Configure Android Studio

Android Studio provides wizards and templates that verify your system requirements, such as the Java Development Kit (JDK) and available RAM, and configure default settings, such as an optimized default Android Virtual Device (AVD) emulation and updated system images. This document describes additional configuration settings to customize your use of Android Studio.

Android Studio provides access to two configuration files through the Help menu:

studio.vmoptions: Customize options for Android Studio's Java Virtual Machine (JVM), such as heap size and cache size. Note that on Linux machines this file may be named studio64.vmoptions, depending on your version of Android Studio.
idea.properties: Customize Android Studio properties, such as the plugins folder path or maximum supported file size.

For specific documentation about emulator and device setup and use, see the following topics:

Find your configuration files

Both configuration files are stored in the configuration directory for Android Studio. To find the configuration directory, see Directories.

You can use the following environment variables to point to specific override files elsewhere:

STUDIO_VM_OPTIONS: set the name and location of the .vmoptions file.
STUDIO_PROPERTIES: set the name and location of the .properties file.

You can configure which JDKs are used by visiting Java versions in Android builds.

Customize your VM options

The studio.vmoptions file lets you customize options for Android Studio's JVM. To improve Android Studio's performance, the most common option to adjust is the maximum heap size, but you can also use the studio.vmoptions file to override other default settings such as initial heap size, cache size, and Java garbage collection switches.

To create a new studio.vmoptions file or to open your existing one, follow these steps:

Click Help > Edit Custom VM Options. If you have never edited VM options for Android Studio before, the IDE prompts you to create a new studio.vmoptions file. Click Create to create the file.
The studio.vmoptions file opens in Android Studio's editor window. Edit the file to add your customized VM options. For a full list of customizable JVM options, see Oracle's Java HotSpot VM Options page.

The studio.vmoptions file you create is added to the default studio.vmoptions file, located in the bin/ directory inside your Android Studio installation folder.

Don't directly edit the studio.vmoptions file found inside the Android Studio program folder. While you can access the file to view Android Studio's default VM options, editing only your own studio.vmoptions file ensures that you don't override important default settings for Android Studio. Therefore, in your studio.vmoptions file, override only the attributes you care about and let Android Studio continue using default values for any attributes you have not changed.

Maximum heap size

By default, Android Studio has a maximum heap size of 1280MB. If you are working on a large project, or your system has a lot of RAM, you can improve performance by increasing the maximum heap size for Android Studio processes, such as the core IDE, Gradle daemon, and Kotlin daemon.

Android Studio automatically checks for possible heap size optimizations and notifies you if it detects that performance can be improved.

The memory settings, which let you configure maximum amount of RAM
for Android Studio processes.

Figure 1. A notification about recommended memory settings.

If you use a 64-bit system that has at least 5 GB of RAM, you can also adjust the heap sizes for your project manually. To do so, follow these steps:

Click File > Settings from the menu bar (Android Studio > Preferences on macOS).
Click Appearance & Behavior > System Settings > Memory Settings.

Figure 2. Configure the maximum amount of RAM in Memory Settings.
Adjust the heap sizes.
Click Apply.

If you change the heap size for the IDE, you must restart Android Studio before the new memory settings are applied.

Export and import IDE settings

You can export a Settings.jar file that contains all or a subset of your preferred IDE settings for a project. You can then import the JAR file into your other projects and/or make the JAR file available to your colleagues to import into their projects.

For more information, see Share IDE settings at IntelliJ IDEA.

Customize your IDE properties

The idea.properties file lets you customize the IDE properties for Android Studio, such as the path to user-installed plugins and the maximum file size supported by the IDE. The idea.properties file is merged with the default properties for the IDE, so you can specify only the override properties.

To create a new idea.properties file or to open your existing file, follow these steps:

Click Help > Edit Custom Properties. If you have never edited the IDE properties before, Android Studio prompts you to create a new idea.properties file. Click Yes to create the file.
The idea.properties file opens in Android Studio's editor window. Edit the file to add your customized IDE properties.

The following idea.properties file includes commonly customized IDE properties. For a complete list of properties, read about the idea.properties file for IntelliJ IDEA.

