Android Studio Changelog

What's new in Android Studio 2022.3.1.18

Jul 26, 2023

Use Live Edit to update composables in real time
New UI theme
Support for Grammatical Inflection API
Automatic per-app language support
New API support for Compose Animation Preview
View and manage processes in the Device Explorer
New Android SDK Upgrade Assistant
Support for Gradle Version Catalogs
Enhanced diagnostic tools and bug reporting
Make Selected Modules toolbar button
Download info during sync
Android Lint contains bytecode targeting JVM 17
Native library compression setting moved to DSL

New in Android Studio 2022.1.1.20 (Feb 2, 2023)

New in Android Studio 2022.1.1.19 (Jan 13, 2023)

SDK insights:
View dependency insights from the new Google Play SDK Index, a public portal with information about popular dependencies, or SDKs. If a specific version of a library has been marked as outdated by its author, a corresponding Lint warning appears when viewing that dependency definition. This enables you to discover and update dependency issues during development instead of later when you go to publish your app on the Play Console. You can learn more about this new tool on the Android Developer's Blog post here.
App Quality Insights from Firebase Crashlytics:
Starting with Android Studio Electric Eel, you can see and act on app crash data from Firebase Crashlytics directly in the IDE. This integration pulls stack trace data and crash statistics from Crashlytics into the new App Quality Insights tool window in the IDE, so you don't have to jump back and forth between your browser and the IDE. Development teams can benefit from key capabilities including the following:
See lines in your code highlighted when they have related Crashlytics event data.
See the stack trace for top crashes and click on the stack trace to jump to the relevant lines in your code.
See summary statistics about top crash and non-fatal events, for example grouped by device manufacturer and Android version.
Filter events by severity, time, and app version.
Get a browser link that opens the Crashlytics dashboard page with more details about the event.
With the Android Studio and Crashlytics integration, you can write code and address top crash issues all in the same spot. This enriched development experience helps you stay informed about your app's performance and minimize disruptions for your users. If you encounter any issues with this feature, file a bug.
If you're not using Crashlytics yet and would like to learn more about its offerings, see Firebase Crashlytics.
Navigate Crashlytics data in Android Studio:
The App Quality Insights tool window has rich data that gives you insight into the events your users are encountering, and links to help you quickly navigate to the sources of those events.
App Quality Insights tool window:
If your project includes multiple app modules, make sure the module you want to see event data for is selected from the module dropdown menu.
Use the application ID dropdown menu to select the app ID you want to analyze. For example, while you might work on the debug version of your app in the IDE, you might want to see event data for your production version of your app that your users install.
The Issues panel shows the top events that Crashlytics has data for, and is sorted by your most impactful crashes.
The Sample Stack Trace panel shows details about the latest occurrence of the event you click on in the Issues panel. You can see the event's stack trace and click on the stack trace to jump to the relevant lines in your code base.
There is also information about the device type affected, its Android version, and the time the event occurred, as well a link to the event in the Firebase Crashlytics dashboard. The dashboard is useful if you want to dive deeper and inspect additional stack traces, trends, and custom logs.
The Details panel breaks down the crash counts by device type and Android version, so you can determine which user groups are most affected. It also shows which app version(s) experienced the crash and the number of users affected.
Use the severity filters to select or deselect events that are Fatal or Non-Fatal .
Use the time range and app version filters to hone in on certain subsets of events.
In addition to being able to navigate from stack trace to code, you can also jump from code to stack trace: Android Studio now highlights lines of code that are related to crashes so you can easily spot and debug them.
Resizable emulator:
You can now test your app on multiple screen sizes and with a single resizable emulator. Testing on a single resizable emulator not only allows you to rapidly test changes across different interfaces, but also promotes a smoother development experience by saving the compute resources and memory that would be required to maintain separate virtual devices.
To use the resizable emulator, you need Android Emulator version 31.1.3 or higher. To upgrade versions, go to Tools > SDK Manager. To create a resizable Android Virtual Device (AVD), follow these steps:
In the create device flow, select the Resizable (Experimental) phone hardware profile.
Download the Android Tiramisu system image.
Follow the prompts to create the AVD.
When you deploy your app to the resizable emulator, use the Display Mode dropdown in the emulator toolbar to quickly toggle between a set of common device types. The emulator screen resizes so you can easily test your app across a range of screen sizes and densities.
Visual linting for Views:
Android Studio now automatically runs your layout to check for visual lint issues across different screen sizes for layouts written in Views. When you open Layout Validation, you can see all your layouts render in multiple device sizes. If there's an issue, it appears in the Problems panel, which is designed to show all issues within design tools.
Device mirroring:
You can now mirror your device in the Running Devices window in Android Studio Electric Eel. By streaming your device's display directly to Android Studio, you can execute common actions such rotating the screen, changing the volume, or locking/unlocking the device right from the IDE itself.
Device mirroring is available in the Electric Eel Canary channel as an experimental feature. To turn it on manually, navigate to File > Settings > Experimental (Android Studio > Preferences > Experimental on a Mac), and check the box next to Device Mirroring.
AGP Upgrade Assistant post-upgrade report and rollback functionality:
The AGP Upgrade Assistant now includes a post-upgrade report. This report describes the steps that were completed and if the upgrade was successful or unsuccessful. It also includes an action to revert changes that were made by the upgrade assistant, if there are issues building or testing the project after the upgrade.
Updates to Logcat:
The Logcat window UI
In Android Studio Electric Eel, the new version of Logcat is enabled by default to make it easier to parse, query, and keep track of logs. This represents the most significant update to the tool since its introduction, so read View logs with Logcat for more details on how to use the new functionality and query syntax.
Desktop Android Virtual Device now available:
You can now test how your app works on desktop devices such as Chromebooks by using a Desktop Android Virtual Device (AVD). Users often interact with apps differently on large screen devices, and the Desktop AVD enables you to see how your app behaves in this environment. Here are some of the unique functionalities you can test:
App resizing: resize your app by dragging the window edges.
Freeform window management: place your app in various places on the desktop screen, and minimize, maximize, and restore the app window.
Notifications - check that the notifications render correctly when pulled up from the system tray on the desktop.
Check download impact using Build Analyzer:
Build Analyzer now provides a summary of time spent downloading dependencies and a detailed view of downloads per repository. You can use this information to determine whether unexpected dependency downloads are negatively impacting your build performance. This is especially important during incremental builds, which shouldn't consistently download artifacts.
Specifically, you can use this information to identify configuration issues, such as use of dynamic versions of dependencies that cause unexpected downloads. Also, if you see a high number of failed requests for a specific repository, it could indicate that the repository should be removed or moved lower in your repository configuration.
Layout Inspector recomposition rendering highlights:
In Android Studio Electric Eel, your recompositions are highlighted to help you determine where in the UI your composables are recomposing. The highlighted portion shows a gradient overlay of the composable in the image section of the Layout Inspector, and gradually disappears so that you can get an idea of where in the UI the composable with the highest recompositions can be found. If one composable is recomposing at a higher rate than another composable, then the first composable receives a stronger gradient overlay color. For more details, see Compose recomposition counts in Layout Inspector.
Universal Problems panel:
You can now view all the issues for your design tools in a shared issue panel. To view the tool window, navigate to View > Tool Windows > Problems.
Live updates to your Compose Preview:
Starting with Android Studio Electric Eel, you can see immediate updates to your Preview changes as you make them. For more information, see Composable Preview.
Use Compose Preview with different devices:
In Android Studio Electric Eel, you can edit the device parameter of the Preview annotation to define configurations for your Composables in different devices. For more details, see Use with different devices.
Android Gradle plugin and Android Studio compatibility:
The Android Studio build system is based on Gradle, and the Android Gradle plugin adds several features that are specific to building Android apps. The following table lists which version of the Android Gradle plugin is required for each version of Android Studio.

New in Android Studio 2021.3.1.16 (Sep 16, 2022)

New in Compose:
The following are new features and improvements to Jetpack Compose in Android Studio.
Compose Animation Coordination:
If your animations are described in a composable preview, you can now use Animation Preview to inspect and coordinate all of them at once. You can also freeze a specific animation.
Compose Multipreview Annotations:
You can now define an annotation class that includes multiple Preview definitions and use that new annotation to generate those previews at once. Use this new annotation to preview multiple devices, fonts, and themes at the same time—without repeating those definitions for every single composable.
Compose Recomposition Counts in Layout Inspector:
When debugging your Compose layouts, knowing when composables do or do not recompose is important in understanding whether your UI is implemented properly. For example, if it's recomposing too many times, your app might be doing more work than is necessary. On the other hand, components that do not recompose when you expect them to can lead to unexpected behaviors.
The Layout Inspector now allows you to see when discrete composables in your layout hierarchy have either recomposed or skipped. This information is shown live, while you interact with your app. To get started, make sure your app is using Compose 1.2.0-alpha03 or higher. Then deploy your app as you normally would.
Open the Layout Inspector window and connect to your app process. In the Component Tree, you should see two new columns appear next to the layout hierarchy. The first column show the number of compositions for each node. The second columns displays the number of skips for each node. You can also see similar information in the Attributes pane when you select a composable from the Component Tree or the Layout Display.
If you want to reset the count, click Reset near the top of the Component Tree panel. Resetting the count can help you understand recompositions or skips during a specific interaction with your app.
Updated Wear OS emulator pairing assistant:
Starting with Android Studio Dolphin Canary 3, the Wear OS emulator pairing assistant has improved features that make it easier to manage and connect Wear emulators. You can now do the following:
See Wear devices in the Device Manager.
Pair multiple Wear devices with a single virtual or physical phone.
Automatically reconnect previously paired devices when they’re launched. Android Studio now remembers and re-pairs the last pair set up.
To use these new features, make sure your phone emulators are API level 30 or higher and have the Google Play Store installed. Also, make sure your Wear emulators are API level 28 or higher. To upgrade to the latest system images for your emulated devices, go to Tools > SDK Manager.
Updated Wear OS emulator toolbar:
Starting with Android Studio Dolphin Canary 2, for Wear emulators with API level 28 or higher, the emulator toolbar now has buttons that simulate the physical buttons and common actions on the device. The new buttons are: Button 1 and Button 2 (Button 2 is only available on API level 30 or higher), the Palm button, and the Tilt button. Here are some of the actions you can do using the new buttons on your Wear emulator:
To set your device to ambient mode, click the Palm button.
To return your device to the last screen it was on before ambient mode, click the Tilt button.
New Wear OS run configurations:
New run configurations have been added to quickly run and debug surfaces specific to Wear OS like watch faces, Tiles, and complications. You can create these new configurations from the Run/Debug Configurations dialog when running your application.
New Logcat:
Logcat has been updated to make it easier to parse, query, and track logs.
New formatter:
Logcat now formats logs to make it easier to scan useful information, such as tags and messages, and identify different types of logs, such as warnings and errors.
Create multiple Logcat windows:
You can now create multiple tabs within Logcat, so that you can easily switch between different devices or queries. Right-clicking a tab allows you to rename it, and you can click and drag to rearrange the tabs.
Additionally, to help you more easily compare between two sets of logs, you can now split the view within a tab by right-clicking in the log view and selecting either Split Right or Split Down. To close a split, right-click and select Close. Each split allows you to set its own device connection, view options, and query.
Switch between view presets:
Logcat now allows you to quickly switch between different view modes—Standard, Compact, and Custom—by clicking View mode selector. Each view mode provides a different default setting for showing you more or less information, such as timestamps, tags, and process IDs (PID). You can also customize each of these default view modes, as well as a custom view mode, by selecting Modify View.
New key-value search:
In the previous version of Logcat, you had the option to either use string search (with support for regular expressions) or create a new filter by populating various fields using the Logcat UI. The first option made search more complex and the second option made sharing and setting up queries more difficult. We’ve now simplified the experience by introducing key-value searches right from the main query field.
Screenshot of new query syntax with auto-complete:
This new query system provides the accuracy of what you want to query, without relying on regular expressions, with the ability to recall past queries from history, and share those queries with others. Additionally, you still have the option to use RegEx and also exclude logs based on key-values.
You can also see a history of queries by clicking Query history selector in the query field and selecting them from the drop down. To favorite a query so that it stays at the top of the list across all your studio projects, click the Favourite query at the end of the query field.
Track logs across app crashes/restarts:
The new Logcat now makes it easier to track logs from your app across app crashes and restarts, so that you don’t miss important logs across these events. When a Logcat notices that your app process has stopped and restarted you’ll see a message in the output—such as PROCESS ENDED and PROCESS STARTED.
And, restarting Logcat preserves your session configuration, such as tab splits, filters, and view options, so that you can continue your session easily.
Gradle Managed Devices
In order to improve consistency, performance, and reliability when using Android Virtual Devices for your automated instrumented tests, we’re introducing Gradle Managed Devices. This feature, available for API levels 27 and higher, allows you to configure virtual test devices in your project's Gradle files. The build system uses the configurations to fully manage—that is, create, deploy, and tear down—those devices when executing your automated tests.
This feature grants Gradle visibility into not only the tests you’re running, but also the lifecycle of the devices, thus improving the quality of your testing experience in the following ways:
Handles device-related issues in order to ensure your tests are executed
Utilizes emulator snapshots to improve device startup time and memory usage, and restore devices to a clean state between tests
Caches test results and reruns only tests that are likely to provide different results
Provides a consistent environment for running your tests between local and remote test runs
Additionally, Gradle Managed Devices introduce a new type of Emulator device, called Automated Test Devices (ATD), that are optimized to improve performance when running your instrumentation tests. Combined with support for test sharding, you can experiment with splitting your test suite across multiple ATD instances in order to reduce overall test execution time. To learn more about Gradle Managed Devices and its associated features, see Scale your tests with Gradle Managed Devices.
R8 support using mapping files based on DEX instruction offsets:
When optimizing line information, R8 can now encode the information in shared debug information objects with line tables based on instruction offsets. This substantially reduces the overhead of line information. The effect is that lines in methods are no longer consecutive but might jump at intervals depending on the size of the instructions. Note that some tooling does not consider this shared encoding.
In addition, Android VMs starting from O (API Level 26) support printing instruction offsets in stack traces if the method has no line number information. When compiling with minSdk 26 or higher, and with no source file information, R8 strips the line number information completely.
Stateless lambdas are no longer desugared as singletons:
Stateless lambdas are no longer allocated as singletons when desugaring. The representation as singletons adds code size overhead due to the added field and class initializer, as well as startup overhead, due to static class initialization. Stateless lambdas are now allocated at use sites the same way stateful lambdas (lambdas with captures) are.
R8 avoids verification slowdown on Android runtimes:
To eliminate performance issues on Android runtimes (Dalvik and ART), R8 (not D8) now introduces library stubs and outline calls to library methods for library classes and methods that might not exist at runtime. Doing so eliminates many verification issues and improves runtime performance. This feature is always enabled.
Support for JDK-11 APIs with Java 8+ API desugaring:
When using the coreLibraryDesugaring dependency there is now support for an implementation library based on JDK-11. See thedesugar_jdk_libs change log for more information.
Android Gradle plugin and Android Studio compatibility:
The Android Studio build system is based on Gradle, and the Android Gradle plugin adds several features that are specific to building Android apps. The following table lists which version of the Android Gradle plugin is required for each version of Android Studio.

New in Android Studio 2021.2.1.16 (Aug 4, 2022)

New in Android Studio 2021.2.1.15 (May 26, 2022)

New in Android Studio 2021.2.1.14 (May 10, 2022)

New in Android Studio 2021.1.1.23 (Apr 8, 2022)

New in Android Studio 2021.2.1 Beta 4 (Mar 13, 2022)

New in Android Studio 2021.1.1.21 (Feb 6, 2022)

New in Android Studio 2021.1.1 (Jan 26, 2022)

