[android] Android studio Gradle build speed up

Since the last update (Build from june 25) any changes in the Android studio Gradle is painfully slow. And it also seems to autotrack changes when you edit the file and recompile on keyup.

Each change takes several minutes on my i5.

Any idea how I can speed up my Gradle changes?

I was able to reduce my gradle build from 43 seconds down to 25 seconds on my old core2duo laptop (running linux mint) by adding the following to the gradle.properties file in android studio

org.gradle.parallel=true
org.gradle.daemon=true

source on why the daemon setting makes builds faster: https://www.timroes.de/2013/09/12/speed-up-gradle/

Acording to this page of the Android Team of Wikimedia Apps, a good way of optimize Gradle builds is adding this lines to your ~/.gradle/gradle.properties

org.gradle.daemon=true                                                          
org.gradle.parallel=true
org.gradle.configureondemand=true
org.gradle.jvmargs=-Xmx2048M

For those who do not have the file there are two ways to do it:

1. Add the file locally in your project by creating a file called gradle.properties in the project root or,

2. You can set them globally for all your projects by creating the same file in your home directory (%UserProfile%.gradle on Windows, ~/.gradle on Linux and Mac OS X)

   It is a good practice to set the properties in your home directory, rather than on a project level.

Add a build.gradle file:

android {
...
dexOptions {
        javaMaxHeapSize "4g" //specify the heap size for the dex process
    }
...
}

I hope it helps.

Definitely makes a difference: How To… Speed up Gradle build time

Just create a file named gradle.properties in the following directory:

/home/<username>/.gradle/ (Linux)
/Users/<username>/.gradle/ (Mac)
C:\Users\<username>\.gradle (Windows)

Add this line to the file:

org.gradle.daemon=true

It often happens when you enabled multidex in you project. This can potentially slow your development process!! According doc:

multidex configuration requires significantly increased build processing time because the build system must make complex decisions about which classes must be included in the primary DEX file and which classes can be included in secondary DEX files. This means that incremental builds using multidex typically take longer and can potentially slow your development process.

but you can optimize this:

To mitigate longer incremental build times, you should use pre-dexing to reuse multidex output between builds.

If you're using Android Studio 2.3 and higher, the IDE automatically uses this feature when deploying your app to a device running Android 5.0 (API level 21) or higher.

So you need to set the minSdkVersion to 21 or higher!

But if you production version need to support minSdkVersion lower than 21, for example 19

you can use productFlavors to set minSdkVersion 21 for you dev version:

    android {
    defaultConfig {
        ...
        multiDexEnabled true
        // The default minimum API level you want to support.
        minSdkVersion 15
    }
    productFlavors {
        // Includes settings you want to keep only while developing your app.
        dev{
            //the IDE automatically uses  pre-dexing feature to mitigate longer incremental when deploying your app to a device running Android 5.0 !
            minSdkVersion 21
        }
        prod {

        }
    }
    buildTypes {
        release {
            minifyEnabled true
            proguardFiles getDefaultProguardFile('proguard-android.txt'),
                                                 'proguard-rules.pro'
        }
    }
}
dependencies {
    compile 'com.android.support:multidex:1.0.3'
}

I’m running a 5th gen i7 with Windows 10 and a 1TB Solid State. I compressed the Android Studio Projects folder and got about an 80% boost. Hope this helps.

I then combined it with the above solutions ie (org.gradle.parallel=true, org.gradle.daemon=true). The performance boost was quite impressive.

Additionally:

All of the above answers are totally correct but I must state as an experience Android developer (of 4 and a half years) that: No Android/Gradle developer should be working on a machine with a spinner drive, you need to fork out for a Solid State. We all hit that play button in the IDE 100s of times per day. When I went from a spinner to SSD (post Gradle), my speed and efficiency was literally 2 – 4 times faster and I promise you I’m NOT exaggerating here.

Now I’m not talking about having a machine with a small SSD and a big spinner, I’m talking about 1 big SSD. If you already have a machine with a small SSD and a big spinner you can upgrade the small spinner to say a 500GB SSD and set the SSD as your main OS drive with your developer tools installed on it.

