Copying project dependencies

Project dependencies are the dependencies declared in your pom. To copy them with their transitive dependencies, use the dependency:copy-dependencies mojo and configure the plugin like the sample below:

<project>
  [...]
  <build>
    <plugins>
      <plugin>
        <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
        <artifactId>maven-dependency-plugin</artifactId>
        <version>2.9</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>
  </build>
  [...]
</project>

Excluding transitive dependencies

As mentioned, transitive dependencies are copied by default. However, they can also be excluded by setting the excludeTransitive property to true.

<project>
  [...]
  <build>
    <plugins>
      <plugin>
        <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
        <artifactId>maven-dependency-plugin</artifactId>
        <version>2.9</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>true</overWriteSnapshots>
              <excludeTransitive>true</excludeTransitive>
            </configuration>
          </execution>
        </executions>
      </plugin>
    </plugins>
  </build>
  [...]
</project>