When a new iml file is generated with mvn idea:idea -DdownloadSources=true -DdownloadJavadocs=true the generated .iml-file contains invalid entries for the javadocs and sources, like in this example: <orderEntry type="module-library"> <library> <JAVADOC/> <SOURCES/> <CLASSES> <root url="jar://C:/Dokumente und Einstellungen/muellerg/.m2/repository/commons-beanutils/commons-beanutils/1.7.0/commons-beanutils-1.7.0.jar!/" /> </CLASSES> <SOURCES> <root url="jar://C:/Dokumente und Einstellungen/muellerg/.m2/repository/commons-beanutils/commons-beanutils/1.7.0/commons-beanutils-1.7.0-sources.jar!/" /> </SOURCES> <JAVADOC> <root url="jar://C:/Dokumente und Einstellungen/muellerg/.m2/repository/commons-beanutils/commons-beanutils/1.7.0/commons-beanutils-1.7.0-javadoc.jar!/" /> </JAVADOC> </library> </orderEntry> Removing the empty <JAVADOC/> <SOURCES/> entries allows me to see the sources, but this is not a good solution. By looking at the source code https://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/maven/plugins/trunk/maven-idea-plugin/src/main/java/org/apache/maven/plugin/idea/IdeaModuleMojo.java the reason might be the method private Element createOrGetElement( Element lib, String name ) { Element el = lib.element( "name" ); if ( el == null ) { el = createElement( lib, name ); } return el; } In my opinion, the method should look like this: private Element createOrGetElement( Element lib, String name ) { Element el = lib.element( name ); // CHANGE DONE HERE if ( el == null ) { el = createElement( lib, name ); } } return el; } as otherwiese ALWAYS new element instances are created, regardless the provided name to look for,