So if you’re working in a fast paced environment please show this post to your boss. A decent 1TB SSD will set you back about £300 (including VAT), or about £160 for a 500GB SSD. Depending on if you are a junior or senior Android developer the drive will pay for itself (in wages expenses) in 1 – 2 working weeks, or about 2 and a half to 5 working days if you invest in a smaller; say 500GB SSD.

A lot of developers may argue that this is not the case, but it is the case for Gradle, as the Gradle system is very hard on the direct disk access. If you work with .NET/C#/VB Net or other development tools you won’t notice much difference but the difference in Gradle is HUGE. If you act on this post I promise you, you won’t be disappointed. Personally I’m using fifth gen i7 with 8GB RAM which originally came with a 1TB Spinner and I upgraded it to a Samsung SSD 840 EVO 1TB and I’ve never looked back since. I bought mine from: https://www.aria.co.uk.

Hope this helps. Also I must state that this is NOT a commercially motivated post, I’m just recommending Aria as I’ve used them many times before and they’ve always been reliable.

dexOptions {
    incremental true
    javaMaxHeapSize "4g"
}

There is a newer version of gradle (ver 2.4).

You can set this for your project(s) by opening up 'Project Structure' dialog from File menu,

Project Structure -> Project -> Gradle version

and set it to '2.4'.
You can read more about boosting performance at this link.

This is what I did and my gradle build speed improved dramatically! from 1 min to 20sec for the first build and succeeding builds became from 40 sec to 5 sec.

In the gradle.properties file Add this:

org.gradle.jvmargs=-Xmx8192M -XX:+HeapDumpOnOutOfMemoryError -Dfile.encoding=UTF-8

In the Command Line Arguments via Go to File > Other Settings> default Settings >Build, Execution, Deploy> Complier and add the following arguments to Command Line Arguments

Add this:

--debug --stacktrace -a, --no-rebuild -q, --quiet --offline

For faster builds, increase the maximum heap size for the Gradle daemon to more than 2048 MB.

To do this set
org.gradle.jvmargs=-Xmx2048M
in the project gradle.properties.

Following the steps will make it 10 times faster and reduce build time 90%

First create a file named gradle.properties in the following directory:

/home/<username>/.gradle/ (Linux)
/Users/<username>/.gradle/ (Mac)
C:\Users\<username>\.gradle (Windows)

Add this line to the file:

org.gradle.daemon=true
org.gradle.parallel=true

And check this options in Android Studio

few commands we can add to the gradle.properties file:

org.gradle.configureondemand=true - This command will tell gradle to only build the projects that it really needs to build. Use Daemon — org.gradle.daemon=true - Daemon keeps the instance of the gradle up and running in the background even after your build finishes. This will remove the time required to initialize the gradle and decrease your build timing significantly.

org.gradle.parallel=true - Allow gradle to build your project in parallel. If you have multiple modules in you project, then by enabling this, gradle can run build operations for independent modules parallelly.

Increase Heap Size — org.gradle.jvmargs=-Xmx3072m -XX:MaxPermSize=512m -XX:+HeapDumpOnOutOfMemoryError -Dfile.encoding=UTF-8 - Since android studio 2.0, gradle uses dex in the process to decrease the build timings for the project. Generally, while building the applications, multiple dx processes runs on different VM instances. But starting from the Android Studio 2.0, all these dx processes runs in the single VM and that VM is also shared with the gradle. This decreases the build time significantly as all the dex process runs on the same VM instances. But this requires larger memory to accommodate all the dex processes and gradle. That means you need to increase the heap size required by the gradle daemon. By default, the heap size for the daemon is about 1GB.

Ensure that dynamic dependency is not used. i.e. do not use implementation 'com.android.support:appcompat-v7:27.0.+'. This command means gradle will go online and check for the latest version every time it builds the app. Instead use fixed versions i.e. 'com.android.support:appcompat-v7:27.0.2'

I do prefer building from command line for better build times. If your app code base is large and you have multiple modules then you can try Local AAR approach as described here, it will give you a big boost in Android Studio performance & gradle build times. Its compatible with command line builds as well

https://blog.gojekengineering.com/how-we-improved-performance-and-build-times-in-android-studio-306028166b79

Demo project with integration instructions can be found here: https://github.com/akhgupta/AndroidLocalMavenRepoAARDemo

Add this to your gradle.properties file

org.gradle.daemon=true                                                          
org.gradle.parallel=true
org.gradle.configureondemand=true
org.gradle.jvmargs=-Xmx2048M

1. Enable Offline Work

2. Improve Gradle Performance by adding following code in gradle.properties

org.gradle.daemon=true
org.gradle.parallel=true

Step by step guide:http://www.viralandroid.com/2015/08/how-to-make-android-studio-fast.html

With Android Studio 2.1 you can enable "Dex In Process" for faster app builds.