Support for KMP test execution:
You can run tests for Kotlin Multiplatform (KMP) projects from Android Studio Bumblebee.
In order to ensure your tests run successfully from Android Studio, make sure you have all the requirements below:
AGP 7.0.0-alpha08 or higher
Gradle 6.8.2 or higher
Kotlin plugin 1.4.30 or higher
New Device Manager:
The Device Manager is a stand-in replacement for the AVD Manager, both from Android Studio’s Welcome Screen or after you open a project. The Device Manager introduces some new capabilities that make this feature more easy to create and manage all of your local test devices, such as:
A more flexible UI that supports being docked in the IDE, floating, or in a separate window, like you can with other Android Studio tool windows. This gives you easier access to your devices without obstructing other windows of the IDE.
A Virtual tab that allows you to create, manage, and deploy virtual devices; see details of each device at a glance; or quickly inspect the device in the Device File Explorer with a single click.
A Physical tab that allows you to quickly pair to a new device using ADB Wifi and see details of each physical device at a glance. You can also quickly inspect each device’s file system using the Device File Explorer with a click of a button.
To open the new Device Manager, do one of the following:
From the Android Studio Welcome screen, select More Actions > Virtual Device Manager.
After opening a project, select View > Tool Windows > Device Manager from the main menu bar.
New in Layout Inspector:
Capture layout hierarchy snapshots:
Layout Inspector now allows you to save snapshots of your running app’s layout hierarchy, so that you can easily share them with others or refer to them later.
Snapshots capture the data you would typically see when using the Layout Inspector, including a detailed 3D rendering of your layout, the component tree of your View, Compose, or hybrid layout, and detailed attributes for each component of your UI. To save a snapshot, do the following:
Deploy your app to a device running API level 23 or higher
Open the Layout Inspector by selecting View > Tool Windows > Layout Inspector.
The Layout Inspector should connect to your app process automatically. If not, select the app process from the dropdown menu.
When you want to capture a snapshot, click Export snapshot Export icon from the Layout Inspector toolbar.
In the system dialog that appears, specify the name and location you want to save your snapshot. Make sure to save the file with a *.li extension.
You can then load a Layout Inspector snapshot by selecting File > Open from the main menu bar, and opening a *.li file.
Support for inspecting Compose semantics:
In Compose, Semantics describe your UI in an alternative manner that is understandable for Accessibility services and for the Testing framework. In Android Studio Bumblebee, you can now use the Layout Inspector to inspect semantic information in your Compose layouts.
When selecting a Compose node, use the Attributes window to check whether it declares semantic information directly, merges semantics from its children, or both. To quickly identify which nodes include semantics, either declared or merged, use select the View options dropdown in the Component Tree window and select Highlight Semantics Layers. This highlights only the nodes in the tree that include semantics, and you can use your keyboard to quickly navigate between them.
Avoid Activity restarts:
Connecting the Layout Inspector to a running app on older versions of Android Studio would cause your app’s Activity to restart. This is required to set a device flag that enables inspection of your app’s layouts.
In Android Studio Bumblebee, you can avoid Activity restarts when connecting the Layout Inspector by setting this flag ahead of time using one of the following steps:
Enable a Run Configuration option:
Select Run > Edit Configurations from the main menu bar. The Run/Debug Configurations dialog appears.
Navigate to the run configuration you would like to use.
In the Layout Inspector options section, check the box next to Connect to Layout Inspector without restarting activity.
Use the run configuration the next time you want to inspect your app using the Layout Inspector.
Set the flag from the command line:
Open a terminal window on the machine that’s connected to your device
Set the device flag for your app using the following command: adb shell settings put global debug_view_attributes_application_package
Deploy your app to the device and connect the Layout Inspector. Android Studio will check whether the flag is set and avoid restarting the Activity if possible.
Document Layout Inspector snapshots:
You can now capture snapshots of your app’s layout hierarchy to save, share, or inspect later. Snapshots capture the data you would typically see when using the Layout Inspector, including a detailed 3D rendering of your layout, the component tree of your View, Compose, or hybrid layout, and detailed attributes for each component of your UI. When inspecting the layout of a live running app, click Export snapshot Export icon from the Layout Inspector toolbar and save the snapshot with an *.li extension. You can then load a Layout Inspector snapshot by selecting File > Open from the main menu bar, and opening a *.li file. The snapshot appears in a tab in the Editor window, so that you can easily compare it with your running app.
New in App Inspection:
In Android Studio Bumblebee, there are new tools and functionalities in the App Inspection window. You can open the App Inspector by selecting View > Tool Windows > App Inspection from the main menu bar.
Network Inspector:
The Network Profiler in the Profilers tool window has now moved to the App Inspection tool window. If you’ve previously used the Network Profiler, all the same features and rich network traffic data is still available. Simply deploy your app to a device running API level 26 and higher and open the App Inspector > Network Inspector tab.
Inspect Jobs, Alarms, and Wakelocks:
The Background Task Inspector now allows you to inspect your app’s Jobs, Alarms, and Wakelocks, in addition to the existing support for inspecting Workers. Each type of asynchronous task now appears under the appropriate heading in the inspector tab, allowing you to easily monitor its status and progress. Similar to Workers, you can select a Job, Alarm, or Wakelock to inspect its detailed information in the Task Details panel.
Because Workers use Jobs and Wakelocks under the hood, those tasks that are scheduled by Workers appear as children of each Worker. Keep in mind, you can only see Workers in the Graph mode.
Wireless debugging:
Android Studio Bumblebee supports the wireless debugging feature on Android 11 and higher devices. Pair and deploy your app from Android Studio over Wi-Fi without using a USB cable or managing Android Debug Bridge (adb) connections using the command line. To use, navigate to the Pair devices using Wi-Fi option from the device selection menu, and then either choose a QR code or Pairing PIN Code. Then on your Android 11 and higher device, under Developer options, and find the Wireless Debugging screen and initialize and connect to an adb session wirelessly with Android Studio. Learn more about the wireless debugging setup at Connect to a device over Wi-Fi (Android 11+).
Compose interactive preview enabled by default:
Starting with Android Studio Bumblebee, the interactive preview feature is enabled by default. The interactive preview allows you to interact with a preview as it would work on a device. The interactive preview is isolated from other preview in a sandbox environment, where you can click elements and enter user input in the preview. It’s a quick way to test different states and gestures of your composable, like a checkbox being checked or empty.
Preview interactive mode runs directly inside Android Studio without an emulator running, which results in some limitations:
No network access.
No file access.
Some Context APIs may not be fully available.
Animated Vector Drawable (AVD) preview:
The Animated Vector Drawable tool offers the ability to preview animated drawable resources. This tools helps you preview , , and resources in Android Studio and makes it easier to refine your custom animations.
Non-transitive R classes on by default:
Non-transitive R classes are now on by default. You can use non-transitive R classes with the Android Gradle plugin to build faster builds for applications with multiple modules. Doing so helps prevent resource duplication by ensuring that each module’s R class only contains references to its own resources, without pulling references from its dependencies. This leads to more up-to-date builds and the corresponding benefits of compilation avoidance.
You can get help using this feature by going to Refactor > Migrate to Non-Transitive R Classes...
Apple Silicon support update:
For those using macOS on Apple Silicon (arm64) hardware, Android Studio Arctic Fox and the Android Emulator have supported this new architecture since last year. However, with this release, we have now updated the Android SDK platform tools v32.0.0 (which includes adb and fastboot) and build tools v32.1.0 (which includes aapt) to be universal binaries so that your Android developer tools no longer need the Rosetta binary translator to run. See the SDK platform tools release notes.
Updated device picker for design tools:
To simplify designing your app for the diverse number of Android devices, we’ve updated the device picker in various design tool windows, such as Layout Editor and Layout Validation, with reference devices that reflect popular sizes of each device form factor. From phones to tablets, and Wear devices to Android TVs, it’s now easier to preview, validate, or edit your layout on screen sizes that are most representative of popular real-world devices.

New in Android Studio 2021.1.1 Canary 9 (Aug 25, 2021)

New in Android Studio 2020.3.1 (Jul 30, 2021)

New version numbering:
Updated version numbering for Android Studio:
We have changed the version numbering system for Android Studio to more closely align with IntelliJ IDEA, the IDE that Android Studio is based on.
In the previous numbering system, this release would have been numbered as Android Studio 4.3 or version 4.3.0.1. With the new numbering system, it is now Android Studio - Arctic Fox | 2020.3.1, or version 2020.3.1.
Going forward, here’s how the Android Studio version number is determined:
...
The first two number groups represent the version of the IntellIj platform that a particular Android Studio release is based on. For this release, it's version 2020.3.
The third number group represents the Studio major version, starting at 1 and incrementing by one for every major release.
The fourth number group represents the Studio minor/patch version, starting at 1 and incrementing by one for every minor release.
We are also giving each major release a version name, incrementing from A to Z based on animal names. This release is named Arctic Fox.
Updated version numbering for Android Gradle plugin:
We have changed the version numbering for Android Gradle plugin (AGP) to more closely match the underlying Gradle build tool. Therefore, AGP 7.0 is the next release after AGP 4.2.
For more details, see Versioning changes in the AGP release notes.
Android Gradle plugin 7.0.0:
The latest version of the Android Gradle plugin includes many updates. To learn more, read the full Android Gradle plugin release notes.
Unit tests now uses Gradle test runner:
To improve overall consistency of test executions, Android Studio now uses Gradle to run all unit tests by default. In many cases, this change will not affect your testing workflow in the IDE.
For example, when you click the Run command in the context menu (visible when you right-click on a test class) or its corresponding gutter action , Android Studio will use the Gradle run configuration by default to run unit tests.
However, Android Studio no longer recognizes existing Android JUnit run configurations, so you should migrate Android JUnit run configurations that you might save as project files to Gradle run configurations.
To create a Gradle test configuration, select the Gradle template when following the instructions in Create a new run/debug configuration. When you've created a new configuration, it will appear in the Edit Configurations dialog in the Gradle section.
If you want to inspect Android JUnit configurations that are no longer recognized, you can do one of two things:
Open manually saved configurations in a text editor. The locations of these files are specified by the user, but the files typically appear in /.idea/runConfigurations/.
Look for temporary configurations in /.idea/workspace.xml and look under the node.
New Background Task Inspector:
You can visualize, monitor, and debug your app's background workers using the new Background Task Inspector. To get started, deploy your app to a device running WorkManager library 2.5.0 or higher, and select View > Tool Windows > App Inspection from the menu bar.
You can view more detailed information by clicking on a worker. For example, you can see the description of the worker, how it was executed, details of its worker chain, and the result of the execution.
You can also view a visual representation of a worker chain by selecting a worker from the table and clicking Show Graph View from the toolbar. You can then select any worker in the chain to see its details, or stop it if it’s currently enqueued or running. To return to the table, click Show List View .
To help you investigate issues from workers that fail execution, you can stop a currently running or enqueued worker by selecting it from the table and clicking Cancel Selected Worker from the toolbar. You can also filter workers in the table by tags you’ve assigned to them using the All tags dropdown menu.
Export data from the Database Inspector:
You can easily export databases, tables, and query results from the Database Inspector to save, share, or recreate locally. When you open up an app project in Android Studio and inspect the app for that project in the Database Inspector, you can start exporting data in one of the following ways:
Select a database or table in the Databases panel and click Export to file near the top of the panel.
Right-click on a database or table in the Databases panel and select Export to file from the context menu.
When inspecting a table or query results in a tab, click Export to file above the table or query results.
After selecting an export action, you use the Export dialog to help you through the final steps, as shown below. Depending on whether you are trying to export a database, table, or query results, you have the option of exporting the data in one or more of the following formats: DB, SQL, or CSV.
Updated UI for recording in Memory Profiler:
We have consolidated the Memory Profiler user interface (UI) for different recording activities, such as capturing a heap dump and recording Java, Kotlin, and native memory allocations.
The Memory Profiler provides the following options:
Capture heap dump: View objects in your app that are using memory at a specific point in time.
Record native allocations: View how each C/C++ object was allocated over a period of time.
Record Java/Kotlin allocations: View how each Java/Kotlin object was allocated over a period of time.
Here's how to use these three options:
To capture a heap dump, select Capture heap dump, then select Record. After the profiler finishes capturing the heap dump, the Memory Profiler UI transitions to a separate screen displaying the heap dump.
To record native allocations on devices running Android 10 and higher, select Record native allocations, then select Record. The recording continues until you click Stop , after which the Memory Profiler UI transitions into a separate screen displaying the native recording.
On Android 9 and lower, the Record native allocations option is not available.
To record Java and Kotlin allocations, select Record Java / Kotlin allocations, then select Record. If the device is running Android 8 or higher, the Memory Profiler UI transitions to a separate screen displaying the ongoing recording. You can interact with the mini timeline above the recording (for example, to change the selection range). To complete the recording, select Stop .
On Android 7.1 and lower, the memory profiler uses legacy allocation recording, which displays the recording on the timeline until you click Stop.
Updates to Refresh Linked C++ Project:
We have moved files unrelated to configuration from the .cxx/ folder into the build/ folder. CMake C++ builds require a configuration phase that generates the Ninja project that's used to execute the compile and link steps. Projects generated by CMake are expensive to generate and are expected to survive across gradle clean. For this reason, they're stored in a folder called .cxx/, next to the build/ folder. Typically, Android Gradle plugin will notice configuration changes and automatically regenerate the Ninja project. However, not all cases can be detected. When this happens, the "Refresh Linked C++ Project" option can be used to manually regenerate the Ninja project.
New test matrix for multi-device testing:
Instrumentation tests can now run across multiple devices in parallel and can be investigated using a specialized instrumentation test results panel. Using this panel, you can determine if tests are failing due to API level or hardware properties.
Testing your app across a wide variety of API levels and form factors is one of the best ways to ensure that all users have a great experience when using your app.
StateFlow support in data binding:
For Kotlin apps that use coroutines, you can now use StateFlow objects as a data binding source to automatically notify the UI about changes in the data. Your data bindings will be lifecycle aware and will only be triggered when the UI is visible on the screen.
To use a StateFlow object with your binding class, you need to specify a lifecycle owner to define the scope of the StateFlow object, and in your layout, assign the properties and methods of your ViewModel component to the corresponding views using binding expressions.
Improved suggested import:
We’ve improved the number of libraries that are supported by the suggested import feature and update the index more frequently. Suggested import helps you quickly and easily import certain Google Maven artifacts into both your class and Gradle project. When Android Studio detects unresolved symbols from certain Google libraries, the IDE suggests importing the library into both the class and the project.
Support for configuration cache in Build Analyzer:
Build Analyzer now identifies when a project doesn't have configuration cache enabled, and offers it as an optimization. Build Analyzer runs a compatibility assessment to inform you if there are any issues with configuration cache in your project before it gets enabled.
Improved Upgrade Assistant for AGP:
The Upgrade Assistant for Android Gradle plugin now has a persistent tool window with the list of steps that will be completed. Additional information is also presented on the right side of the tool window. If needed, you can also choose a different version of AGP to upgrade to. Clicking on the Refresh button updates the corresponding update steps.
Refactoring for non-transitive R classes:
You can use non-transitive R classes with the Android Gradle plugin to build faster builds for applications with multiple modules. Doing so helps prevent resource duplication by ensuring that each module’s R class only contains references to its own resources, without pulling references from its dependencies. This leads to more up-to-date builds and the corresponding benefits of compilation avoidance.
You can access this feature by going to Refactor > Migrate to Non-transitive R Classes.
Support for Jetpack Compose tooling:
We now offer additional support for previewing and testing apps that use Jetpack Compose. For the best experience developing with Jetpack Compose, you should use the latest version of Android Studio Arctic Fox so that you can benefit from smart editor features, such as New Project templates and the ability to immediately preview your Compose UI.
Compose preview:
The following parameters for @Preview methods are now available:
showBackground: Switch on and off a background for your preview.
backgroundColor: Set a color that is only used in the preview surface.
uiMode: This new parameter can take any of the Configuration.UI_* constants and allows you to change the behavior of the preview to, for example, set it to Night Mode to see how the theme reacts.
Interactive preview:
You can use this feature to interact with your UI components, click them, and see how the state changes. It's a quick way to get feedback on how your UI reacts and to preview the animations. To enable it, click the Interactive icon , and the preview will switch modes.
To stop, click on Stop Interactive Preview in the top toolbar.
Deploy to device:
You can use this feature to deploy a snippet of your UI to a device. This helps test small parts of your code in the device without having to start the full application.
Click the Deploy to Device icon next to the @Preview annotation or at the top of the preview, and Android Studio will deploy that @Preview to your connected device or emulator.
Live Edit of literals:
We have added Live Edit of literals to help developers using Compose quickly edit literals (strings, numbers, booleans) in their code and see the results immediately without needing to wait for compilation. The goal of this feature is to help increase your productivity by having code changes appear near instantaneously in the previews, emulator, or physical device.
Compose support in the Layout Inspector:
The Layout Inspector allows you to see rich detail about your app's layout running on your connected device. You can interact with your app and see live updates in the tool to quickly debug issues that might arise.
You can inspect layouts written with the new Android declarative UI framework, Jetpack Compose. Whether your app uses layouts fully written in Compose or layouts that use a hybrid of Compose and Views, the Layout Inspector helps you understand how your layouts are rendered on your running device.
Get started:
To get started, deploy your app to a connected device and then open the Layout Inspector window by selecting View > Tool Windows > Layout Inspector. If the Layout Inspector doesn't automatically connect to your app process, select the desired app process from the process pulldown. You should soon see your app's layout rendered in the tool window. To get started inspecting your Compose layout, select the layout component visible in the rendering or select it from the Component Tree.
The Attributes window shows you detailed information about the Compose function currently selected. In this window, you can inspect the function's parameters and their values, including modifiers and lambda expressions. For lambda expressions, the inspector provides a shortcut to help you navigate to the expression in your source code.
The Layout Inspector shows all Compose functions in the call stack that emit components to your app's layout. In many cases, this includes Compose functions that are called internally by the Compose Library. If you want to see only the Compose functions in the Component Tree that your app calls directly, click the filter action, which might help reduce the number of nodes shown in the tree to the ones you are likely to want to inspect.
Improved deploy dropdown:
The device dropdown now distinguishes between different kinds of errors within your chosen device configuration. Iconography and stylistic changes now differentiate between errors (device selections that result in a broken configuration) and warnings (device selections that may result in unexpected behavior but are still runnable).
In addition, Android Studio will now warn you if you attempt to launch your project to a device that has an error or a warning associated with it.
New Wear OS pairing assistant:
The new Wear OS pairing assistant guides developers step-by-step through pairing Wear OS emulators with physical or virtual phones directly in Android Studio. The assistant can help you get the right Wear OS Companion app installed on your phone and set up a connection between the two devices. You can get started by going to the device dropdown > Wear OS Emulator Pairing Assistant.
Responsive layout template:
Android Studio Arctic Fox now includes a new layout template that adapts to various display dimensions and app resizing, such as phones, foldables, tablets, and split screen modes. When creating a new project or module, select the Responsive Activity template to create a layout with components that dynamically resize.

New in Android Studio 4.2.2 (Jun 30, 2021)

New in Android Studio 4.2.1 (May 14, 2021)

New in Android Studio 4.2 (May 6, 2021)

Android Gradle plugin 4.2.0:
The latest version of the Android Gradle plugin includes many updates. To learn more, read the full Android Gradle plugin release notes.
Gradle compatibility and configuration changes:
When running in Android Studio, the Gradle build tool uses Studio's bundled JDK. In previous releases, JDK 8 was bundled with Studio. In 4.2, however, JDK 11 is now bundled instead. When using the new bundled JDK to run Gradle, this may result in some incompatibility or impact JVM performance due to changes to the garbage collector. These issues are described in the AGP release notes.
Database Inspector:
Query editor improvements:
The Database Inspector includes some improvements to help you write and execute your custom SQL statements. When you open the inspector and open a New query tab, you should notice a larger, resizable editor surface to author and format your queries, as shown below.
Additionally, we now provide a history of your previous queries. When you click on the Show query history Show query history button button, you should see a list of queries you previously ran against the currently selected database. Click a query in the list to see a preview of the full query in the editor and press Enter to copy it to the editor. Then, click Run to execute the statement.
Offline mode:
In previous versions of Android Studio, disconnecting from an app process while using the Database Inspector resulted in closing the inspector and its data. In Android Studio 4.2, we've added the ability to keep inspecting your app's databases after a process disconnects, making it easier to debug your app after a crash.
When a disconnect occurs, the Database Inspector downloads your databases and then makes them available to you in offline mode. When offline, you can open tables and run queries.
Keep in mind, when you reconnect to a live app process, the Database Inspector returns to live mode and shows you only the data that is on the device. That is, data shown in offline mode doesn't persist when you reconnect to an app process. Because of this, the Database Inspector does not allow editing or running modification statements while in offline mode.
Upgrade Assistant for AGP:
A new Upgrade Assistant for Android Gradle plugin can help you update the AGP version for your project.
Built on top of the existing AGP upgrade functionality, this tool guides you through project-wide updates/refactorings and includes a preview of the updates to help prevent potential breaking changes before executing the AGP upgrade.
System Trace: Improved metrics for memory and graphics:
In the CPU profiler, the System Trace feature now includes new metrics for analyzing app performance and includes the following:
Events Table. Lists all trace events in the currently selected thread.
BufferQueue. In the Display section, this new track shows the buffer count of the app's surface BufferQueue (0, 1, or 2) to help you understand the state of image buffers as they move between the Android graphics components.
CPU Frequency. In the CPU cores section, this new track displays CPU frequency by core, indicating how hard each core is working.
Process Memory (RSS). This new window shows the amount of physical memory currently in use by the app.
New Layout Inspector refresh action:
Introduced in Android Studio 4.0, the Layout Inspector was designed for real-time inspection of your running app’s UI stack. However, you might not always want the Layout Inspector to immediately reflect what’s happening in your app, since you might want to inspect a snapshot of your app’s layout at a specific point in time or minimize the performance impact of live updates on your app.
To manually load a snapshot of UI data from your app, first disable the Live updates option. You can then click the Refresh button to take a new snapshot of the UI stack for inspection. The Layout Inspector now remembers your preference to keep Live updates enabled or disabled between sessions.
Support for Safe Args:
Safe Args is a Gradle plugin that generates simple object and builder classes for type-safe navigation and access to any associated arguments. Android Studio now includes richer support when working with Safe Args, as described below:
Autocompletions for Directions, Args, and the various builder classes
Support for both Java and Kotlin safe args plugins
Navigation from source to XML
R8 retrace now available in command-line tools:
Available in version 4.0 of the command-line tools, R8 retrace is a standalone tool for obtaining the original stack trace from an obfuscated stack trace.
You can download this package with the SDK manager, which installs R8 retrace in android_sdk/cmdline-tools. Alternatively, you can download the standalone command-line tools package.
For usage information, see R8 retrace in the user guide.
Deploy to multiple devices:
To help streamline app testing across devices and API levels, you can now deploy your app to multiple devices or emulators simultaneously.
New removable setting for feature modules:
Android Gradle plugin 4.2 uses bundletool 1.0.0, which introduces a behavior change for apps using feature modules: Any feature module specified as dist:install-time that's not explicitly marked as dist:removable will become non-removable by default. This new setting optimizes fusing of install-time modules with the base module, potentially improving app performance for some apps.
To keep feature modules removable, set dist:removable="true" on any module you want to uninstall.
For more information on this new setting, see the documentation for the dist:removable tag in the documentation for feature module manifest.
Apply Changes:
To help you be more productive as you iterate on your app, we've made the following enhancements to Apply Changes for devices running Android 11 or higher:
Support for additional code changes:
For devices running Android 11 or higher, you can now add static final primitive fields and then deploy those changes to your running app by clicking either Apply Code Changes or Apply Changes and Restart Activity .
You can now also add resources and then deploy those changes to your running app on Android 11 devices by clicking Apply Changes and Restart Activity .
Updated New Project and New Module wizards:
The New Project and New Module wizards have been updated to make it easier to browse, select a template, and input information about the new project or module.
The option to Import .JAR/.AAR Package from the New Module wizard has also been removed. To import a JAR or AAR into your project, use the Project Structure Dialog instead.
Kotlin 1.4.31:
Android Studio 4.2 bundles Kotlin 1.4.31. Check out the Kotlin 1.4.0 changelog to review the major changes.
ANDROID_SDK_HOME environment variable deprecated:
The ANDROID_SDK_HOME environment variable is deprecated and has been replaced with ANDROID_PREFS_ROOT. For more information, see Emulator Environment Variables.