#---------------------------------------------------------------------
# Uncomment this option if you want to customize path to user installed plugins folder. Make sure
# you're using forward slashes.
#---------------------------------------------------------------------
# idea.plugins.path=${idea.config.path}/plugins
#---------------------------------------------------------------------
# Maximum file size (kilobytes) IDE should provide code assistance for.
# The larger the file is, the slower its editor works and higher overall system memory requirements are
# if code assistance is enabled. Remove this property or set to very large number if you need
# code assistance for any files available regardless their size.
#---------------------------------------------------------------------
idea.max.intellisense.filesize=2500
#---------------------------------------------------------------------
# This option controls console cyclic buffer: keeps the console output size not higher than the
# specified buffer size (Kb). Older lines are deleted. In order to disable cycle buffer use
# idea.cycle.buffer.size=disabled
#---------------------------------------------------------------------
idea.cycle.buffer.size=1024
#---------------------------------------------------------------------
# Configure if a special launcher should be used when running processes from within IDE.
# Using Launcher enables "soft exit" and "thread dump" features.
#---------------------------------------------------------------------
idea.no.launcher=false
#---------------------------------------------------------------------
# To avoid too long classpath
#---------------------------------------------------------------------
idea.dynamic.classpath=false
#---------------------------------------------------------------------
# There are two possible values of idea.popup.weight property: "heavy" and "medium".
# If you have WM configured as "Focus follows mouse with Auto Raise", then you have to
# set this property to "medium". It prevents problems with popup menus on some
# configurations.
#---------------------------------------------------------------------
idea.popup.weight=heavy
#---------------------------------------------------------------------
# Use default anti-aliasing in system, i.e. override value of
# "Settings|Editor|Appearance|Use anti-aliased font" option. May be useful when using Windows
# Remote Desktop Connection for instance.
#---------------------------------------------------------------------
idea.use.default.antialiasing.in.editor=false
#---------------------------------------------------------------------
# Disabling this property may lead to visual glitches like blinking and fail to repaint
# on certain display adapter cards.
#---------------------------------------------------------------------
sun.java2d.noddraw=true
#---------------------------------------------------------------------
# Removing this property may lead to editor performance degradation under Windows.
#---------------------------------------------------------------------
sun.java2d.d3d=false
#---------------------------------------------------------------------
# Workaround for slow scrolling in JDK6.
#---------------------------------------------------------------------
swing.bufferPerWindow=false
#---------------------------------------------------------------------
# Removing this property may lead to editor performance degradation under X Window.
#---------------------------------------------------------------------
sun.java2d.pmoffscreen=false
#---------------------------------------------------------------------
# Workaround to avoid long hangs while accessing clipboard under Mac OS X.
#---------------------------------------------------------------------
# ide.mac.useNativeClipboard=True
#---------------------------------------------------------------------
# Maximum size (kilobytes) IDEA will load for showing past file contents -
# in Show Diff or when calculating Digest Diff.
#---------------------------------------------------------------------
# idea.max.vcs.loaded.size.kb=20480

Configure the IDE for low-memory machines

If you are running Android Studio on a machine with less than the recommended specifications (see the system requirements), you can customize the IDE to improve performance on your machine as follows:

Reduce the maximum heap size available to Android Studio: Reduce the maximum heap size for Android Studio to 512Mb. For more information on changing maximum heap size, see Maximum heap size.
Update Gradle and the Android Gradle plugin: Update to the latest versions of Gradle and the Android Gradle plugin to take advantage of the latest performance improvements. For more information about updating Gradle and the Android Gradle plugin, see the Android Gradle plugin release notes.
Enable Power Save Mode: Enable Power Save Mode to turn off a number of memory- and battery-intensive background operations, including error highlighting and on-the-fly inspections, auto-popup code completion, and automatic incremental background compilation. To turn on Power Save Mode, click File > Power Save Mode.
Disable unnecessary lint checks: To change which lint checks Android Studio runs on your code, do the following:
1. Click File > Settings (on macOS, Android Studio > Preferences) to open the Settings dialog.
2. In the left pane, expand the Editor section and click Inspections.
3. Click the checkboxes to select or deselect lint checks as appropriate for your project.
4. Click Apply or OK to save your changes.
Debug on a physical device: Improve overall performance for Android Studio by debugging on a physical device. Debugging on an emulator uses more memory than debugging on a physical device.
Include only necessary Google Play services as dependencies: Only include necessary Google Play Services as dependencies in your project. Dependencies increase the amount of memory necessary, so limiting them improves memory usage and performance. For more information, see Declare dependencies for Google Play services.
Reduce the maximum heap size available for Gradle: Reduce the value of Gradle's maximum heap size from its default of 1,536 MB by overriding the org.gradle.jvmargs property in the gradle.properties file, as shown:
```
# Make sure to gradually decrease this value and note
# changes in performance. Allocating too little memory can
# also decrease performance.
org.gradle.jvmargs = -Xmx1536m
```
Make sure parallel compilation is not enabled: Android Studio can compile independent modules in parallel, but leave this feature disabled if you have a low-memory system. To check this setting, do the following:
1. Click File > Settings (on macOS, Android Studio > Preferences) to open the Settings dialog.
2. In the left pane, expand Build, Execution, Deployment and then click Compiler.
3. Ensure that the Compile independent modules in parallel option is unchecked.
4. If you have made a change, click Apply or OK for your change to take effect.

