Downloading all maven dependencies to a directory NOT in repository?

The maven dependency plugin can potentially solve your problem.

If you have a pom with all your project dependencies specified, all you would need to do is run

mvn dependency:copy-dependencies

and you will find the target/dependencies folder filled with all the dependencies, including transitive.

Adding Gustavo's answer from below: To download the dependency sources, you can use

mvn dependency:copy-dependencies -Dclassifier=sources

(via Apache Maven Dependency Plugin doc).


I finally figured out a how to use Maven. From within Eclipse, create a new Maven project.

Download Maven, extract the archive, add the /bin folder to path.

Validate install from command-line by running mvn -v (will print version and java install path)

Change to the project root folder (where pom.xml is located) and run:

mvn dependency:copy-dependencies

All jar-files are downloaded to /target/dependency.

To set another output directory:

mvn dependency:copy-dependencies -DoutputDirectory="c:\temp"

Now it's possible to re-use this Maven-project for all dependency downloads by altering the pom.xml

Add jars to java project by build path -> configure build path -> libraries -> add JARs..


Based on @Raghuram answer, I find a tutorial on Copying project dependencies, Just:

  1. Open your project pom.xml file and find this:

    <project>
      [...]
      <build>
        <plugins>
          ...
        </plugins>
      </build>
      [...]
    </project>
    
  2. Than replace the <plugins> ... </plugins> with:

    <plugins>
      <plugin>
        <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
        <artifactId>maven-dependency-plugin</artifactId>
        <version>3.0.0</version>
        <executions>
          <execution>
            <id>copy-dependencies</id>
            <phase>package</phase>
            <goals>
              <goal>copy-dependencies</goal>
            </goals>
            <configuration>
              <outputDirectory>${project.build.directory}/alternateLocation</outputDirectory>
              <overWriteReleases>false</overWriteReleases>
              <overWriteSnapshots>false</overWriteSnapshots>
              <overWriteIfNewer>true</overWriteIfNewer>
            </configuration>
          </execution>
        </executions>
      </plugin>
    </plugins>
    
  3. And call maven within the command line mvn dependency:copy-dependencies

After it finishes, it will create the folder target/dependency within all the jar's dependencies on the current directory where the pom.xml lives.


I found the next command

mvn dependency:copy-dependencies -Dclassifier=sources

here maven.apache.org