New in Android Studio Arctic Fox Canary 15 (Apr 30, 2021)

New in Android Studio Arctic Fox Canary 12 (Mar 26, 2021)

New in Android Studio Arctic Fox Canary 11 (Mar 23, 2021)

New in Android Studio 4.1.3 (Mar 19, 2021)

New in Android Studio Arctic Fox Canary 10 (Mar 16, 2021)

General Fixes:
This update includes fixes for the following public issues:
Lint:
Issue #180889192: Custom Lint check does not compile with 7.0.0-alpha07 (+alpha06,05,etc) due to unresolved imports
AVD Manager:
Issue #144443763: Enable device frame checkbox state is broken
Issue #151968449: avdmanager creates invalid AVD config
Issue #128470923: The widths of AVD Manager columns should automatically size to their content
SDK Manager:
Issue #161580306: sdkmanager.bat from command line tools (Windows) does not support paths with spaces
Code Editor:
Issue #133272518: ${applicationId} Error In AndroidManifest.xml, it's hint "Cannot resolve symbol 'applicationId'"
Issue #170489566: IDE, context highlighting stops.
Issue #156550033: Compose preview is rendered with an opaque background
Issue #161488011: Android Room Entity with AutoValue
Issue #37057404: Android Studio Plural Resource Code Folding for Format Arguments
Resources:
Issue #176694227: SVG-to-Vector converter breaks if element has parameter rx with percentage value
Issue #176760787: SVG-to-Vector converter does not apply transformations to the attribute *stroke width* of elements and paths
Issue #37086061: Tools-Namespace cannot be applied to other build type's resources
Translations Editor:
Issue #145653486: National flag of Myanmar displaying as old Burma flag
Issue #128106334: Bug: adding translation to the translation editor for a file that exist with qualifier will add yet another file instead of putting it into existing one
Issue #176344055: No column headers in Translations Editor
New Code/Templates:
Issue #181530512: [Sample Wizard] Style of vertical divider
Issue #62721914: Divider between list of samples and sample description should be draggable
Issue #37074303: Add "android:labelFor" in templates
Android Gradle Plugin:
Issue #166675916: Add public gradle API to enforce warnings as errors for R8
Issue #172895799: Premote GENERATE_MANIFEST_CLASS to softly enforced.
Network:
Issue #131854737: Freeze when clicking on large network call
Issue #170799243: Network profiler cause Android Studio to freeze when clicking on large network call
Database Inspector:
Issue #179012574: Database Inspector CREATE TABLE query puts columns in alphabetic order instead of actual order
Jetpack Compose:
Issue #181156420: java.lang.NoSuchMethodError: no non-static method Landroidx/compose/runtime/HotReloader$Companion;.saveStateAndDispose
Android Studio:
Issue #181575029: Completion breaks for @Composable methods
Issue #181203166: Add test dependencies to "Empty Compose" project template

New in Android Studio 4.2 Beta 6 (Mar 10, 2021)

New in Android Studio Arctic Fox Canary 9 (Mar 9, 2021)

General Fixes:
This update includes fixes for the following public issues:
Android Gradle Plugin:
Issue #179381701: Manifest-merger should verify that only one is present.
Android Studio:
Issue #180697776: Compose template variable casing
AVD Manager:
Issue #128106333: Can't finish emulator configuration if emulator was set an external sdcard file and it is deleted
Issue #159631139: Virtual devices are not sorted by default
Code Editor:
Issue #151239595: Room @Query resolver resolves the table to the wrong class
Issue #127890347: Import Order should match AOSP style : static at the top
Issue #141319429: Missing OnClick handler error reported in XML when using Fragments, due to tools:Context value
Issue #62692196: OnClick handler methods which are defined in super class aren't recognised in layout file which uses tools:context="subclass"
Issue #165896697: Lint: Incorrectly thinks FragmentContainerView android:name=".Fragment" class "is never used" when it is
Issue #156549140: Compose sample docs: add margins to preview image
Database Inspector:
Issue #178109346: Please make window drag handle larger
Issue #162568147: Please use progress indicator when waiting from response from room in db inspector
Issue #161718184: Database Inspector: Please make it possible to resize the columns !
Device File Explorer:
Issue #169764221: Device Explorer creates "AndroidStudio" folder in the home directory
Issue #144685944: Paths that include single quote show as empty
Emulator:
Issue #172199752: Ugly scaling when using Emulator Tool Window
Logcat:
Issue #147287647: Logcat view has extra "logcat" bar that seems to be useless
Memory:
Issue #176006855: Class names aren't shown properly in memory profiler, live tracking mode
Issue #155220549: Memory profiler - Arrange by package does not work
New Code/Templates:
Issue #37101507: Nav drawer template uses a deprecated API
Resources:
Issue #138908185: Bug: Portoguese flag for german (de) language translation value files
Issue #124064874: Section comments "region - endregion" doesn't work in proguard files
SDK Manager:
Issue #170751424: Improve error message when failing to run mksdcard.exe
Translations Editor:
Issue #124812179: impossible to access the panel where you can copy and paste translations

New in Android Studio Arctic Fox Canary 8 (Feb 25, 2021)

New in Android Studio 4.2 Beta 5 (Feb 24, 2021)

New in Android Studio Arctic Fox Canary 7 (Feb 19, 2021)

New in Android Studio Arctic Fox Canary 6 (Feb 12, 2021)

Compose support in Layout Inspector:
Starting with Arctic Fox Canary 6, you can now inspect layouts written with the new Android declarative UI framework, Jetpack Compose. Whether your app uses layouts fully written in Compose or layouts that use a hybrid of Compose and Views, the Layout Inspector helps you understand how your layouts are rendered on your running device.
This feature requires that each module using the Compose UI declare the following dependencies.
debugImplementation "androidx.compose.ui:ui-tooling:1.0.0-alpha11" debugImplementation "org.jetbrains.kotlin:kotlin-reflect:1.4.21"
To get started, deploy your app to a connected device and then open the Layout Inspector window by selecting View > Tool Windows > Layout Inspector.
To learn more, see the release notes.
Automated test snapshots:
When you inspect failed assertions after running instrumented tests, it's sometimes difficult or time consuming to reproduce that test failure again. However, reproducing those failures on your connected device is critical in helping you diagnose the issue, either by attaching a debugger or interacting with the app at the time of failure.
In Android Gradle plugin 7.0-alpha06 and higher, we're introducing automated test snapshots – a quicker way to reproduce test failures by leveraging Emulator snapshots. In other words, when your instrumented tests running on a connected Emulator encounter a Java or Kotlin assertion that fails, the device takes a snapshot at the time of failure. After your test run completes, you can then reload the snapshot on the same device in order to reproduce and investigate that failure.
To learn more, see the release notes.
General Fixes:
Android Gradle Plugin:
Bug: choosing Lint quick-fix for conversion to WEBP, its dialog gets stuck, hard to even close it
Issue #174839536: ConnectedAndroidTest still run even there is no test files with Gradle Plugin 7.0.0-alpha02
Issue #176998942: Exception while trying to import/sync project in AS 4.2 b3 with Gradle source dependency. 4.1.1 passes.
Issue #175337498: AGP 4.1, Gradle 6.7: mergeDebugNativeLibs is not up to date and slows down Gradle builds.
Issue #169266007: issues related with android.defaultConfig.ndk.debugSymbolLevel
Issue #175718909: After upgrade NDK to 22, AGP-externalNativeBuild error
Android App Bundles:
Issue #171462060: [AGP 4.1.0] ./gradlew app:installDebugAndroidTest incorrectly tries to fetch APK from App Bundle
Android Studio:
Issue #171039472: Android Studio crashing on launch on Mac OS Big Sur
IntelliJ:
Issue #171563671: Pinch & Zoom no longer works
Lint:
Issue #170656529: [AGP 4.1] lint module being evaluated in improper context
Issue #175741231: Bug: choosing Lint quick-fix for conversion to WEBP, its dialog gets stuck, hard to even close it
Upgrade Assistant:
Issue #174793640: Arctic Fox Canary 2: Android Gradle Plugin Upgrade Assistant is upgrading kotlin gradle plugin to the wrong value

New in Android Studio 4.2 Beta 4 (Jan 31, 2021)

New in Android Studio Arctic Fox Canary 5 (Jan 31, 2021)

General Fixes:
This update includes fixes for the following issues:
Android App Bundles:
Issue #171462060: [AGP 4.1.0] ./gradlew app:installDebugAndroidTest incorrectly tries to fetch APK from App Bundle
Android Gradle Plugin:
Issue #175337498: AGP 4.1, Gradle 6.7: mergeDebugNativeLibs is not up to date and slows down Gradle builds.
Issue #177167009: AGP 7.0.0-alpha04 - Jar missing if there are no custom manifest permissions
Issue #37797956: Switch to new models (v2).
Issue #160138798: DexFileDependenciesTask should be cacheable
Issue #174839536: ConnectedAndroidTest still run even there is no test files with Gradle Plugin 7.0.0-alpha02
Issue #176998942: Exception while trying to import/sync project in AS 4.2 b3 with Gradle source dependency. 4.1.1 passes.
Issue #174493018: Reduce the number of //tools/base/build-system/integration-test/application bazel test targets
Issue #175718909: After upgrad NDK to 22, AGP-externalNativeBuild error
Issue #154948828: Configuration resolved early, with included build and configuration on demand
Issue #169885381: Make `kotlinCompilerVersion` optional (or remove it altogether)
Issue #177004260: Split IdeLibrary into Ide*Library and Ide*Dependency
Issue #154984238: Skip MergeNativeLibsTask when there are no native libraries
Issue #159238028: apkDirectory is final after upgrading to AGP v4.0
Android Studio:
Issue #155258590: Compose function calls are not highlighted in the color from the color scheme
C++ Build:
Issue #173049056: Native build tasks should suppress success messages
Issue #163379002: Gradle externalNativeBuild script has problem in recognizing last include statement in Android.mk file
Databinding:
Issue #176886060: Memory leak from sReferenceQueue
Gradle:
Issue #172361895: Add DSL to replace AndroidManifest.xml's package attribute
Layout Editor:
Issue #161154345: AttachedToolWindow$UpdatableActionButton buttons aren't visible on side panels in Design mode
Lint:
Issue #170656529: [AGP 4.1] lint module being evaluated in improper context
Issue #175741231: Bug: choosing Lint quick-fix for conversion to WEBP, its dialog gets stuck, hard to even close it
Issue #158777858: Lint error: package fragment is not found for module: is a module[ModuleDescriptorImpl@6dc0aaa0] file:KtFile: Crm.kt
Issue #159733104: Lint: NPE in KtLightClassForFacade.getLightClassData
Issue #177044619: AGP 4.2 lint.xml ignore regexp does not work as expected
Logcat:
Issue #175298140: Logcat Process Package Name Combo Should Be Searchable
Profilers:
Issue #174841028: Opening dmtrace.trace from Device File Explorer always fail (stuck on loading)
Test:
Issue #123987001: Test orchestrator coverage data is missing
Upgrade Assistant:
Issue #175496966: "Configuration with name 'testApi' not found." on AGP 7.0.0-alpha03
Issue #174787527: Opening a project with gradle 7.0.0-alpha01 plugin will no upgrade to 7.0.0-alpha02 automatically.
Issue #174793640: Arctic Fox Canary 2: Android Gradle Plugin Upgrade Assistant is upgrading kotlin gradle plugin to the wrong value
Issue #160258052: AS4.2C3 may not upgrade gradle classpath to 'com.android.tools.build:gradle:4.2.0-alpha03' from 'alpha02'.
Issue #153680188: com.android.tools.build:gradle:4.1.0-alpha04' does not upgrade to 'alpha05' gracefully when upgrading AS4.1C4 to AS4.1C5
Issue #155109633: com.android.tools.build:gradle:4.1.0-alpha07' does not upgrade to 'alpha08' gracefully when upgrading AS4.1C7 to AS4.1C8
View Binding:
Issue #173647034: Safe delete doesn't work

New in Android Studio 4.1.2 (Jan 20, 2021)

New in Android Studio 4.2 Beta 3 (Jan 7, 2021)

New in Android Studio Arctic Fox (2020.3.1) Canary 4 (Jan 7, 2021)

New in Android Studio Arctic Fox Canary 3 (Dec 15, 2020)

New in Android Studio 4.2 Beta 2 (Dec 15, 2020)

New in Android Studio Arctic Fox Canary 2 (Dec 4, 2020)

New in Android Studio Arctic Fox Canary 1 (Dec 2, 2020)

Updated version numbering for Android Studio:
We have changed the version numbering system for Android Studio to more closely align with IntelliJ IDEA, the IDE upon which Android Studio is built. For more information, see the release notes.
Updated version numbering for Android Gradle plugin:
We are updating the version numbering for Android Gradle plugin (AGP) to more closely match the underlying Gradle build tool. Therefore, AGP 7.0 will be the next release after AGP 4.2. For more details, see Versioning changes in the AGP release notes.
General Fixes
This update includes fixes for the following issues:
Activity:
Issue #170026127: ActivityResultFragmentVersionDetector lint failure when using 1.2.0-beta01 with fragment 1.3.0-beta01
Android Gradle Plugin:
Issue #169896233: Using jetpack compose breaks gradle configuration caching
Issue #161465530: More than one file was found with OS independent path 'META-INF'/.kotlin_module
Issue #150133257: Sanitize flavor names in BuildConfig
Issue #117944726: Provide DSL to register ASM visitors.
Issue #171364505: Shrinking library with multidex enabled fails (after 4.0 -> 4.1 update)
Issue #170922353: Upgraded from AGP 4.0.2 to 4.1.0 and app crashes with Resources$NotFoundException: Resource ID #0x0
Issue #167706055: Add real build id into AGP gradle metadata
Issue #172055303: Disabling android resources in libraries breaks unit tests
Issue #172040522: Deprecate and remove Proguard from AGP
Issue #172695848: Spurious error about android:extractNativeLibs
Issue #139013660: Need to investigate JDK9+ compiler impact
Android Studio:
Issue #169776728: Incorrect imports when using Jetpack Compose default live templates
Issue #80166964: IntDef annotation for variable not working anymore
AVD Manager:
Issue #159878401: "Cold Boot Now" on AVD Manager does not really cold boot emulator
Build Output:
Issue #153815674: unable to view real gradle DataBinding error
Issue #156552742: Build output window does not help track down instant execution problems
C++:
Issue #169442540: Include header directories in project
Issue #168806413: Adobe Listening Session: In APK debugging, single import directory for all .so files
C++ Build:
Issue #159434435: Android Gradle Plugin 4.0: CMake argument starting from '-C' is not passed to cmake executable, rendering build broken
Issue #171300770: NullPointerException in CmakeServerExternalNativeJsonGenerator when refreshing linked C++ projects
C++ Debugger:
Issue #168647695: Remove rerun button from the native debug panel
Issue #37121046: Debugger type selection ignored/broken until I click "edit configurations"
Code Editor:
Issue #165821809: Android Studio 4.1 RC 1 continuous UI freezing
Issue #172840074: [Compose] Add placeholder for lambda functions
Issue #172655381: [Compose] Prefer extension functions over methods on the interface for Modifier
CPU:
Issue #170801047: Unable to create profiler recording configuration
Emulator:
Issue #162564820: "Enter" key doesn't work in Emulator tool window
Issue #155221674: Embedded Emulator: Feature request for device frame on/off
Issue #170657960: Embedded emulator on Windows never closes the emulator process
Issue #162573673: Android Emulator in same window as studio does support drag and install of APK on emulator
Import/Sync:
Issue #169575797: Unable to download sources from maven.google.com
Issue #169971952: Android Gradle build freezes
Layout Editor:
Issue #139242310: Creating a layout file with specific qualifiers fails if a directory already exists with the same qualifiers
Issue #173198421: Request to insert missing font sizes into textview
Lint:
Issue #169897062: Lint fails with "Message: / by zero"
Issue #170210653: Android LintError when `suppressAnnotations` is provided as an empty list
Issue #169610406: Strange warning from RestrictToDetector for Kotlin property initialized by constructor call
Issue #167593732: Add SARIF as supported output format for Lint
Issue #170240589: [Lint] OutdatedLibrary false positive on firebase-crashlytics
Issue #171322374: ThreadDetector is broken in the IDE
Issue #170585495: Lint Baseline generates with platform depended file separators
Issue #170657532: AssertDetector warn false positive since AGP4.1
Navigation Editor:
Issue #170059094: Unresolved reference for NavArgs declared at top of (nested) NavGraph
Issue #164163197: Navigation destination search not working for "e", "r" and "o" letters
Issue #172694913: AS 4.2 performs incorrect case mapping for camelCase graph IDs when referencing Directions classes
New Code/Templates:
Issue #172268020: Unable to create modules in Android Studio
Release Bundle/APKs:
Issue #157584987: Android Gradle Plugin 3.6.x resulting larger .aab on debug build compared to AGP 3.5.x
Resource Manager:
Issue #171500188: Clip Art selector is empty
Run:
Issue #167977589: Run button disabled while Gradle sync is invalidated
Issue #170709330: "NoSuchMethodException: android.content.res.CompatResources.getLoaders []" when starting from Android Studio
Running Tests:
Issue #163791525: INSTALL_PARSE_FAILED_NO_CERTIFICATES when running test on multiple devices
Issue #162006827: Robolectric tests run in Android Studio 4.1 fail with a bad ASM dependency
Upgrade Assistant:
Issue #156100314: Consider handling Crashlytics versions in the upgrade assistant
Windows & Menus:
Issue #158718062: Request: bring back "export to ZIP" for projects