Set proxy settings

Proxies serve as intermediary connection points between HTTP clients and web servers that add security and privacy to internet connections.

To support running Android Studio behind a firewall, use the Android Studio IDE HTTP Proxy settings page to set the HTTP proxy settings.

When running the Android Gradle plugin from the command line or on machines where Android Studio is not installed, such as continuous integration servers, set the proxy settings in the Gradle build file.

Set up the Android Studio proxy

Android Studio supports HTTP proxy settings so you can run Android Studio behind a firewall or secure network. To set the HTTP proxy settings in Android Studio:

From the menu bar, click File > Settings (on macOS, click Android Studio > Preferences).
In the left pane, click Appearance & Behavior > System Settings > HTTP Proxy. The HTTP Proxy page appears.
Select Auto-detect proxy settings to use an automatic proxy configuration URL for the proxy settings or Manual proxy configuration to enter each of the settings yourself. For a detailed explanation of these settings, see HTTP Proxy.
Click Apply or OK for your changes to take effect.

Android plugin for Gradle HTTP proxy settings

When running the Android plugin from the command line or on machines where Android Studio is not installed, set the Android Gradle plugin proxy settings in the Gradle build file.

For application-specific HTTP proxy settings, set the proxy settings in the build.gradle file as required for each application module:

plugins {
  id 'com.android.application'
}

android {
    ...

    defaultConfig {
        ...
        systemProp.http.proxyHost=proxy.company.com
        systemProp.http.proxyPort=443
        systemProp.http.proxyUser=userid
        systemProp.http.proxyPassword=password
        systemProp.http.auth.ntlm.domain=domain
    }
    ...
}

For project-wide HTTP proxy settings, set the proxy settings in the gradle/gradle.properties file:

# Project-wide Gradle settings.
...

systemProp.http.proxyHost=proxy.company.com
systemProp.http.proxyPort=443
systemProp.http.proxyUser=username
systemProp.http.proxyPassword=password
systemProp.http.auth.ntlm.domain=domain

systemProp.https.proxyHost=proxy.company.com
systemProp.https.proxyPort=443
systemProp.https.proxyUser=username
systemProp.https.proxyPassword=password
systemProp.https.auth.ntlm.domain=domain

...

For information about using Gradle properties for proxy settings, see the Gradle User Guide.

Optimize Android Studio performance on Windows

Android Studio performance on Windows can be impacted by a variety of factors. This section describes how you can optimize Android Studio settings to get the best possible performance on Windows.

Minimize the impact of antivirus software on build speed

Some antivirus software can interfere with the Android Studio build process, causing builds to run dramatically slower. When you run a build in Android Studio, Gradle compiles your app’s resources and source code and then packages the compiled resources together in an APK or AAB. During this process, many files are created on your computer. If your antivirus software has real-time scanning enabled, the antivirus software can force the build process to halt each time a file is created while it scans that file.

To avoid this issue, you can exclude certain directories from real-time scanning in your antivirus software. For Windows, Build Analyzer can help you identify the directories that should be excluded from active scanning and exclude them.

The following list shows the default location of each Android Studio directory that you can exclude from real-time scanning:

Gradle cache: %USERPROFILE%\.gradle
Android Studio projects: %USERPROFILE%\AndroidStudioProjects
Android SDK: %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\Android\SDK

Android Studio system files

Syntax: %LOCALAPPDATA%\Google\<product><version>

Example: C:\Users\YourUserName\AppData\Local\Google\AndroidStudio4.1

Customize directory locations for Group Policy controlled environments

If a Group Policy limits which directories you can exclude from real-time scanning on your computer, you can move your Android Studio directories to one of the locations that the centralized Group Policy already excludes.

The following list shows how to customize the location of each Android Studio directory, where C:\WorkFolder is the directory that your Group Policy already excludes:

Gradle cache

Define the GRADLE_USER_HOME environment variable to point to C:\WorkFolder\.gradle.

Android Studio projects

Move or create project directories in an appropriate subdirectory of C:\WorkFolder. For example, C:\WorkFolder\AndroidStudioProjects.

Android SDK

Follow these steps to customize location:

In Android Studio, open the Settings dialog (Preferences on macOS), then navigate to Appearance & Behavior > System Settings > Android SDK.
Change the value of Android SDK Location to C:\WorkFolder\AndroidSDK.

To avoid downloading the SDK again, copy the existing SDK directory, located at %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\Android\SDK by default, to the new location.

Android Studio system files

Follow these steps to customize location:

In Android Studio, click Help > Edit Custom Properties.

Android Studio prompts you to create an idea.properties file if you don't already have one.

Add the following line to your idea.properties file:

idea.system.path=c:/workfolder/studio/caches/trunk-system