I have done a fair amount of googling about this question and most of the threads I've found are 2+ years old, so I am wondering if anything has changed, or if there is a new method to solve the issue pertaining to this topic.
As you might know when using IntelliJ (I use 14.0.2), it often autosaves files. For me, when making a change in Java or JavaScript files, its about 2 seconds before the changes are saved.  There are options that one would think should have an effect on this, such as Settings > Appearance & Behavior > System Settings > Synchronization > Save files automatically if application is idle for X sec.  These settings seem to have no effect for me though, and IntelliJ still autosaves, for example if I need to scroll up to remember how a method I am referencing does something.
This is really frustrating when I have auto-makes, which mess up TomCat, or watches on files via Grunt, Karma, etc when doing JS development.  Is there a magic setting that they've put in recently?  Has anyone figured out how to turn off auto-save, or actually delay it?
I think the correct answer was given as a comment from ryanlutgen above: 
The beaviour of "auto-saving" your file is not due to the auto-save options mentioned.
IJ saves all changes to your build sources to automatically build the target.
This can be turned of in: 
Preferences -> Build,Execution,Deployment -> Compiler -> Make project automatically.
Note: now have to initiate the project build manually (e.g. by using an appropriate key-shortcut)
(All other "auto-save" options just fine-tune the build in auto-save behaviour.)
Turning off IntelliJ Auto-save