New in Android Studio 4.2 Beta 1 (Dec 2, 2020)

New in Android Studio 4.1.1 (Nov 11, 2020)

General fixes:
This update also includes fixes for the following public issues:
Android Gradle Plugin:
Issue #172055303: Disabling android resources in libraries breaks unit tests
Issue #171364505: Shrinking library with multidex enabled fails (after 4.0 -> 4.1 update)
Issue #170922353: Upgraded from AGP 4.0.2 to 4.1.0 and app crashes with Resources$NotFoundException: Resource ID #0x0
APK Debugging:
"Project Structure" does not show up for APK Debugging projects
Java Debugger crashes for API 29 and above
Apply Changes:
Issue #161692523: Can't run/debug with Android App run configuration if app is stopped and unchanged from last run/debug
AVD Manager:
Issue #159878401: "Cold Boot Now" on AVD Manager does not really cold boot emulator
C++:
Issue #171280381: #$(call import-module,android/cpufeatures) in Android.mk will import all files in disk root
Issue #171300770: NullPointerException in CmakeServerExternalNativeJsonGenerator when refreshing linked C++ projects
Code Editor:
Issue #165821809: Android Studio 4.1 RC 1 continuous UI freezing
Find Usage is slow for C++ methods.
Dexer (D8):
Issue #167649682: When CoreLibraryDesugaring is enabled and APK is installed manually, the types of variables mapped in Gson are not correct.
Embedded Emulator:
Touch events are displaced when started emulator in landscape
Issue #170657960: Embedded emulator on Windows never closes the emulator process
Issue #163608541: First time emulator launch using run does not appear in the android studio window
Issue #162564820: "Enter" key doesn't work in Emulator tool window
Gradle Files Editor:
Issue #165969795: java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: org/jetbrains/kotlin/resolve/constants/evaluate/ParseUtilsKt
Issue #162811644: Changing gradle files in Studio 4.1 displays two sync requests
Indexing:
Issue #171801044: Android Studio 4.1 with Gradle 6.5 is always indexing!!!
Issue #171334504: Updating indices covering full "c:" drive after update and even after reinstall
Profiling:
Issue #170801047: Unable to create profiler recording configuration
Native Memory Profiler not tracking all of memory
Issue #171564196: CPU profiler recording fails for pre-O devices: trace file was not parsed
Project System:
forced upgrades interrupt sync
Resource Manager:
Issue #171500188: Clip Art selector is empty
Run:
Issue #152941155: Feature Request: Project Property with Android Studio version.
Issue #160269604: Run command often does not start activity
Shrinker (R8):
Add retrace to Studio
Vertical Class Merging produces invalid dex for chrome
Retargeting of invokes to DesugarCollections breaks inlining
R8 Compilation failed (java.lang.NullPointerException)
Issue #170677722: Full mode - Fragment 1.3.0-beta01 - FORCE inlining on non-inlinable on FragmentManager
Issue #169584856: R8 - Compilation failed to complete
Issue #169045091: Android Gradle plugin v4.0.0 and Gradle v6.1.1 causes AbstractMethodError on protected methods

New in Android Studio 4.2 Canary 16 (Nov 6, 2020)

System Trace: Improved metrics for memory and graphics:
In the CPU profiler, the System Trace feature now includes new metrics for analyzing app performance:
Events Table: Displays all trace events in the currently selected thread.
New tracks and track groups:
BufferQueue: In the Display section, this new track shows the buffer count of the app's surface BufferQueue.
CPU Frequency: In the CPU cores section, this track shows how hard each core is working.
Process Memory (RSS): The new Process Memory (RSS) track group shows the amount of physical memory currently in use by the app.
General Fixes:
This update includes fixes for the following issues:
Android Gradle Plugin:
Issue #150133257: Sanitize flavor names in BuildConfig
Issue #170922353: Upgraded from AGP 4.0.2 to 4.1.0 and app crashes with Resources$NotFoundException: Resource ID #0x0
App Inspection:
Add IDE services for creating files
Have a way to stop the app inspector agent on the device
Apply Changes:
[Properly implement overlay diff
Apply Changes followed by a no-change IWI run removes the AC changes
Build Output:
Issue #156552742: Build output window does not help track down instant execution problems
Issue #153815674: unable to view real gradle DataBinding error
C++:
cxxLanguageKindFromExtension return CPP for most files, even if they are not CPP files
CPU:
[ChromeOS] C++ function tracing is not working: simpleperf depends on missing libncurses.so.5
Embedded Emulator:
Wear OS Round: display encroaches on device frame during startup
Gradle:
AGP recording OS version instead of OS name
Lint:
Issue #170585495: Lint Baseline generates with platform depended file separators
New Project Wizard:
[NewProject] Basic template illustration shadows are off with others
Profilers:
Update the "report a bug" link to use the right component
Running Tests:
Issue #162006827: Robolectric tests run in Android Studio 4.1 fail with a bad ASM dependency
Issue #170328018: AS 4.1+ fail to run junit tests, compailing about junit version being too low
Shrinker (R8):
Create a test for invalid signature rewriting
Issue #170915828: Failed to transform aar with StringIndexOutOfBoundsException when using R8 2.1.62 (used by AGP 4.1.0)
Issue #171369796: Method defined in both an interface and a base class throws null
Issue #171136616: R8 in AGP 4.1 optimization causes early initialization leading to NoClassDefFound error
Issue #171642432: Can't able to generate signed aab/apk with minifyEnabled set to true (> Task :app:minifyReleaseWithR8 FAILED)
Issue #171289133: Support allowshrinking modifier

New in Android Studio 4.2 Canary 15 (Nov 1, 2020)

General Fixes:
This update includes fixes for the following issues:
Android Studio:
Issue #170733015: Update GPU import to 2.3.0
AVD Manager:
Issue #159878401: "Cold Boot Now" on AVD Manager does not really cold boot emulator
Build Analyzer:
Issue #168687609: Showing Resolution message and open memory settings button when garbage memory time is 0.0 sec
Issue #169569758: Task duration should not be "0.0 seconds"
CPU:
Issue #149108626: [System Trace V2] - Remove padding from top and bottom of minimap
Issue #170801047: Unable to create profiler recording configuration
Deployment:
Issue #169819270: Errors in logcat on first install without install after non-compatible change
Embedded Emulator:
Issue #155284464: Emulator tool window icon should be 13x13: emulator.svg
Emulator:
Issue #155221674: Embedded Emulator: Feature request for device frame on/off
Issue #162564820: "Enter" key doesn't work in Emulator tool window
Gradle:
Issue #169825560: Rename deprecation target from 5.0 to 7.0
New Project Wizard:
Issue #171074702: [NewModule] Missing border between left and details panel
Issue #169614872: [NewProject] Several spacing/alignment issues not built to-spec
Project System:
Issue #170389448: QuickFix to use JDK from project structure not working
Run:
Issue #170709330: "NoSuchMethodException: android.content.res.CompatResources.getLoaders []" when starting from Android Studio
Shrinker (R8):
Issue #170920164: "Unexpected usage left in method" error when compiling chrome with latest R8
Issue #171197204: Retargeting of invokes to DesugarCollections breaks inlining
Issue #170677722: Full mode - Fragment 1.3.0-beta01 - FORCE inlining on non-inlinable on FragmentManager
Testing:
Issue #170753826: Revise Multi-device tests opt-in flow
Additionally the issues below were addressed in this release but may not necessarily be fixed:
Apply Changes:
Issue #169812146: Improve Kotlin lambda error messages
Build:
Issue #171305664: CMake 3.18 support breaks when there's .asm file
Deployment:
Issue #170750947: Parallelize deployer for multiple devices
Emulator:
Issue #163608541: First time emulator launch using run does not appear in the android studio window
Import/Sync:
Issue #169971952: Android Gradle build freezes
Resources:
Issue #170867656: Bug: can't rename some resource files, and no way to reach translation tool if file isn't named "strings.xml"

New in Android Studio 4.2 Canary 14 (Oct 22, 2020)

General Fixes:
This update includes fixes for the following issues:
Activity:
Issue #170026127: ActivityResultFragmentVersionDetector lint failure when using 1.2.0-beta01 with fragment 1.3.0-beta01
Issue #170026127: ActivityResultFragmentVersionDetector lint failure when using 1.2.0-beta01 with fragment 1.3.0-beta01
Android Gradle Plugin:
Issue #169252018: AGP fails to build libraries targeting java 1.7
Issue #164036336: Incremental changes with multi-release jars, or jars built with target 1.9 may break dexing
Issue #168091536: getText() and getString() trims new lines from the beginning of the string
Issue #138837769: Allow disabling resource validation in library modules (in parsing local resources)
Issue #169896233: Using jetpack compose breaks gradle configuration caching
C++:
Issue #169442717: Prevent Android Studio to include unrelated files in project
Issue #169442540: Include header directories in project
Issue #169442540: Include header directories in project
Issue #169442540: Include header directories in project
C++ Debugger:
Issue #169158699: Missing debug symbols, cannot debug .apk that is otherwise working fine
Import/Sync:
Issue #169575797: Unable to download sources from maven.google.com
Jetifier:
Issue #168038088: artifact replacements should use the version set in the project
Layout Editor:
Issue #157093849: Favorite attributes in UI layout editor not saved correctly
Lint:
Issue #169255669: Lint: ClassCastException in RestrictToDetector (related to KT-41290)
Issue #169483540: Lint false positive on ScopedStorage
Issue #170210653: Android LintError when `suppressAnnotations` is provided as an empty list
Issue #170210653: Android LintError when `suppressAnnotations` is provided as an empty list
Issue #167593732: Add SARIF as supported output format for Lint
Issue #170240589: [Lint] OutdatedLibrary false positive on firebase-crashlytics
Navigation Editor:
Issue #170059094: Unresolved reference for NavArgs declared at top of (nested) NavGraph
Resource Manager:
Issue #169449461: Image Asset Studio doesn't overwrite all old files when generating files for new adaptive icon
Running Tests:
Issue #163791525: INSTALL_PARSE_FAILED_NO_CERTIFICATES when running test on multiple devices
Issue #163791525: INSTALL_PARSE_FAILED_NO_CERTIFICATES when running test on multiple devices
Shrinker (R8):
Issue #169584856: R8 - Compilation failed to complete
Issue #169671295: More error handling for retrace command
Issue #163981284: The retrace api implementation should take a mapping file
Issue #169672210: [retrace] Print message on waiting for std-in
Testing:
Issue #156940162: Sorting column for status shouldn't be alphabetical
Upgrade Assistant:
Issue #156100314: Consider handling Crashlytics versions in the upgrade assistant

New in Android Studio 4.1 (Oct 13, 2020)

New Database Inspector:
Inspect, query, and modify your databases in your running app using the new Database Inspector. To get started, deploy your app to a device running API Level 26 or higher, and select View > Tool Windows > Database Inspector from the menu bar.
Run the Android Emulator directly in Android Studio:
You can now run the Android Emulator directly in Android Studio. Use this feature to conserve screen real estate, to navigate quickly between the emulator and the editor window using hotkeys, and to organize your IDE and emulator workflow in a single application window.
Use TensorFlow Lite models:
ML Model Binding makes it easy for you to directly import .tflite model files and use them in your projects. Android Studio generates easy-to-use classes so you can run your model with less code and better type safety.
Supported models:
The current implementation of ML Model Binding supports image classification and style transfer models, provided they are enhanced with metadata. Over time, support will be expanded to other problem domains, like object detection, image segmentation, and text classification.
A wide range of pre-trained models with metadata are provided on TensorFlow Hub. You can also add metadata to a TensorFlow Lite model yourself, as is outlined in Adding metadata to TensorFlow Lite model.
View model metadata and usage:
To see the details for an imported model and get instructions on how to use it in your app, double-click the model file in your project to open the model viewer page, which shows the following:
Model: High-level description of the model
Tensors: Description of input and output tensors
Sample code: Example of how to interface with the model in your app
Known issues and workarounds:
Support for TensorFlow Lite models for problem domains other than image classification and style transfer is currently limited. Although import should work fine, some model inputs and/or outputs are represented by TensorBuffers rather than friendly types. For models without any metadata, all model inputs and outputs will be TensorBuffers.
Models with Input and Output data types different from DataType.UINT8 or DataType.FLOAT32 are not supported.
Native Memory Profiler:
The Android Studio Memory Profiler now includes a Native Memory Profiler for apps deployed to physical devices running Android 10 or later. With the Native Memory Profiler, you can record memory allocations and deallocations from native code and inspect cumulative statistics about native objects.
Known issues and workarounds:
The Native Memory Profiler in Android Studio 4.1 does not work for Android 11 devices. Support for profiling Android 11 devices is currently available in the 4.2 preview release
As of the initial 4.1 release, app startup profiling has been disabled. This option will be enabled in an upcoming release.
As a workaround, you can use the Perfetto standalone command-line profiler to capture startup profiles.
System Trace UI: Easier selection, new analysis tab, and more frame rendering data:
The System Trace UI in the Android Studio profiler includes the following improvements:
Box selection: In the Threads section, you can now drag your mouse to perform a box selection of a rectangular area, which you can zoom into by clicking the Zoom to Selection button on the top right (or use the M keyboard shortcut). When you drag and drop similar threads next to each other, you can select across multiple threads to inspect all of them at once. For example, you may want to perform analysis on multiple worker threads.
Summary tab: The new Summary tab in the Analysis panel displays:
Aggregate statistics for all occurrences of a specific event, such as an occurrence count and min/max duration.
Trace event statistics for the selected occurrence.
Data about thread state distribution.
Longest-running occurrences of the selected trace event.
To navigate to another occurrence, select another row from the table:
Display data: In the Display section, new timelines for SurfaceFlinger and VSYNC help you investigate rendering issues in your app's UI.
Standalone profilers now available:
With the new standalone profilers, it's now possible to profile your app without running the full Android Studio IDE.
For instructions on using the standalone profilers, see Run standalone profilers.
Dagger navigation support:
Android Studio makes it easier to navigate between your Dagger-related code by providing new gutter actions and extending support in the Find Usages window.
New gutter actions: For projects that use Dagger, the IDE provides gutter actions that help you navigate between your Dagger-annotated code. For example, clicking on the gutter action next to a method that consumes a given type navigates you to the provider of that type. Conversely, clicking on the gutter action navigates you to where a type is used as a dependency.
Find Usages node: When you invoke Find Usages on a provider of a given type, the Find window now includes a Dependency consumer(s) node that lists consumers of that type. Conversely, invoking this action on a consumer of a Dagger-injected dependency, the Find window shows you the provider of that dependency.
Material Design Components: Updated themes and styles in new project templates:
Android Studio templates in the Create New Project dialog now use Material Design Components (MDC) and conform to updated guidance for themes and styles by default. Updates include:
MDC: Projects depend on com.google.android.material:material in build.gradle. Base app themes use Theme.MaterialComponents.* parents and override updated MDC color and “on” attributes.
Color resources: Color resources in colors.xml use literal names (for example, purple_500 instead of colorPrimary).
Theme resources: Theme resources are in themes.xml (instead of styles.xml) and use Theme. names.
Dark theme: Base application themes use DayNight parents and are split between res/values and res/values-night.
Theme attributes: Color resources are referenced as theme attributes (for example, ?attr/colorPrimary) in layouts and styles to avoid hard-coded colors.
IntelliJ IDEA 2020.1:
The core Android Studio IDE has been updated with improvements from IntelliJ IDEA through the 2020.1 release, including a new Commit window that enables version control operations and a new Zen mode that can be toggled by selecting View > Appearance > Enter Distraction Free Mode.
Kotlin 1.3.72:
Android Studio 4.1 bundles Kotlin 1.3.72, which includes a number of fixes to improve Kotlin highlighting, inspections, and code completion. Check out the 1.3.72 Kotlin changelog for details.
Custom view preview:
When creating a custom view (for example, by extending the View or Button class), Android Studio now shows you a preview of your custom view. Use the dropdown menu in the toolbar to switch between multiple custom views, or click the buttons to wrap vertically or horizontally to the content.
Symbolication for native crash reports:
When a crash or ANR occurs in native code, the system produces a stack trace, which is a snapshot of the sequence of nested functions called in your program up to the moment it crashed. These snapshots can help you to identify and fix any problems in the source, but they must first be symbolicated to translate the machine addresses back into human-readable function names.
If your app or game is developed using native code, like C++, you can now upload debug symbols files to the Play Console for each version of your app. The Play Console uses these debug symbols files to symbolicate your app's stack traces, making it easier to analyze crashes and ANRs. To learn how to upload debug symbols files, see Native crash support.
Apply Changes:
To help you be more productive as you iterate on your app, we've made the following enhancements to Apply Changes for devices running Android 11 Developer Preview 3 or higher:
Faster deploy speeds:
We've invested heavily in optimizing your iteration speed by developing a method to deploy and persist changes on a device without installing the application. After an initial deploy, subsequent deploys to Android 11 devices using either Apply Code Changes or Apply Changes and Restart Activity are now significantly faster. To learn more about the difference between these two actions, see Apply Changes.
Support for additional code changes:
For devices running Android 11 Developer Preview 3 or higher, you can now add methods and then deploy those changes to your running app by clicking either Apply Code Changes or Apply Changes and Restart Activity

New in Android Studio 4.0.2 (Oct 7, 2020)

New in Android Studio 4.2 Canary 13 (Oct 2, 2020)

New in Android Studio 4.2 Canary 12 (Sep 23, 2020)

New in Android Studio 4.2 Canary 11 (Sep 18, 2020)

New in Android Studio 4.1 RC 3 (Sep 16, 2020)

New in Android Studio 4.2 Canary 10 (Sep 9, 2020)

New in Android Studio 4.2 Canary 9 (Sep 3, 2020)

New in Android Studio 4.1 RC 2 (Sep 1, 2020)

New in Android Studio 4.1 RC 1 (Aug 11, 2020)

New in Android Studio 4.2 Canary 7 (Jul 31, 2020)

New in Android Studio 4.2 Canary 6 (Jul 29, 2020)

New in Android Studio 4.1 Beta 5 (Jul 24, 2020)

New in Android Studio 4.1 Beta 4 (Jul 24, 2020)

New in Android Studio 4.2 Canary 5 (Jul 22, 2020)

New in Android Studio 4.0.1 (Jul 16, 2020)

New in Android Studio 4.2 Canary 4 (Jul 9, 2020)