You can get more info about it here: https://medium.com/google-developers/faster-android-studio-builds-with-dex-in-process-5988ed8aa37e#.vijksflyn

You can also use command line for better performance.You can use the command ./gradlew <task name> from inside the root folder of your project from linux or use gradlew.bat file like gradlew <task name>.when you first run one of the commands above for a given Gradle version, it will download the corresponding Gradle distribution and use it to execute the build.

When importing a Gradle project via its wrapper, your IDE may ask to use the Gradle 'all' distribution. This is perfectly fine and helps the IDE provide code completion for the build files. Not only does this mean that you don’t have to manually install Gradle yourself, but you are also sure to use the version of Gradle that the build is designed for. This makes your historical builds more reliable. for more info refer Executing a build with the Wrapper

After change this settings my compile time 10 mins reduced to 10 secs.

Step 1:

Settings(ctrl+Alt+S) ->

Build,Execution,Deployment ->

Compiler ->

type "--offline" in command-line Options box.

Step 2:

check the “Compile independent modules in parallel” checkbox.

& click Apply -> OK

Step 3: In your gradle.properties file -> Add following lines

org.gradle.jvmargs=-Xmx2048M -XX:MaxPermSize=512m -XX:+HeapDumpOnOutOfMemoryError -Dfile.encoding=UTF-8
org.gradle.parallel=true
org.gradle.configureondemand=true
org.gradle.daemon=true

Update:

If you are using Android studio 2.0 or above try the Instant Run

Settings ? Build, Execution, Deployment ? Instant Run ? Enable Instant Run.

More info about Instant Run - https://developer.android.com/studio/run/index.html#instant-run

Open gradle.properties from android folder and uncomment highlighted lines and provide memory values as per your machine configuration. I have 8gb ram on my machine so i gave maximum 4096mb and 1024mb respectively.

# Specifies the JVM arguments used for the daemon process.
# The setting is particularly useful for tweaking memory settings.
# Default value: -Xmx10248m -XX:MaxPermSize=256m
//Uncomment below line for providing your system specific configuration
#org.gradle.jvmargs=-Xmx4096m -XX:MaxPermSize=1024m -XX:+HeapDumpOnOutOfMemoryError - Dfile.encoding=UTF-8

# When configured, Gradle will run in incubating parallel mode.
# This option should only be used with decoupled projects. More details, visit
#http://www.gradle.org/docs/current/userguide/multi_project_builds.html#sec:decoupled_projects
 //Uncomment below line to allow parallel process execution.
 #org.gradle.parallel=true

My build time was reduced to half after this. Happy building!!

Try to avoid using a Mac/PC that has only 8 GB of RAM when doing Android development. As soon as you launch even 1 emulator (Genymotion or otherwise), your build times become extremely slow in Android Studio with gradle builds. This happens even if you make a simple one-line change to 1 source file.

Closing the emulator and using a real device helps a lot, but of course this is very limiting and less flexible. Reducing the RAM usage setting of the emulator can help, but the best way is to ensure your laptop has at least 12-16 GB of RAM.

Update (June 2017): There are now several good medium.com articles that explain how to speed up Android Studio gradle builds in detail, and it even works on 8 GB machines:

• How to decrease your Gradle build time by 65%: https://medium.com/@kevalpatel2106/how-to-decrease-your-gradle-build-time-by-65-310b572b0c43
• Make your Gradle builds fast again!: https://medium.com/@wasyl/make-your-gradle-builds-fast-again-ea323ce6a435

The summarised consensus is:

Create a gradle.properties file (either global at ~/.gradle/gradle.properties or local to project), and add the following lines:

org.gradle.daemon=true
org.gradle.jvmargs=-Xmx2048m -XX:MaxPermSize=512m -XX:+HeapDumpOnOutOfMemoryError -Dfile.encoding=UTF-8
org.gradle.parallel=true
org.gradle.configureondemand=true