How can I reload properties file in Spring 4 using annotations?

This works a treat. Requires Java 7, Apache commons logging, Apache commons lang (v2.6) and Apache commons Configuration:

package corejava.reloadTest;

import org.apache.commons.configuration.ConfigurationException;
import org.apache.commons.configuration.PropertiesConfiguration;
import org.apache.commons.configuration.reloading.FileChangedReloadingStrategy;

public class MyApplicationProperties {
    private static PropertiesConfiguration configuration = null;

    static {
        try {
            configuration = new PropertiesConfiguration("test.properties");
        } catch (ConfigurationException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }
        configuration.setReloadingStrategy(new FileChangedReloadingStrategy());
    }

    public static synchronized String getProperty(final String key) {
        return (String) configuration.getProperty(key);
    }
}

and test it with:

package corejava.reloadTest;

public class TestReloading {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        while (true) {
            try {
                Thread.sleep(2000);
            } catch (InterruptedException e) {
                e.printStackTrace();
            }
            System.out.println(MyApplicationProperties.getProperty("key"));
        }
    }
}

Output when you change test.properties is something like this (original contents of test.props was key=value, later changed to key=value1 mid-program execution):

value
value
value
value
value
Jan 17, 2015 2:05:26 PM org.apache.commons.configuration.PropertiesConfiguration reload
INFO: Reloading configuration. URL is file:/D:/tools/workspace   /AutoReloadConfigUsingApacheCommons/resources/test.properties
value1
value1
value1

You could also consider Official Spring Framework Reference Documentation Refreshable beans , using a DSL like Groovy for this.