General Fixes:
Android Gradle Plugin:
Issue #158201643: ExtractAnnotations should be compatible with configuration caching
Issue #37122098: Fix renderscriptNdk
Issue #155215177: Android gradle build: excluded java source files get compiled:
Code Analysis:
Issue #36978767: Add corresponding Intention for inspection "Toast created but not shown: did you forget to call show() "
Issue #62405955: (Feature request) Provide inspection for missing show() call on Snackbar
Database Inspector:
Issue #157461456: Database inspector disappear from toolbar
Issue #159575631: Simple (and complex) query using With clause doesn't work on the Database Inspector
Emulator:
Issue #158874142: Studio clipboard does not pick up clipboard selection from the emulator
Lint:
Issue #140626689: False positive for Service.onStartCommand return value WrongConstant check
Issue #119711823: "Invalid format string" lint rule doesn't report issue for a space in patern "% s"
Issue #136534380: "Buttons in button bars should be borderless" warning in a layout XML doesn't have an auto-fix option
Issue #77299597: "Combining ellipsize=middle and maxLines=1..." warning should not show when minSdkVersion is 23 or higher
Issue #74058591: "Unexpected failure during lint analysis" for invalid replace string quick fix masks actual problem
Issue #111035260: "enable 'LogConditional'" doesn't enable check
Issue #37053735: "Unexpected cast" Inspection should offer replacement suggestion
Issue #62810553: "android:host is missing" for uris with null host
Issue #158295165: Android Lint: Unknown Issue IDs should NOT break the build
Issue #158189490: NewApi lint check does not factor in usage of core library desugaring
Manifests:
Issue #158406168: Navigation component Illegal circular reference among navigation files when traversing navigation file references starting with navigationXmlId
New Code/Templates:
Issue #37105561: UX: Bad proportions in new layout resource window
Resources:
Issue #151480852: Bug: color preview in colors.xml file can show the wrong one, referenced by a different qualifier
SDK Manager:
Issue #159176695: cmdline-tools on mac packaged incorrectly
View Binding:
Issue #158065847: Autocomplete for binding classes in Android Studio 4.0 could be better

New in Android Studio 4.1 Beta 3 (Jul 9, 2020)

New in Android Studio 4.2 Canary 3 (Jul 1, 2020)

New in Android Studio 4.1 Beta 2 (Jun 26, 2020)

General fixes:
This update also includes fixes for the following public issues:
Android Gradle Plugin:
Issue #158468794: AGP 4.1 alpha 9 & 10 can't run task :tasks on root module. DefaultTaskContainer#register(String, Class, Action) on task set cannot be executed in the current context.
Issue #140747218: Improve error messages for exceptions thrown from Jetifier
Issue #154742527: Stop relying on build listeners to clean up state
Build Analyzer:
Issue #157673275: ProcessDataBinding is not working incrementally
Build Output:
Issue #147776458: Rewrite compiler errors about incorrect Java level and provide quick fixes
Database Inspector:
Issue #157461455: Database inspector shows duplicated "Database" groups
Dexer (D8):
Issue #157806261: One or more instruction is preventing default interface method from being desugared: java.util.function.Consumer it.unimi.dsi.fastutil.chars.CharConsumer.andThen(java.util.function.Consumer)
Issue #158815562: Desugaring: static methods don't work for subclasses
Emulator:
Issue #158874142: Studio clipboard does not pick up clipboard selection from the emulator
Issue #157181475: View > Emulator doesn't toggle
Issue #156865227: Zooming in on the emulator causes visual flicker
Gradle:
Issue #156824496: AGP no longer supports float and various other types of build config fields
Gradle Files Editor:
Issue #157287524: Bug: IDE suggest to update gradle version for a new project, and then fails to update it well when applied
Import/Sync:
Issue #156992679: Quickfix for java 8 desugaring should not update min-sdk
Issue #156112443: Invalid Gradle JDK configuration found
Issue #158018185: When using "make project", AS reports build failures when using Kotlin DSL in buildSrc
Layout Inspector:
Issue #156787539: layout inspector doesn't detect running device
Lint:
Issue #140699627: Lint fail when using StringRes as field of an enum used as SafeArgs argument
Issue #159169803: RequiredSize check triggers on AndroidManifest.xml files in directories named "layout"
Navigation Editor:
Issue #156772383: Multiple vmoptions files: Illegal char while parsing jb.vmOptionsFile
Profilers:
Issue #143467035: Build fails with advanced profiling enabled + Gson 2.8.6 dependency
Resources:
Issue #158212024: Classes generated by safeargs plugin are not seen by indexer
Shrinker (R8):
Issue #158018192: R8 2.0.74 produces invalid dex file when build "release" mode
Issue #157966650: R8 2.0.74 raise NullPointerException with -dontobfuscate option.
Issue #158454684: Support for multiple class specification annotations
Issue #157926129: minifyReleaseWithR8 throws java.lang.StackOverflowError after updating Gradle Plugin to 4.0.0
Upgrade Assistant:
Issue #120273289: Don't recommend updating android gradle plugin to alpha version when my android studio version is a beta (and likewise for stable->beta)
WorkManager:
Issue #147481889: Lint False Positive for EnqueueWork

New in Android Studio 4.2 Canary 2 (Jun 19, 2020)

New in Android Studio 4.1 Beta 1 (Jun 11, 2020)

New in Android Studio 4.2 Canary 1 (Jun 11, 2020)

New in Android Studio 4.0 (May 29, 2020)

Android Gradle plugin 4.0.0
The latest version of the Android Gradle plugin includes many updates, such as Java 8 desugaring for older versions of Android and feature-on-feature dependencies. To learn more, read the full Android Gradle plugin release notes.
Additionally, Android Studio now includes new features to help you improve your build performance.
Build Analyzer
When using Android Studio 4.0 with Android Gradle plugin 4.0.0 and higher, the Build Analyzer window helps you understand and diagnose issues with your build process, such as disabled optimizations and improperly configured tasks. To open the Build Analyzer window, proceed as follows:
If you haven’t already done so, build your app by selecting Build > Make Project from the menu bar.
Select View > Tool Windows > Build from the menu bar.
In the Build window, open the Build Analyzer window in one of the following ways:
After Android Studio finishes building your project, click the Build Analyzer tab.
After Android Studio finishes building your project, click the link in the right side of the Build Output window.
The Build Analyzer window organizes possible build issues in a tree on the left. You can inspect and click on each issue to investigate its details in the panel on the right. When Android Studio analyzes your build, it computes the set of tasks that determined the build’s duration and provides a visualization to help you understand the impact of each of these tasks. You can also get details on warnings by expanding the Warnings node.
Java 8 library desugaring in D8 and R8
Android Studio now includes support for using a number of Java 8 language APIs without requiring a minimum API level for your app.
Through a process called desugaring, the DEX compiler, D8, in Android Studio 3.0 and higher already provided substantial support for Java 8 language features (such as lambda expressions, default interface methods, try with resources, and more). In Android Studio 4.0, the desugaring engine has been extended to be able to desugar Java language APIs. This means that you can now include standard language APIs that were available only in recent Android releases (such as java.util.streams) in apps that support older versions of Android.
The following set of APIs is supported in this release:
Sequential streams (java.util.stream)
A subset of java.time
java.util.function
Recent additions to java.util.{Map,Collection,Comparator}
Optionals (java.util.Optional, java.util.OptionalInt and java.util.OptionalDouble) and some other new classes useful with the above APIs
Some additions to java.util.concurrent.atomic (new methods on AtomicInteger, AtomicLong and AtomicReference)
ConcurrentHashMap (with bug fixes for Android 5.0)
To support these language APIs, D8 compiles a separate library DEX file that contains an implementation of the missing APIs and includes it in your app. The desugaring process rewrites your app’s code to instead use this library at runtime.
Feature-on-feature dependencies:
In previous versions of the Android Gradle plugin, all Dynamic Feature modules could depend only on the app's base module. When using Android Gradle plugin 4.0.0 and higher, you can now include a feature module that depends on another feature module. That is, a :video feature can depend on the :camera feature, which depends on the base module.
This means that when your app requests to download a dynamic feature module, the app also downloads other feature modules it depends on. After you create dynamic feature modules for your app, you can declare a feature-on-feature dependency in the module’s build.gradle file. For example, the :video module declares a dependency on :camera.
Additionally, you should enable the feature-on-feature dependency feature in Android Studio (to support the feature when editing the Run configuration, for example) by clicking Help > Edit Custom VM Options from the menu bar and including the following: -Drundebug.feature.on.feature=true
Dependencies metadata:
When building your app using Android Gradle plugin 4.0.0 and higher, the plugin includes metadata that describes the dependencies that are compiled into your app. When uploading your app, the Play Console inspects this metadata to provide you with the following benefits:
Get alerts for known issues with SDKs and dependencies your app uses
Receive actionable feedback to resolve those issues
The data is compressed, encrypted by a Google Play signing key, and stored in the signing block of your release app. However, you can inspect the metadata yourself in the local intermediate build files in the following directory: //build/outputs/sdk-dependencies/release/sdkDependency.txt.
Support for Kotlin DSL script files:
The Android Gradle plugin now supports Kotlin DSL build script files (*.kts). When used with Android Studio, certain IDE features, such as the Project Structure dialog and build script quick fixes, now also support reading and writing to Kotlin build script files.
CPU Profiler upgrades:
Based on your feedback, we've focused our efforts on improving the user experience in the CPU Profiler in two important ways.
First, compared to previous Android Studio releases, error rates for CPU recordings in the CPU Profiler have been reduced significantly.
Second, the CPU Profiler UI has been overhauled to provide a more intuitive workflow. Some notable UI changes include the following:
CPU recordings are now separated from the main profiler timeline to allow for easier analysis. Recorded data are organized in groups on the left side of the Profiler window. You can move groups up and down to reorganize the list by clicking the options options icon in profiler iconicon in the top-right corner of the window, or by dragging-and-dropping individual items within a group.
The tabs for Flame Chart, Top Down, and Bottom Up analyses are now in the righthand column. In the Threads group, threads are automatically expanded for System Trace recordings and collapsed by default for other recording types. Double-click (or press Enter) on thread names to expand or collapse them.
The System Trace UI, as shown in the screenshot, also includes improvements.
Events are now uniquely colored for easier differentiation.
Threads are sorted by the number of trace events within them so that the “busier” threads are ranked higher in the list.
You can select one or more threads to see analysis in the right hand column for those selected threads only.
Similarly you can select a trace event within any thread to see analysis data for it.
Design tools:
This version of Android Studio includes updates to the design tools, such as the Layout Inspector and an all-new Motion Editor.
New Motion Editor:
Android Studio now includes a visual design editor for the MotionLayout layout type, making it easier to create and preview animations.
The Motion Editor provides a simple interface for manipulating elements from the MotionLayout library that serves as the foundation for animation in Android apps. In previous releases, creating and altering these elements required manually editing constraints in XML resource files. Now, the Motion Editor can generate this XML for you, with support for start and end states, keyframes, transitions, and timelines.
Live Layout Inspector:
Debug your layout with an updated Live Layout Inspector that provides complete, real-time insights into your app’s UI while it’s deployed to a device.
To open a Layout Inspector window, go to View > Tools Windows > Layout Inspector. Along with many of the same features of the existing Layout Inspector, the Live Layout Inspector also includes:
Dynamic layout hierarchy: Updates as the views on the device change.
Property values resolution stack: Investigate where a resource property value originates in the source code and navigate to its location by following the hyperlinks in the properties pane.
3D view: See your app’s view hierarchy at runtime with advanced 3D visualization. To use this feature, in the Live Layout Inspector window simply click on the Layout and rotate it.
You can use the Live Layout Inspector only when deploying your app to a device or emulator running API level 29 or higher. To enable the Live Layout Inspector, go to File > Settings > Experimental and check the box next to Enable Live Layout Inspector. Then click the checkbox next to Live updates above the Layout Display.
Layout Validation:
Layout Validation is a visual tool for simultaneously previewing layouts on different devices and configurations, helping you detect layout errors and create more accessible apps.
You can access this feature by clicking on the Layout Validation tab in the top-right corner of the IDE window
In the Layout Validation window, you can select from four different configuration sets, including:
Pixel Devices: Preview your app on a selection of Pixel devices.
Custom: Preview your app using custom display options such as screen orientation or language.
Color Blind: Preview your app using simulations of common types of color blindness.
Font Sizes: Preview your app using a variety of font sizes.
Smart editor features for code shrinker rules:
Android Studio now provides smart editor features when you open code shrinker rules files for R8, such as syntax highlighting, code completion, and error checking. The editor also integrates with your Android Studio project to provide full symbol completion for all classes, methods, and fields, and includes quick navigation and refactoring.
Kotlin Android live templates:
Android Studio now includes Android live templates for your Kotlin classes. For example, you can now type toast and press the Tab key to quickly insert a Toast. For a full list of available live templates, click File > Settings from the menu bar (or Android Studio > Preferences on macOS) and navigate to Editor > Live Templates.
Fragment wizard and new fragment templates:
A New Android Fragment wizard and new fragment templates are now available when you navigate to File > New > Fragment > Gallery or click Create new destination in the Navigation editor.
Expanded camera support in Android emulator:
When using the Android 11 image, Android Emulator camera includes the following new features:
RAW capture
YUV reprocessing
Level 3 devices
Logical camera support
To learn more about developing for the next version of Android, go to the Android 11 Developer Preview user documentation.
clangd now available for C++ code editor:
Jetbrains CLion, the technology underpinning Android Studio's C++ language support, now uses an inspection engine based on LLVM clangd and clang-tidy, speeding up C/C++ code completion and providing a more seamless integration with clang-tidy.
Now available in the Android Studio C++ code editor, clangd and clang-tidy are both part of open-source LLVM extra tooling:
clangd features code completion, compile error messages in the editor, and go-to-definition navigation.
clang-tidy is a C++ linter tool with an extensible framework for diagnosing and fixing typical programming errors.
In prior releases, Android Studio users could use clang-tidy through the NDK; with this change, Android Studio is no longer dependent on the NDK for clang-tidy functionality.
ndk.dir setting in local.properties file is deprecated:
The value for ndk.dir should no longer be set in your app's local.properties file, and support for this ndk.dir setting will be removed in a future version. The Android Gradle Plugin sets the NDK version by default, but if you need a specific version of the NDK, you can set android.ndkVersion in build.gradle.
For more information on setting up the NDK, see Install and configure the NDK and CMake.
For easier side-by-side analysis, you can now view all thread activity in the thread activity timeline (including methods, functions, and events). There are several ways to navigate the timeline:
To focus on a specific point in time, drag a range in the CPU usage chart on the top left.
To zoom in or out, use the mouse wheel while holding down Control (or Command on MacOS). To pan left or right, drag while holding down the spacebar.
Alternatively, use the W and A keys for fine-grained zooming in and out, and the S and D keys for fine-grained panning left and right.

New in Android Studio 4.1 Canary 10 (May 27, 2020)

New in Android Studio 4.0 RC 1 (May 14, 2020)

New in Android Studio 4.1 Canary 9 (May 14, 2020)

Improvements from IntelliJ IDEA 2020.1:
The core Android Studio IDE is based on IntelliJ IDEA. In this release, we have begun incorporating improvements from IntelliJ 2020.1, which we will continue in upcoming canary releases. This is a work in progress, and we welcome any feedback.
IDE configuration directory changes:
In this release, the locations for user configuration directories have been changed, consistent with recent updates to IntelliJ IDEA, the IDE on which Android Studio is based.
For more information, please see the release notes.
Missing Kotlin plugin:
In Canary 9, you may see the following error when first launching Android Studio after upgrading:
missing essential plugin org.jetbrains.android
This can happen when you import your settings from a previous version of Android Studio. Typically, this means you have a locally installed Kotlin plugin that is not compatible with the new IDE.
For a workaround, please see the release notes.
General Fixes:
Build Variants:
Issue #153476414: Exception thrown when trying to run/configure a release build
Data Binding:
Issue #153711619: AGP 3.6.2: Incremental compilation failure in DataBinding
Issue #153513464: LiveData Custom Binding
Database Inspector:
Issue #153684332: Database inspector improvements
Issue #154871161: App crash when trying to use Database Inspector
Debugger:
Issue #154969128: Consider restoring A 3.6 behavior of "Stop" button
Dexer (D8):
Issue #154315491: AGP 4.x build fails with exception in L8DexDesugarLibTask configuration
Lint:
Issue #37133950: new Lint check: calling the same super function more than once
SDK Manager:
Issue #150942306: Command-line sdkmanager needs better error if root dir can't be found
Issue #150943631: sdk manager should be smarter about deriving package path
Issue #150944411: Package A shouldn't overwrite package B if B is incorrectly in A's location
Issue #150946939: cmdline-tools top-level directory shouldn't be called "tools"
Issue #62063562: Add --installed option to sdkmanager --list
Issue #137389944: CLI does not respect TERM=dumb
Issue #69461360: Usability issue: subcommand and/or quotes around package name for clarity
Issue #37130052: sdkmanager --package_file= command isn't whitespace tolerant
Issue #152120283: sdkmanager from cmdlinetools fails with unhelpful exception when --sdk_root supplied
Issue #37130079: sdkmanager --update doesn't output anything to stdout
Tools Windows:
Issue #154298380: Android command-line tools seems to be 6200805 broken on Windows
View Binding:
Issue #154738763: Android View Binding does not support id's using dot case
Issue #154747638: Merge tag is causing compilation error

New in Android Studio 4.1 Canary 8 (Apr 29, 2020)

New in Android Studio 4.0 Beta 5 (Apr 24, 2020)

New in Android Studio 4.1 Canary 7 (Apr 24, 2020)

New in Android Studio 4.1 Canary 6 (Apr 24, 2020)

New in Android Studio 3.6.3 (Apr 19, 2020)

New in Android Studio 4.1 Canary 5 (Apr 10, 2020)

New in Android Studio 4.0 Beta 4 (Apr 8, 2020)

New in Android Studio 3.6.2 (Apr 1, 2020)

New in Android Studio 4.1 Canary 4 (Mar 25, 2020)

New in Android Studio 4.0 Beta 3 (Mar 20, 2020)

General fixes:
This update also includes fixes for the following public issues:
Android Gradle Plugin:
Issue #151040815: BuildTypeAttr.ATTRIBUTE and VariantAttr.ATTRIBUTE in Android Gradle plugin 4.0.0-beta01 are not ABI-compatible with 3.6 of the plugin
Issue #146520838: JsonSyntaxException: java.lang.IllegalStateException: Expected BEGIN_OBJECT but was BEGIN_ARRAY at line 1 column 2 path $
Build Variants:
Issue #142608498: AS forgets selected build variant
Databinding:
Issue #144300600: error: cannot generate view binders java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: Parameter specified as non-null is null: method android.databinding.tool.reflection.RecursiveResolutionStack.visit, parameter referenceObject
Import/Sync:
Issue #149045341: Very long sync times when consuming a custom configuration
Issue #150848406: GradleVersions pattern matcher problem
Lint:
Issue #150530989: Lint crashes on kotlin elvis in 4.1.0-alpha01
Issue #150506104: Lint failure when upgrading to 3.6.x
Issue #148172219: [AGP 4.0.0-alpha09] False error: X must extend android.view.View
Issue #140881211: Android Studio 3.6 canary 10 incorrectly marks butterknife as annotation processor.
Issue #126439418: @Suppress tag prevents Lint detectors from resolving reference
Issue #150292219: Lint runs twice as slow on AGP 4 Beta 1 + False Positive
Lint Inspections:
Issue #125138962: Bug: removed-unused-resources can show items that are actually used
Shrinker (R8):
Issue #149554602: The R8 1.6.X 2.0.X compile project crashed,it looks like a bug form CodeRewriter.java(EnumValueOptimizer.java)
Issue #150688800: "NullPointerException during IR Conversion" with gradle plugin 3.6.1
Issue #149729626: R8 full mode removes constructors kept by Proguard
Issue #150274427: RET should be handled by the ASM jsr inliner
Issue #144437165: ServiceLoaderRewriter not working for multiple services.
Issue #149946708: R8 fails during transformClassAndResourcesWithR8 on UI test apk
Issue #149890887: NPE in MemberRebindingAnalysis.firstLibraryClassForInterfaceTarget
Issue #150189783: Since AGP 3.6.0, R8 fullMode converts Kotlin data class into AbstractClass and produces error with Gson
Issue #147972078: 4.0.0-alpha08 - java.lang.RuntimeException: Cannot create an instance of class ViewModel
Testing:
Issue #144788300: "Test framework quit unexpectedly" after running Espresso tests in Studio 3.6
View Binding:
Issue #150405777: Add modification tracker for view binding enabled / disabled

