clicking the arrow next to it. Don't just click the row, you need the child items to show.
3. Click the sub-item Spelling underneath Natural Languages. This is a different page from the parent Natural Languages page, and it has its own + button.
4. Click + and select nb_NO.dic (the .aff file next to it is picked up automatically).
5. Confirm the dictionary shows [hunspell-jni] in the list, not [wordlist]. That confirms the affix rules loaded, so word forms like plurals and definite articles are recognized too, not just exact matches.

See the official docs for reference: Spellchecking, IntelliJ IDEA documentation.

Common mix-up: two different + buttons

The Natural Languages parent page also has a + button, but it adds proofreading/grammar languages (the Grazie plugin), not spelling dictionaries. If clicking + only shows you a list of languages to pick from, you're on the wrong page. Go one level deeper, into Spelling.

If the Spelling page is missing

Some IDE versions have a bug where the Spelling sub-item doesn't appear under Natural Languages. This is a known issue: IJPL-213847, "Can't add dictionary to Natural Languages > Spelling".

Workaround: add the dictionary at the project level instead, by creating a dictionary file directly in .idea/dictionaries/ inside your project. This also has the advantage of being shareable with your team through version control.

Background

JetBrains is moving spellchecking towards its bundled Grazie plugin, and Hunspell support is expected to be deprecated eventually, though there's no announced removal date. Until then, custom Hunspell dictionaries work as described above. See Natural languages, IntelliJ IDEA documentation for how Grazie and Spelling relate to each other.