Users who prefer the IntelliJ’s old UI (now called “Classic UI”) can use the official Classic UI plugin. However, JetBrains specified that the Classic UI was no longer maintained and would be discontinued if it no longer worked with future versions of their IDEs.
Many users have complained about this for various reasons (very valid ones, in my humble opinion), and a recent change in IJPL-158776 gives them some hope.
JetBrains acknowledges that the new UI has some flaws:
Inefficient use of horizontal space: Horizontal tool window names make the sidebar very wide and eat into editor space. If users shrink the sidebar, labels get truncated and become unreadable.
Icons are not self-explanatory: Many tool window icons are hard to interpret or distinguish from each other, especially when there are many tool windows or plugin-added ones, so icons-only mode hurts discoverability and causes frequent misclicks.
“Show tool window names” option is not a real workaround: Enabling horizontal labels is perceived as a half-baked solution because it either wastes space or cuts off text. People explicitly want the former vertical labels back.
Target size and clickability: With icons only, the vertical clickable area is small and harder to aim at, especially on dense setups or for less precise users.
Accessibility: Some users rely on text labels because they struggle to distinguish icons. For them, the current design is an accessibility regression.
Classic UI is seen as much more space-efficient and legible for tool windows. Many users are sticking to the Classic UI plugin specifically because of this, and are worried it will degrade or be removed.
Users also feel that the New UI favors aesthetics and marketing over everyday usability, and that user feedback on core ergonomics (like sidebars and labels) is not being addressed with sufficient priority.
This does not mean that JetBrains will maintain the Classic UI. Absolutely not, but the new UI could be redesigned. Finally!
Unfortunately, there is no ETA, and if it happens, it will take time, but at least JetBrains recognizes the problem.