New in Android Studio 4.1 Canary 3 (Mar 19, 2020)

General fixes:
This update includes fixes for the following public issues:
Android Gradle Plugin:
Issue #150500779: test code is not able to access internal methods from the library it is testing
Issue #151040815: BuildTypeAttr.ATTRIBUTE and VariantAttr.ATTRIBUTE in Android Gradle plugin 4.0.0-beta01 are not ABI-compatible with 3.6 of the plugin
Issue #150438232: Caching seems to be broken for CheckMultiApkLibrariesTask
Issue #150817339: MergeJavaResourcesDelegateTest.testMergeResources fails locally
Issue #113978810: Bundled proguard-android.txt should not obfuscate descriptor classes for native methods
Issue #142890134: AGP 3.6.0-beta01: relocatability problem with syncDebugLibJars
C++ Debugger:
Issue #122906050: Unable to debug apk - cannot find default activity
Data Binding:
Issue #150989409: False inspection: The expression "..." cannot be inverted, so it cannot be used in a two-way binding
Issue #144300600: error: cannot generate view binders java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: Parameter specified as non-null is null: method android.databinding.tool.reflection.RecursiveResolutionStack.visit, parameter referenceObject
Import/Sync:
Issue #149045341: Very long sync times when consuming a custom configuration
Issue #150848406: GradleVersions pattern matcher problem
Layout Editor:
Issue #150367191: Re-enable TypeResolverSdkTest.testMaterialViewAttributeTypes
Lint:
Issue #150506104: Lint failure when upgrading to 3.6.x
Issue #150530989: Lint crashes on kotlin elvis in 4.1.0-alpha01
Issue #150292219: Lint runs twice as slow on AGP 4 Beta 1 + False Positive
Issue #140881211: Android Studio 3.6 canary 10 incorrectly marks butterknife as annotation processor.
Issue #126439418: @Suppress tag prevents Lint detectors from resolving reference
Issue #148172219: [AGP 4.0.0-alpha09] False error: X must extend android.view.View
Lint Inspections:
Issue #125138962: Bug: removed-unused-resources can show items that are actually used
Testing:
Issue #144788300: "Test framework quit unexpectedly" after running Espresso tests in Studio 3.6
View Binding:
Issue #150405777: Add modification tracker for view binding enabled / disabled

New in Android Studio 4.0 Beta 2 (Mar 12, 2020)

New in Android Studio 4.1 Canary 2 (Mar 10, 2020)

New in Android Studio 3.6.1 (Mar 1, 2020)

New in Android Studio 4.1 Canary 1 (Feb 28, 2020)

Assertions in debug builds:
Assertions in your Java code are now enabled when deploying the debug version of your app. See the release notes for more information.
Jetpack Compose:
Jetpack Compose is now available in the 4.1 channel; it has been removed from the 4.0 channel. See the release notes for more information.
Git version control errors in the IDE:
Operations requiring authentication in Git version control are broken in the IDE for Android Studio 4.1 Canary 1 and will be fixed in an upcoming release.
As a workaround, use Git from the command line.
General fixes:
This update includes fixes for the following public issues:
Android:
Issue #147105605: Move codegen to AS Gradle codebase
Issue #148944828: [MLKit Plugin] Throw IOException from light class's constructor method to match the real impl
Issue #147595970: Create mlkit_common module in tools/base
Issue #149663643: [AS Integration] Use single hierarchy package suffix for auto generated classes
Issue #148283520: Set up mlkit-common module with library in maven
Issue #147890886: Avoid scanning all modules in MlkitClassFinder
Issue #147680613: Add light class support for codegen in AS codebase
Issue #148621263: Add more data in mlkit-common
Issue #149254807: [AS Integration] Inner classes of generated class are not discoverable independently by auto completion
Issue #149718660: [AS Integration] Add navigation support for inner classes
Issue #149252211: [AS Integration] Render the summary and usage of generated class in model viewer
Issue #149791876: Rename Param and ModelData in mlkit-common
Issue #144867508: Create ML Kit Module in Android Studio
Issue #146015231: Create MLKIT Task in AGP for model classes auto-generation
Android Gradle Plugin:
Issue #147768068: AGP 3.6 RC 1 produces non constants R fields when using the android name space.
Issue #148005697: [AGP 4.0.0-alpha08] DataBindingInfo is being defined in the same package across different modules
Issue #147486992: Use artifact transforms for external libraries in dexing task
Issue #115334911: Change how we model test - tested app dependency
Issue #148164947: AndroidLibrary.getLintJar is not valid for sub-project
Issue #144513656: Lint's Gradle task hangs after update to AGP 3.6.0-beta04
Issue #146869072: Task failed on mergeExtDex
Issue #148442683: Build APK outputs.json metadata incorrectly setting value of versionName
Issue #141535821: BasePlugin.checkModulesForErrors is quadratic in number of projects
Issue #146922959: GenerateTestConfig does not consider build directory name as task input property
Issue #135471813: Gradle PNG generation doesn't handle qualifiers
Issue #116859397: Ensure feature abiFilters are the same as the base module's
Issue #146907851: Update guava from 27.1-jre to 28.1-jre
Issue #147289282: The option setting 'android.enableR8=true' is deprecated.null
Issue #148443410: Assertion fails in DependencyResourcesComputer.compute
Android Studio:
Issue #71894463: Radial Gradient SVG from Sketch is not imported correctly by the Vector Asset Tool
App Model:
Issue #147432884: Invert compression and adding salt to make the footprint of sdk dependency data smaller in APKs
Build:
Issue #147448576: AGP 3.6 RC 1: Unsupported gradient type: "sweep"
Build Output:
Issue #146593375: Processing the events in the build output windows delays the app install
Build Variants:
Issue #142608498: AS forgets selected build variant
C++ Debugger:
Issue #145707569: LLDB Startup Commands Can't work with `Attach Debugger to Android Process` when debug
C++ Editor:
Issue #144938511: Android Studio doesn't support CMake's OBJECT library
C++ Import/Sync:
Issue #148805330: Syncing C++ projects leak memory in AGP 3.6rc02
Code Editor:
Issue #149041225: Freeze in AndroidProcessMonitorManager.getMonitor
Issue #146115250: Data Binding functionality stops working (Logs show crash in LayoutBindingShortNamesCache$3.compute)
Issue #147802433: Proguard unresolved symbols shown in gray instead of red
ConstraintLayout:
Issue #140882056: ConstraintLayout's Flow class located in different package in androidx and android.support
Core IDE:
Issue #129362597: Gradle attempt at parsing a redirect notice from Maven Repository
Issue #143693655: Manifest merging runs all the time
Data Binding:
Issue #147609508: Data Binding not resolving the binding class for layouts in different sourceSet
Issue #146538006: IDE sometimes fails to resolve "include" layouts
Deployment:
Issue #139859267: `Default Activity not found` error, "Multiple entries with same key" in ActivityAttributesSnapshot
Design Tools:
Issue #147805557: Improve packing algorithm in multi preview window
Gradle C++:
Issue #134374003: Android Gradle Plugin: “Expected output file at … for target … but there was none” when CMakeLists defines object libraries
Import/Sync:
Issue #145235353: Require sync after change comment in gradle file is pointless
IntelliJ:
Issue #145767113: Failed to start Git process User Authentication Token not found
Java 11 Blockers:
Issue #127544816: Potential blocker for Java 11 rollout: Android Lint
Layout Editor:
Issue #143600084: Views cannot be dragged to Flow element in component tree
Issue #37117915: Help button for Layout Editor
Layout Inspector:
Issue #148890011: LayoutInspector violates WebView Strict Mode and spams popups
Lint:
Issue #149490356: Lint CLI driver crashes on Windows rn separators
Issue #148051144: Lint on AGP 4.0.0-alpha09 fails with InvocationTargetException
Issue #64415817: NPE on method reference
Issue #139490306: Lint does not flag NewApi violations in androidTest sources
Issue #113198298: UnusedResources should handle checking dynamic feature modules
NDK:
Issue #142590626: Renderscript not compiling after updating to macOS Catalina
New Project Wizard:
Issue #148930092: Modules without .iml files may cause "empty android project view"
Issue #147701786: Strings not escaped for app name
Preference:
Issue #137173772: SettingsActivity (androidx) EditTextPreference crashes on rotation from landscape to portrait
Issue #146166988: Bug: "Target fragment must implement TargetFragment interface" after rotating screen twice with EditTextPreferenceDialog open
Project Structure:
Issue #126937269: [New PSD] buildType/productVlavor etc. names are not properly validated when creating a new item
Issue #147798442: [PSD] Extra entries are added for new variable
Project System:
Issue #147246554: "Not a gradle Project" When a build file is defined in the settings.gradle.kts with rootProject.buildFileName
Issue #128673540: kotlin DSL gradle and AndroidX refactoring
Project View:
Issue #111527585: Android project view refreshes over and over again
Issue #121345405: The Android Studio "Android Explorer" does not show test directories for combined flavors.
Resources:
Issue #148173587: [Regression] Importing SVG is broken ("fillType was already specified")
SDK Console:
Issue #148527133: Upgrade protobuf version to 3.10.0 in AGP
Templates:
Issue #145977222: Remove implementation fileTree(dir: 'libs', include: ['*.jar']) from new project template.
View Binding:
Issue #147927480: Class com.example.viewbinding.SimpleInTestModuleTest fails
Issue #147684086: Generated Binding classes appear to have a public no-args constructor

New in Android Studio 4.0 Beta 1 (Feb 26, 2020)

Android Gradle Plugin:
Issue #144513656: Lint's Gradle task hangs after update to AGP 3.6.0-beta04
Issue #146869072: Task failed on mergeExtDex
Issue #147768068: AGP 3.6 RC 1 produces non constants R fields when using the android name space.
Issue #148005697: [AGP 4.0.0-alpha08] DataBindingInfo is being defined in the same package across different modules
Issue #147289282: The option setting 'android.enableR8=true' is deprecated.null
Android Studio:
Issue #71894463: Radial Gradient SVG from Sketch is not imported correctly by the Vector Asset Tool
Build:
Issue #147448576: AGP 3.6 RC 1: Unsupported gradient type: "sweep"
Build Output:
Issue #146593375: Processing the events in the build output windows delays the app install
C++ Import/Sync:
Issue #148805330: Syncing C++ projects leak memory in AGP 3.6rc02
Code Editor:
Issue #146115250: Data Binding functionality stops working (Logs show crash in LayoutBindingShortNamesCache$3.compute)
Issue #147802433: Proguard unresolved symbols shown in gray instead of red
ConstraintLayout:
Issue #140882056: ConstraintLayout's Flow class located in different package in androidx and android.support
Data Binding:
Issue #147609508: Data Binding not resolving the binding class for layouts in different sourceSet
Issue #146538006: IDE sometimes fails to resolve "include" layouts
Design Tools:
Issue #147805557: Improve packing algorithm in multi preview window
Dexer (D8):
Issue #147865212: D8 in debug mode fails for valid local information spanning only a 'nop'
Issue #148734239: Running R8 or D8 loses the 4.X version of compatibility.
Issue #148366506: Bug in PeepholeOptimizer
IntelliJ:
Issue #145767113: Failed to start Git process User Authentication Token not found
Java 11 Blockers:
Issue #127544816: Potential blocker for Java 11 rollout: Android Lint
Layout Editor:
Issue #143600084: Views cannot be dragged to Flow element in component tree
Issue #37117915: Help button for Layout Editor
Layout Inspector:
Issue #148890011: LayoutInspector violates WebView Strict Mode and spams popups
Lint:
Issue #64415817: NPE on method reference
Issue #113198298: UnusedResources should handle checking dynamic feature modules
New Project Wizard:
Issue #148930092: Modules without .iml files may cause "empty android project view"
Issue #147701786: Strings not escaped for app name
Project System:
Issue #147246554: "Not a gradle Project" When a build file is defined in the settings.gradle.kts with rootProject.buildFileName
Issue #128673540: kotlin DSL gradle and AndroidX refactoring
Project View:
Issue #111527585: Android project view refreshes over and over again
Resources:
Issue #148173587: [Regression] Importing SVG is broken ("fillType was already specified")
Shrinker (R8):
Issue #147411673: R8 causes issues with OkHttp 4.3
Issue #147386014: Class.genericInterfaces returns T in the array
Issue #147480426: NullPointerException at ProguardMapMinifier.java while compiling androidTest apk
Issue #147470785: R8 causes issues with aar specified proguard.txt
Issue #148313389: Incorrect vertical class merging with full mode enabled leads to crash (AGP 3.6.0-rc1 and higher)
Issue #148021799: Unreachable DexItemBasedConstString in AGP 3.5.3
Issue #148525512: Version 2.1.2-dev (java-lang-VerifyError)

New in Android Studio 3.6 RC 3 (Feb 11, 2020)

New in Android Studio 3.6 RC 2 (Jan 30, 2020)

New in Android Studio 4.0 Canary 9 (Jan 22, 2020)

New in Android Studio 4.0 Canary 8 (Jan 8, 2020)

New in Android Studio 4.0 Canary 7 (Dec 24, 2019)

CPU Profiler UI Upgrades:
Based on your feedback, the CPU Profiler UI has been overhauled to provide a more intuitive workflow, with new customization options and an updated layout.
General fixes:
This update includes fixes for the following public issues:
Bundletool:
Issue #144802446: Make release of bundletool 0.12.0
Core IDE:
Issue #144939147: New Vector Asset / Image Asset places drawables in the wrong folder when using multiple resource directories in a sourceSet
Data Binding:
Issue #144604674: cannot generate view binders java.lang.StackOverflowError
Gradle:
Issue #145770669: Disabling android.defaults.buildfeatures.aidl and renderscript breaks lint task
Issue #119135578: Find a way to determine whether a third-party library should be jetified
Issue #146205003: Instant execution - DexArchiveBuilderTask task loading
Issue #134858541: App is not signed with v1 scheme when using minSDK 24, even when enabled explicitly
Issue #142242084: assembleDebug fails with FileNotFoundException on AS 3.6 Canary 12
Issue #140747218: Improve error messages for exceptions thrown from Jetifier
Issue #145683928: LintPlugin creates tasks in a non lazy way
Layout Editor:
Issue #145231222: When project is loading, XML is unreadable
Lint:
Issue #145687664: Analyze -> Inspect Code -> Lint -> Remove all unused resources | strips an androidx.navigation file of its ids
Motion Editor:
Issue #145203265: Motion Editor View Drag Float Bug
New Project Wizard:
Issue #146252332: Bug: new project wizard always puts the new project into last opened path, instead of last creation path
Issue #146413736: Empty icons in new activity wizard (4.0 C6)
Project Structure Dialog:
Issue #145652926: PSD won't let me add a runtimeOnly dependency
Resultstore:
Issue #145950498: BEP upload failed: UNAVAILABLE: UNAVAILABLE: Policy checks are unavailable
Shrinker (R8):
Issue #145688738: R8 failed in multi module projects
Templates:
Issue #145121833: Update benchmark library version
View Binding:
Issue #142739020: Enabling ViewBinding breaks gradle configuration of com.android.test plugin

New in Android Studio 3.6 RC 1 (Dec 18, 2019)

New in Android Studio 4.0 Canary 6 (Dec 11, 2019)

New in Android Studio 3.5.3 (Dec 6, 2019)

New in Android Studio 4.0 Canary 5 (Dec 5, 2019)

General fixes:
This update includes fixes for the following public issues: App Development
Issue #37123156: aapt_rules.txt should specific explicitly used constructor instead of argument wildcard.
Build:
Issue #139782877: Native builds compile all architectures now instead of just the one needed for the target device
Core IDE:
Issue #144668812: Importing SVG file with a style combination creates incorrect vector drawable
Data Binding:
Issue #144788290: Changes to data binding layouts are not processed by the IDE
Issue #141936603: Auto-complete for data binding includes classes not known/visible to the current module
Issue #144527914: Unresolved reference for inner class when using an
Issue #123427765: Binding expression not supported VectorDrawableCompat.
Issue #144246528: DataBinding is occurs NullPointerException if there are two LiveData flags when only one of them has initial value
Issue #142405164: DataBinding variable cannot use java.lang.Void in AGP 3.6
Deployment:
Issue #144109935: Android Studio 4 Canary does noting on Run->Run
Issue #144443063: Run button is always disabled after running configuration with another configuration
Design Tools:
Issue #144057801: Bug: importing SVG files create incorrect VectorDrawable
Gradle:
Issue #143375935: AS 4.0 Canary 1 - INSTALL_FAILED_NOT_APK
Issue #144553651: Incorrect R8 version parsing for targeted rules
Issue #144916156: W/o external transforms present we should use artifact transforms
Jetifier:
Issue #145125886: Integrate jetifier beta08 to AGP
Layout Editor:
Issue #124231532: Property Panel stays empty after adding a recycler view for the first time
Navigation Editor:
Issue #142491178: Visual bug while using the design view of the navigation graph.
New Project Wizard:
Issue #144443773: Creating a project with an apostrophe in the human readable name makes compilation fail
Project System:
Issue #143291278: Creating a new Module edits settings.gradle even if settings.gradle.kts is present
Resource Manager:
Issue #144443057: Select resource (Pick a resource dialog) displays hidden files too (named with prefix .)
Run Debug:
Issue #143229099: Activity can't be found by run configuration
View Binding:
Issue #143160165: View Binding will cause the code to expose / leak the IDs or names of the Views after doing ProGurad or R8
Issue #143807078: dataBindingGenBaseClassesDebug task fails with "part 'layer-list' is keyword"

New in Android Studio 3.6 Beta 5 (Dec 5, 2019)

New in Android Studio 4.0 Canary 4 (Nov 21, 2019)

New in Android Studio 3.6 Beta 4 (Nov 15, 2019)

New in Android Studio 4.0 Canary 3 (Nov 15, 2019)

New in Android Studio 3.6 Beta 3 (Nov 7, 2019)

New in Android Studio 3.5.2 (Nov 5, 2019)

New in Android Studio 3.6 Beta 2 (Oct 31, 2019)

New in Android Studio 3.6 Beta 1 (Oct 11, 2019)

General fixes:
This update also includes fixes for the following public issues: APK Viewer
Issue #138772444: Enable opening AAR, AAB, DEX files from project
Connection Assistant:
Issue #123887075: Record UsbDevice serial numbers on Windows
Data Binding:
Issue #141582926: Custom Map Class can not access value in the form of "map.key"
Issue #141782215: Incorrect inspection "fragment is not allowed here"
Issue #140593256: ViewId in underline format not recognized in databinding expression
Issue #141582926: Custom Map Class can not access value in the form of "map.key"
Issue #140592807: "var.methodName" should be supported as function references expression
Issue #140591412: Format "map.key" not supported in data binding expression
Issue #140592852: Can not access fields/methods from static field/method
Issue #140593547: Variable "context" not recognized in data binding expression
Deployment:
Issue #138601449: Save the Select Deployment Targets dialog selection
Gradle:
Issue #141927977: Constraint reason strings can take too much memory on large projects
Issue #112513722: Including navigation graph from different module breaks generating AndroidManifest.xml intent filters for deep links
Issue #141670031: Remove use of BuildListener#buildStarted() and Gradle#buildStarted() as they are deprecated in Gradle 6.0
Issue #140786113: Corrupt proguard file generated by AGP 3.5.0
Issue #136294346: Migrate from ArtifactTransform to TransformAction API
Issue #138731075: RenderScript NDK mode not able to emit 64bit bitcode
Issue #112513722: Including navigation graph from different module breaks generating AndroidManifest.xml intent filters for deep links
Gradle Sync:
Issue #141416123: Warnings in gradle sync annoyingly auto-open the file
Issue #139821729: AS 3.6 Canary 6 opens a build script after sync
Navigation:
Issue #140856013: Unexpected element found in presentation module (clean arch)
Project System:
Issue #140406172: Android Studio 3.6 Canary 9 freezes on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS
Resource Manager:
Issue #131976524: Feature Request: Image Asset Wizard, Support Two Lines for Text Option
Shrinker (R8):
Issue #140851070: Use of R8 applymapping fails with 'already has a mapping'
View Binding:
Issue #140882631: Incorrect package name for ids
Issue #140882627: Ignore fragment references in XML

New in Android Studio 3.5.1 (Oct 3, 2019)

New in Android Studio 3.6 Canary 12 (Sep 19, 2019)

New in Android Studio 3.6 Canary 11 (Sep 12, 2019)

New in Android Studio 3.6 Canary 10 (Sep 6, 2019)

Refactor menu option to enable Instant Apps support:
You can now instant-enable your base module at any time after creating your app
project as follows:
Open the Project panel by selecting View > Tool Windows > Project from the menu bar.
Right-click on your base module, typically named ‘app’, and select Refactor > Enable Instant Apps Support.
In the dialog that appears, select your base module from the dropdown menu.
Click OK.
Note: The option to instant-enable your base app module from the Create New Project wizard has been removed.
Deobfuscate class and method bytecode in APK Analyzer:
When inspecting DEX files, the APK Analyzer now supports deobfuscating class and method bytecode. To deobfuscate the bytecode, proceed as follows:
Select Build > Analyze APK from the menu bar.
In the dialog that appears, navigate to the APK you want to inspect and select it.
Click Open.
In the APK Analyzer, select the DEX file you want to inspect.
In the DEX file viewer, load the ProGuard mappings file for the APK you’re analyzing.
Right-click on the class or method you want to inspect and select Show bytecode.
General fixes:
This update includes fixes for the following public issues:
Core IDE:
Issue #139371784: Gradle sync should use --stacktrace by default to assist in diagnosing failures which occur during sync
Issue #130738995: Allow disabling the automatic adding of the google repository to build.gradle
Gradle:
Issue #138042761: Remove pointless log from lint task
Gradle Sync:
Issue #139481725: Gradle Sync fails with org.jetbrains.kotlin.psi.KtDotQualifiedExpression cannot be cast to org.jetbrains.kotlin.psi.KtStringTemplateExpression
Lint:
Issue #138832286: AGP 3.5.0-rc02 and 3.6.0-alpha05: Lint doesn't report issues in the Kotlin source set
Issue #139769778: Can not resolve symbol for app:constraint_referenced_ids attribute
Issue #139822932: VisibleForTesting annotation not linted properly if it uses package private scope as the 'otherwise'
Issue #139515660: margin(Horizontal|Vertical) and padding(Horizontal|Vertical) are detected by UnusedAttribute even though they're backported
Templates:
Issue #123677458: Creating a new project should explicitly set project name in settings.gradle via rootProject.name = "..."
View Binding:
Issue #137854701: Respect tools:viewBindingIgnore layout attribute
Databinding:
Issue #133390436: Binding adapter not used when setting propert on an tag

New in Android Studio 3.6 Canary 9 (Aug 30, 2019)

New in Android Studio 3.6 Canary 8 (Aug 28, 2019)

New in Android Studio 3.6 Canary 7 (Aug 25, 2019)

New in Android Studio 3.5 (Aug 21, 2019)

Project Marble: System health:
This section describes the changes in Android Studio 3.5 that are focused on improving system health.
Recommended memory settings:
Android Studio now notifies you if it detects that you could improve performance by increasing the maximum amount of RAM that your OS should allocate for Android Studio processes, such as the core IDE, Gradle daemon, and Kotlin daemon. You can either accept the recommended settings by clicking the action link in the notification, or you can adjust these settings manually by selecting File > Settings (or Android Studio > Preferences on macOS), and then finding the Memory Settings section under Appearance & Behavior > System Settings.
Memory usage report:
Memory problems in Android Studio are sometimes difficult to reproduce and report. To help solve this problem, Android Studio lets you generate a memory usage report by clicking Help > Analyze Memory Usage from the menu bar. When you do so, the IDE locally sanitizes the data for personal information before asking whether you want to send it to the Android Studio team to help identify the source of the memory issues.
Project Marble: Feature polish:
This section describes the changes in Android Studio 3.5 that are focused on improving existing features.
Apply Changes:
Apply Changes lets you push code and resource changes to your running app without restarting your app—and, in some cases, without restarting the current activity. Apply Changes implements a completely new approach for preserving your app’s state. Unlike Instant Run, which rewrote the bytecode of your APK, Apply Changes redefines classes on the fly by leveraging the runtime instrumentation supported in Android 8.0 (API level 26) or higher.
App deployment flow:
The IDE has a new drop-down menu that lets you quickly select which device you'd like to deploy your app to. This menu also includes a new option that lets you run your app on multiple devices at once.
Improved Gradle sync and cache detection:
The IDE now better detects when Gradle periodically clears your build cache when reducing its hard disk consumption. In previous versions, this state caused the IDE to report missing dependencies and Gradle sync to fail. Now, the IDE simply downloads dependencies as needed to ensure that Gradle sync completes successfully.
Improved build error output:
The Build Build window icon window now provides better error reporting, such as a link to the file and line of the reported error, for the following build processes:
AAPT compilation and linking
R8 and ProGuard
Dexing
Resource merging
XML file parsing
Javac, Kotlinc, and CMake compilation
Project Upgrades:
Improved update experience to provide more information and actions to help you update the IDE and the Android Gradle plugin. For example, more sync and build errors include actions to help you mitigate errors when updating.
It’s important to keep in mind, you can update the IDE independently of other components, such as the Android Gradle plugin. So, you can safely update the IDE as soon as a newer version is available, and update other components later.
Layout Editor:
Android Studio 3.5 includes several improvements to layout visualization, management, and interaction.
When working with ConstraintLayout, a new Constraints section in the Attributes panel lists the constraints relationships of the selected UI component. You can select a constraint either from the design surface or from the constraints list to highlight the constraint in both areas.
Similarly, you can now delete a constraint by selecting it and pressing the Delete key. You can also delete a constraint by holding the Control key (Command on macOS) and clicking on the constraint anchor. Note that when you hold the Control or Command key and hover over an anchor, any associated constraints turn red to indicate that you can click to delete them.
When a view is selected, you can create a constraint by clicking on any of the + icons in the Constraint Widget section of the Attributes panel, as shown in the following image. When you create a new constraint, the Layout Editor now selects and highlights the constraint, providing immediate visual feedback for what you've just added.
When creating a constraint, the Layout Editor now shows only the eligible anchor points to which you can constrain. Previously, the Layout Editor highlighted all anchor points on all views, regardless of whether you could constrain to them. In addition, a blue overlay now highlights the target of the constraint. This highlighting is particularly useful when attempting to constrain to a component that overlaps with another.
In addition to the above updates, Android Studio 3.5 also contains the following Layout Editor improvements:
The Constraint Widget and default margin drop-down now allow you to use dimension resources for margins.
In the Layout Editor toolbar, the list of devices that determine the size of the design surface has been updated. In addition, snapping behavior while resizing has been improved, and the resizing handles on the design surface are now always visible. When resizing, new overlays appear that show common device sizes.
The Layout Editor has a new color scheme that improves consistency and reduces contrast between components, text, and constraints.
Blueprint mode now includes text support for some components where text wasn't being shown.
Data Binding:
In addition to adding incremental annotation processing support for Data Binding, the IDE improves smart editor features and performance when creating data binding expressions in XML.
Improved support for C/C++ projects:
Android Studio 3.5 includes several changes that improve support for C/C++ projects.
Build Variants panel improvements for single variant sync:
You can now specify both the active build variant and active ABI in the Build Variants panel. This feature simplifies build configuration per module and can also improve Gradle sync performance.
Side-by-side versions of the NDK:
You can now use multiple versions of the NDK side-by-side. This feature gives you more flexibility when configuring your projects—for example, if you have projects that use different versions of the NDK on the same machine.
If your project uses Android Gradle plugin 3.5.0 or higher, you can also specify the version of the NDK that each module in your project should use. You can use this feature to create reproducible builds and to mitigate incompatibilities between NDK versions and the Android Gradle plugin.
Chrome OS Support:
Android Studio now officially supports Chrome OS devices, such as the HP Chromebook x360 14, Acer Chromebook 13/Spin 13, and others that you can read about in the system requirements. To get started, download Android Studio on your compatible Chrome OS device and follow the installation instructions.
Conditional delivery for dynamic feature modules:
Conditional delivery allows you to set certain device configuration requirements for dynamic feature modules to be downloaded automatically during app install. For example, you can configure a dynamic feature module that includes functionality for augmented reality (AR) to be available at app install for only devices that support AR.
This delivery mechanism currently supports controlling the download of a module at app install-time based on the following device configurations:
Device hardware and software features, including OpenGL ES version
User country
API level
IntelliJ IDEA 2019.1:
The core Android Studio IDE has been updated with improvements from IntelliJ IDEA through the 2019.1 release, such as theme customization.

New in Android Studio 3.6 Canary 6 (Aug 14, 2019)

Binary Intelligence:
Issue #137768457: Multiple versions in dependencies.pb file
Issue #136567112: Update Gradle so that runtime and package time dependencies are not conflated for dynamic-features
Build:
Issue #134989020: Android Gradle Plugin 3.6.0-alpha03 assumes ninja binaries next to CMake
Issue #138404837: AS 3.6 build variants are not switched to compatible variants automatically
Data Binding:
Issue #136194613: BR fields no longer generated for @Bindable properties
Issue #126775542: Testing with Robolectric 4.0 on DataBinding enabled lib modules will throw `java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: androidx/databinding/DataBinderMapperImpl`
Editing:
Issue #131127406: Can not resolve method 'getString(?)'
Gradle:
Issue #137541112: Add Provider-based API for getting the mapping file
Issue #137002718: Publish zipflinger under com.android.tools.build
Issue #137488460: java.nio.file.InvalidPathException
Issue #135672715: Support targeting rules in JAR/AAR to R8/Proguard versions
Gradle C++:
Issue #134374003: Android Gradle Plugin: “Expected output file at … for target … but there was none” when CMakeLists defines object libraries
Kotlin:
Issue #66890777: Bug: no quick-fix for missing "when" cases (the equivalant to "switch-case" in Java)
Layout Editor:
Issue #135367227: "Clear All Constraints" button does not clear constraints
Lint:
Issue #131114390: Bug: quick-fix of adding permission check doesn't do anything
Issue #137035119: GradleModelMocker persists across lint invocations during tests causing an assertion to fail
Project Structure Dialog:
Issue #134442868: PSD does not show hierarchical view of modules
Project System:
Issue #137949567: Extra space or font alignment problem in gradle sync message
Shrinker (R8):
Issue #131572129: Provide per-variant R8 printusage and printseed output
Testing:
Issue #37132226: [AS 2.3] Missing extra runner parameters field in Run Configuration for Android Instrumentation Tests
Issue #113305007: Android instrumented test never starts in debugging mode.

New in Android Studio 3.5 RC 3 (Aug 9, 2019)

New in Android Studio 3.5 RC 2 (Aug 2, 2019)

AndroidX:
Issue #137277710: Update mappings to match https://developer.android.com/jetpack/androidx/migrate
Issue #137073253: Missing exoplayer migration rule in "Migrate to AndroidX"
Apply Changes:
Issue #137795791: Exception during delta push: java.io.IOException: write failed: EBADF (Bad file descriptor)
Core IDE:
Issue #130315019: StackOverflowError in XmlUtils
Dexer (D8):
Issue #136717060: Support JDK Math library JDK tests
Gradle:
Issue #135665414: Aapt exception points to AndroidManifest by mistake
Issue #136987001: Resource error message rewritting not working properly since 3.5.0-alpha09
Issue #137768457: Multiple versions in dependencies.pb file
Issue #130596259: MissingResourceException: Can't find bundle for base name org.jacoco.core.jacoco
Gradle Sync:
Issue #137160057: Internal sync error when syncing androidx project in Studio 3.5 Beta 5
Jetifier:
Issue #133770823: "Migrate to AndroidX" doesn't migrate WorkManager
Metrics:
Issue #137662411: do not repeat satisfaction dialog upon user cancel
Project System:
Issue #134174287: Exception report: kotlin.KotlinNullPointerException at com.android.tools.idea.gradle.structure.navigation.PsBuildVariantsNavigationPath.queryPlace-ed807e05
Resource Management:
Issue #137013090: Tabbed Pane has a background glitch in Linux
Shrinker (R8):
Issue #135627418: Gradle Plugin 3.4.1 crashes app on Android 5 devices with Verifier rejected class due to bad method
Issue #119626580: Two phases in Class staticizer are seeing different IR code.
Issue #138044583: R8 compat mode removes unused constructor
Issue #136195382: java.lang.IllegalAccessError after shrinking code with R8 shrinker wrong method is called
Issue #132897042: NullPointerException in R8 Following Control Flow Obfuscation
Issue #137484867: Converting method to return void does not take local info into account
Issue #136697156: R8 fails with "Attempt to define local of type int as moduleSize" (new in AS 3.5-beta05)
Issue #135172146: R8 fails with "Undefined value encountered during compilation"
Issue #136636007: Remove all .kotlin_metadata from r8 jars

New in Android Studio 3.5 RC 1 (Jul 18, 2019)

New in Android Studio 3.6 Canary 5 (Jul 18, 2019)

New in Android Studio 3.4.2 (Jul 10, 2019)

New in Android Studio 3.5 Beta 5 (Jun 27, 2019)

Fixed issues with predefined Android code styling
We fixed the underlying issues around applying the predefined Android code style for Java and XML, and it is now the default again both for IDE and project schemes. If you have local code style changes, those will be unaffected; you can always reapply the Android code style by selecting Set from > Predefined Style > Android on the Code Style settings page to reapply the defaults. (Issue #131581006)
General fixes:
This update also includes fixes for the following public issues:
Core IDE:
Issue #133666019: New Image Asset wizard (launcher / legacy) does not trim image to selected shape
Issue #133771451: IDE ERROR DISPLAY
Issue #133066328: Error preview when creating image asset > icon launcher (Preview rendering error: rendering failed - null)
Data Binding:
Issue #131889243: Studio 3.5 deadlock (Kotlin resolve + databinding)
Issue #132367955: AS 3.5 Beta 1 assumes Databinding bindings are Views
Design Tools:
Issue #133184665: Resource picker doesn't appear when adding an attribute using Declared Attribute + button
Dexer (D8):
Issue #118842646: Ability to selectively suppress warnings during D8 desugaring
Gradle:
Issue #132840182: ClassNotFoundException on API 21 or 22 device.
Issue #133273847: Error: Duplicate resources in gradle plugin 3.5.0-beta01 and 02
Layout Editor:
Issue #132578769: ConstraintLayout v2.0.0-beta1: Impossible to drop element on layout with data element defined
Issue #133789726: GoTo navigation goes to the wrong property or doesn't work
Issue #133225561: Completions does not seem to work in a newly added attribute
Issue #134522901: Android Studio full crash every time you undo widget rename
Issue #132323234: Long names don't fit in dropdown menus for attributes and can't be distinguished
Issue #133526948: attributes starting with "__removed" are showing up in the properties panel
Lint:
Issue #131844902: DefaultJavaEvaluator.getProject sometimes returning /media for /media2/player/...MediaPlayer.java
Issue #111487505: Unnecessary warning for Attribute 'importantForAutofill' is only used in API level 26 and higher
Navigation:
Issue #133280833: element can only be included in application manifest
Run Debug:
Issue #134515798: Improve error reporting when ADB cannot be executed
Issue #131786506: IndexNotReadyException in AndroidTestRunConfiguration.getRunnerFromManifest
Shrinker (R8):
Issue #132549918: Using -keepparameternames has no effect
Issue #134304597: VerifyError: kotlinx/coroutines/AbstractCoroutine at API 17, 18
Issue #135210786: NoClassDefFoundError in runtime on API 19 and below when using AGP 3.5.0-beta04
Issue #134093979: Unsupported source file type (META-INF/versions/9/module-info.class)
Issue #133686361: R8 1.5 issue with Google play core library
Issue #134462736: R8 1.5.43 introduce again VerifyError
Issue #133215941: VerifyError with Android Annotations
Issue #133457361: AbstractMethodError when calling interface provided as Java 8 lambda with R8 on Android Gradle Plugin 3.4.1
Issue #132953944: java.lang.VerifyError at api19 and below
Issue #134838460: Add support for keep option modifier `includecode`

New in Android Studio 3.6 Canary 4 (Jun 27, 2019)

New in Android Studio 3.6 Canary 3 (Jun 18, 2019)

New in Android Studio 3.5 Beta 4 (Jun 18, 2019)

New in Android Studio 3.6 Canary 2 (May 31, 2019)

New in Android Studio 3.6 Canary 1 (May 24, 2019)

Android Studio UI:
Issue #129264179: Cannot run tests from included builds from IDE
APK Viewer:
Issue #127956589: APK Analyzer returns "?" instead of valid version name after upgrade to 3.3.2
App Development:
Issue #37075681: screenshot2 Tool NullPointerException on Linux
AVD Manager:
Issue #116873929: CPU/ABI column in AVD Manager truncates text longer than 3 characters (x86-64) and is not resizable
Build:
Issue #131271062: Gradle sync error "Conversion = 'F'"
C++:
Issue #132348328: C++ opening includes node never completes
Core IDE:
Issue #129091225: Android Drawable Importer has wrong res dir path when import vector
Issue #127132288: New vector asset action does not work
Issue #130040636: onClick method generator from xml not working
Issue #118487169: Started crashing on startup (corrupt JSON file in ~/.AndroidStudio3.2)
Data Binding:
Issue #131889243: Studio 3.5 deadlock (Kotlin resolve + databinding)
Issue #131435650: Completion suggestions should include imported types
Issue #129501142: code completion: put cursor in method parens when completing functions
Issue #129497691: code completion: support completion for java.lang classes
Deployment:
Issue #130042035: UnsatisfiedLinkError
Issue #128208663: AS 3.5 Canary 6: Attempted app downgrades are not detected
Issue #122936785: Databinding does not work with com.android.tools.build:gradle:3.4.0-beta01
Design Tools:
Issue #129801143: Request: always choose correct size when importing an SVG to be converted into VectorDrawable
Editing:
Issue #129323345: Code Formatting changes the order of components in Layout hierarchy
Issue #119606996: Studio SQL name resolver fails on a valid query
Issue #69240105: Missing support for complicated WITH clauses in Room queries
Gradle:
Issue #119234600: GradlePropertyModelImpl IllegalStateException: Duplicate key 1.1.5
Issue #131393499: Update to Gradle 5.4.1
Issue #131204372: Main dex list is empty with dynamic features and Proguard
Issue #131114388: R8 - D8 FIrebase performance plugin - Caused by: com.android.tools.r8.utils.AbortException: Error: program input module-info.class', Unsupported source file type
Issue #118363127: Improve Application packaging performance
Issue #126874329: Turkish Letters Bug
Issue #127691661: APK for minSdkVersion=M+, so files should not be compressed by default.
Gradle Sync:
Issue #124680713: NewGradleSyncNotSupportedException when trying to Gradle Sync
Issue #129261435: Android syncing hangs if distributionSha256Sum mismatches after upgrade
Issue #123098107: Gradle got error
Issue #127848590: Cached sync: Crashes if a project is moved/renamed
IntelliJ:
Issue #130580475: Code Style gone from preferences
Issue #124680708: Git Push Crashes from IDE
Issue #113304627: Graphical artifact in loading screen
Layout Editor:
Issue #130984780: Android Studio hangs when adding an ImageView to a layout
Issue #129926965: Adding button breaks Layout builder
Issue #128275926: Scrolling in the Attributes pane is far too aggressive
Lint:
Issue #124466808: IconExpectedSize triggered on icon that was generated from Android Studio
Issue #129985008: DuplicateResourceDetector throws StringIndexOutOfBoundsException with " " in strings.xml
Issue #131073349: Lint fails to add all densities/orientations of a resource to baseline, then fails on subsequent runs
Issue #130892328: False positive DrawAllocation
New Project Wizard:
Issue #130169021: New library modules generated in Android Studio do not set consumerProguardFiles in the gradle script
Project Structure Dialog:
Issue #131468843: PSD reports "release" build as missing if it is not explicitly declared
Issue #131481330: PSD does not reload errors.suggesting when receives additional data from Gradle
Project System:
Issue #130226195: Warning when opening KTS-based project
Issue #131210383: Cannot resolve symbol BuildConfig on 3.5 Canary 13
Issue #123677461: Android Gradle Plugin Update adds extra google() repository when doing repository configuration
Run Debug:
Issue #131170197: Detect and warn if debugging an app that is not "debuggable"
Shrinker (R8):
Issue #131349148: Dalvik : java.lang.VerifyError

New in Android Studio 3.5 Beta 2 (May 21, 2019)

New in Android Studio 3.4.1 (May 16, 2019)

New in Android Studio 3.5 Beta 1 (May 8, 2019)

New in Android Studio 3.5 Canary 13 (Apr 25, 2019)

New in Android Studio 3.4 (Apr 18, 2019)

IntelliJ IDEA 2018.3.4:
The core Android Studio IDE has been updated with improvements from IntelliJ IDEA through the 2018.3.4 release.
Android Gradle plugin 3.4.0 updates:
For information on what’s new in Android Gradle plugin 3.4.0, see its release notes.
New Project Structure Dialog:
The new Project Structure Dialog (PSD) makes it easier to update dependencies and configure different aspects of your project, such as modules, build variants, signing configurations, and build variables.
You can open the PSD by selecting File > Project Structure from the menu bar. You can also open the PSD by pressing Ctrl+Shift+Alt+S on Windows and Linux, or Command+; (semicolon) on macOS. You can find descriptions of some of the new and updated sections of the PSD below.
Variables:
The new variables section of the PSD allows you to create and manage build variables, such as those to keep version numbers for dependencies consistent across your project.
Quickly view and edit build variables that already exist in your project’s Gradle build scripts.
Add new build variables at a project- or module-level directly from the PSD.
Modules:
Configure properties that are applied to all build variants in an existing module or add new modules to your project from the Modules section. For example, this is where you can configure defaultConfig properties or manage signing configurations.
Dependencies:
Inspect and visualize each dependency in the dependency graph of your project, as resolved by Gradle during project sync, by following these steps:
In the left pane of the PSD, select Dependencies.
In the Modules pane, select a module for which you’d like to inspect the resolved dependencies.
On the right side of the PSD, open the Resolved Dependencies pane, which is shown below.
You can also quickly search for and add dependencies to your project by first selecting a module from the Dependencies section of the PSD, clicking the (+) button in the Declared Dependencies section, and selecting the type of dependency you want to add.
Depending on the type of dependency you select, you should see a dialog, similar to the one below, that helps you add the dependency to the module.
Build Variants:
In this section of the PSD, create and configure build variants and product flavors for each module in your project. You can add manifest placeholders, add ProGuard files, and assign signing keys, and more.
Suggestions:
See suggested updates for project dependencies and build variables in the Suggestions section.
New Resource Manager:
Resource Manager is a new tool window for importing, creating, managing, and using resources in your app. You can open the tool window by selecting View > Tool Windows > Resource Manager from the menu bar. The Resource Manager allows you to do the following:
Visualize resources: You can preview drawables, colors, and layouts to quickly find the resources you need.
Bulk import: You can import multiple drawable assets at once by either dragging and dropping them into the Resource Manager tool window or by using the Import drawables wizard. To access the wizard, select the (+) button at the top-left corner of the tool window, and then select Import Drawables from the drop down menu.
Convert SVGs into VectorDrawable objects: You can use the Import Drawables wizard to convert your SVG images into VectorDrawable objects.
Drag and drop assets: From the Resource Manager tool window, you can drag and drop drawables onto both the design and XML views of the Layout Editor.
View alternative versions: You can now view alternative versions of your resources by double-clicking a resource within the Tool window. This view shows the different versions you have created and the qualifiers that were included.
Tile and list views: You can change the view within the tool window to visualize your resources in different arrangements.
Checking build IDs when profiling and debugging APKs:
When you provide debugging symbol files for the .so shared libraries inside your APK, Android Studio verifies that the build ID of the provided symbol files match the build ID of the .so libraries inside the APK.
If you build the native libraries in your APK with a build ID, Android Studio checks whether the build ID in your symbol files matches the build ID in your native libraries and rejects the symbol files if there is a mismatch. If you did not build with a build ID, then providing incorrect symbol files may cause problems with debugging.
R8 enabled by default:
R8 integrates desugaring, shrinking, obfuscating, optimizing, and dexing all in one step—resulting in noticeable build performance improvements. R8 was introduced in Android Gradle plugin 3.3.0 and is now enabled by default for both app and Android library projects using plugin 3.4.0 and higher.
Now, with R8, desugaring, shrinking, obfuscating, optimizing, and dexing (D8) are all completed in one step.
Keep in mind, R8 is designed to work with your existing ProGuard rules, so you’ll likely not need to take any actions to benefit from R8. However, because it’s a different technology to ProGuard that’s designed specifically for Android projects, shrinking and optimization may result in removing code that ProGuard may have not. So, in this unlikely situation, you might need to add additional rules to keep that code in your build output.
Navigation Editor now supports all argument types:
All argument types supported by the Navigation component are now supported in the Navigation Editor. For more information on supported types, see Pass data between destinations.
Layout Editor improvements:
The Attributes pane in the Layout Editor has been streamlined into a single page with sections you can expand to reveal attributes you can configure. The Attributes pane also includes the following updates:
A new Declared Attributes section lists the attributes the layout file specifies and allows you to quickly add new ones.
The Attributes pane now also features indicators next to each attribute that are solid when the attribute's value is a resource reference and empty otherwise.
Attributes with errors or warnings are now highlighted. Red highlights indicate errors (for example, when you use invalid layout values) and orange highlights indicate warnings (for example, when you use hard-coded values).
New intention action to quickly import dependencies:
If you start using certain Jetpack and Firebase classes in your code, a new intention action suggests adding the required Gradle library dependency to your project, if you haven’t already done so. For example, if you reference the WorkManager class without first importing the required android.arch.work:work-runtime dependency, an intention action lets you do so easily in a single click, as shown below.
In particular, because Jetpack repackaged the support library into discrete packages that are easier to manage and update, this intention action helps you quickly add only the dependencies you need for the Jetpack components you want to use.

New in Android Studio 3.5 Canary 11 (Apr 16, 2019)

New in Android Studio 3.5 Canary 10 (Apr 5, 2019)

New in Android Studio 3.4 RC 3 (Apr 2, 2019)

New in Android Studio 3.5 Canary 9 (Mar 29, 2019)

New in Android Studio 3.5 Canary 8 (Mar 26, 2019)

New in Android Studio 3.4 RC 2 (Mar 15, 2019)

New in Android Studio 3.5 Canary 7 (Mar 12, 2019)

New in Android Studio 3.4 RC 1 (Mar 8, 2019)

This update includes fixes for the following public issues:
Issue #67575899: Impossible to specify more than 255 file extensions for aaptOptions noCompress
Issue #124471103: lint.jar does not show up in packaged AAR libraries when using lintPublish
Issue #123423125: AAPT2 crashes if plurals in xml contain an apostrophe
Issue #124437190: Artifact collection during MergeResources task can take very long for sufficiently large dependency graphs.
Issue #115687654: AGP 3.2.0-rc03 Spurious build failure: Comparison method violates its general contract!
Issue #111056281: AAPT2 does not disable versioning of ObjectAnimator resources referenced in animated vector drawables
Issue #126273993: Dexer generates illegal move instructions assiging integers to doubles
Issue #123068053: D8 produces incorrect debug information for lambda desugaring.
Issue #124655989: Use of -whyareyoukeeping causes R8 compilation to fail
Issue #126592786: Incorrectly removing refrenced class
Issue #126871526: New bots cannot archive
Issue #124357885: Vertical class merging is not updating @dalvik.annotation.Signature value.
Issue #113374256: Cannot get from DexEncodedMethod to holder DexClass for outline methods
Issue #74379749: R8 keeps un-initialized static field which are only read
Issue #124181032: cannot parse keepclassmembers which contains excludes
Issue #124181030: Removed interfaces need to account for ServiceLoader resource filenames
Issue #124584385: IndexOutOfBoundsException when enable R8
Issue #124457717: R8 NullPointerException with OkHttp 3.13.1
Issue #126443924: transformClassesAndResourcesWithR8 failed java.lang.IllegalStateException
Issue #124593221: Error generating the app bundle when using coroutines 1.1.1
Issue #124155517: runtime NPE in Kotlin Coroutine Dispatcher
Issue #123390221: Lambda debugging tests started failing on the bots
Issue #123730537: Main application class can't be loaded (ClassNotFoundException), but exists in classes2.dex
Issue #124356534: Can't change Foreground layer Clip Art color in Image Asset studio
Issue #120898718: SVG with subpaths beginning with 'm' commands fails to convert properly
Issue #119372339: SVG containing clip paths and transforms does not preview or export to VectorDrawable correctly in Android Studio
Issue #126165767: DDMLIB process uses a full CPU core even when no device / emulator is connected
Issue #119924169: SVG-to-Vector converter breaks if element is declared inside of a element
Issue #119882812: Vector Import tool does not render the intended output.
Issue #112456379: Kotlin main classes appear on the class path before test classes when running unit tests
Issue #121341637: Internal lint error
Issue #123377555: Custom Lint check not showing up with AS + AGP 3.4.0-beta02
Issue #127213632: NewModuleTest.addNewModuleToAndroidxProject fails on studio-3.4-dev

New in Android Studio 3.3.2 (Mar 5, 2019)

New in Android Studio 3.5 Canary 6 (Feb 27, 2019)

New in Android Studio 3.5 Canary 5 (Feb 22, 2019)

New in Android Studio 3.4 Beta 5 (Feb 22, 2019)

New in Android Studio 3.5 Canary 4 (Feb 15, 2019)

This update includes fixes for the following public issues:
Issue #123054726: sdkmanager --licenses isn't pulling latest licenses, despite CI build failure saying otherwise
Issue #117374693: Android Studio incorrectly warns that s inside of VectorDrawables are unsupported on API 23 and below
Issue #118149362: The "Setting" clipart icon creates unnecessary overhead by being drawn too elaborately
Issue #122866738: getProcessManifest wrong deprecation alternative in Javadoc
Issue #122881612: New R file generation on Studio 3.3 fails to execute
Issue #120625735: Gradle sync failed
Issue #118596839: C++ parsing errors - wrong paths in android_gradle_build.json
Issue #123616298: Space in project path causes cmake 3.10 build to fail
Issue #123071299: cmake integration is broken
Issue #68178350: Code Style Right margin settings bug
Issue #78097962: [bug] Per project Studio settings getting lost.
Issue #123178228: AndroidClassWithOnlyInnerClassesBase.: Incorrect package name: 1
Issue #120277395: AndroidX compilation failure: "cannot generate view binders: Stream closed"
Issue #123071296: Layout Bar ghost image, remains locked on screen. Cannot be removed until AS restart.
Issue #73826291: Memory leak in RenderTask.myAssetRepository
Issue #120750247: Android Studio 3.3 RC 2: Can not resolve symbol in studio editor for resource created by build phase
Issue #123032845: Resource ID can't be resolved in XML and JAVA under some circumstances (but a project is compilable)
Issue #123393225: AndroidGotoRelatedProvider no longer finds AAR resources
Issue #123089182: False positives for Implicit Sam Conversion check
Issue #80205221: Manifest element placed in displays incorrect lint warning
Issue #122944954: profiling-failed-in-android-studio-3-3 all apps crash with new AS 3.3 until you disable "adv. profiling"!
Issue #123523414: GradleTaskRunners leak whenever app is run
Issue #123377557: R class navigation doesn't work with AS 3.3 and AGP 3.1
Issue #122553598: Adding new module to an androidx project fails
Issue #122885760: In China, gradle sync will fail with "can not get time from google servers"
Issue #122955511: ADB Connection Assistant Exception on MacOS
Issue #123885701: Record UsbDevice serial numbers on linux
Issue #123886676: Record UsbDevice serial numbers on Mac
Issue #37104675: ddmlib sometimes loses clients after attach debugger followed by detach
Issue #123377224: Run/Debug Configuration dialog's Deployment Target Options drop-down combo box always resets to "Use the device/snapshot drop down" option
Issue #37092608: SDK Manager complains about "No space left on device"

New in Android Studio 3.4 Beta 4 (Feb 15, 2019)

This update includes fixes for the following public issues:
Issue #118149362: The "Setting" clipart icon creates unnecessary overhead by being drawn too elaborately
Issue #117374693: Android Studio incorrectly warns that s inside of VectorDrawables are unsupported on API 23 and below
Issue #110408030: CompatibleScreensManifest cache relocation problem
Issue #122950060: Aapt2 compile segfault on 16MB PNG.
Issue #120625735: Gradle sync failed
Issue #118596839: C++ parsing errors - wrong paths in android_gradle_build.json
Issue #123616298: Space in project path causes cmake 3.10 build to fail
Issue #123242448: Error: Program type already present: $r8$java8methods$utility$Integer$hashCode$II
Issue #123068484: Apk built with R8: java.lang.NoSuchFieldError
Issue #122940365: android.enableR8.libraries = false has no effect in Android Studio 3.4-beta1
Issue #123730538: Apk built with R8: java.lang.IllegalAccessError
Issue #122819537: Processing of Kotlin stdlib with -dontshrink hits a NamingLens assertion
Issue #123558506: R8 won't compress APK's kotlin folder
Issue #123575857: R8 incorrectly changes private readObject and writeObject to public final in classes implementing Serializable
Issue #122066794: Running androidTest from gradle and minifyEnabled shows 'NoClassDefFoundError' for Kotlin
Issue #78097962: [bug] Per project Studio settings getting lost.
Issue #123178228: AndroidClassWithOnlyInnerClassesBase.: Incorrect package name: 1
Issue #120687935: Custom view doesn't render correctly in Layout Preview if it's located in the same library module
Issue #123071296: Layout Bar ghost image, remains locked on screen. Cannot be removed until AS restart.
Issue #120409977: a suggestion for the design view
Issue #73826291: Memory leak in RenderTask.myAssetRepository
Issue #120750247: Android Studio 3.3 RC 2: Can not resolve symbol in studio editor for resource created by build phase
Issue #123393225: AndroidGotoRelatedProvider no longer finds AAR resources
Issue #123032845: Resource ID can't be resolved in XML and JAVA under some circumstances (but a project is compilable)
Issue #122944954: profiling-failed-in-android-studio-3-3 all apps crash with new AS 3.3 until you disable "adv. profiling"!
Issue #123377557: R class navigation doesn't work with AS 3.3 and AGP 3.1
Issue #123523414: GradleTaskRunners leak whenever app is run
Issue #122874775: Scanning files to index, out of memory.
Issue #122885760: In China, gradle sync will fail with "can not get time from google servers"
Issue #37104675: ddmlib sometimes loses clients after attach debugger followed by detach
Issue #37092608: SDK Manager complains about "No space left on device"

New in Android Studio 3.3.1 (Feb 8, 2019)

New in Android Studio 3.5 Canary 3 (Feb 1, 2019)

New in Android Studio 3.5 Canary 2 (Jan 25, 2019)

New in Android Studio 3.5 Canary 1 (Jan 16, 2019)

New in Android Studio 3.3 (Jan 15, 2019)

ntelliJ IDEA 2018.2.2:
The core Android Studio IDE has been updated with improvements from IntelliJ IDEA through the 2018.2.2 release.
Android Gradle plugin updates:
For information on what’s new in the Android Gradle plugin, see its release notes.
Navigation Editor:
The Navigation Editor lets you quickly visualize and build navigation into your app by using the Navigation Architecture Component.
Delete unused Android Studio directories:
When you run a major version of Android Studio for the first time, it looks for directories containing caches, settings, indices, and logs for versions of Android Studio for which a corresponding installation can’t be found. The Delete Unused Android Studio Directories dialog then displays locations, sizes, and last-modified times of these unused directories and provides an option to delete them.
Lint improvements:
Lint, when invoked from Gradle, is significantly faster—larger projects can expect lint to run up to four times faster.
Create New Project wizard:
The Create New Project wizard has a new look and contains updates that help streamline the creation of new Android Studio projects.
Profiler updates:
Android Studio 3.3 includes updates to several of the individual profilers.
Improved performance:
Based on user feedback, rendering performance while using the profilers has been greatly improved. Please continue to provide feedback, especially if you continue to see performance issues.
Profiler memory allocation tracking options:
To improve app performance while profiling, the Memory Profiler now samples memory allocations periodically by default. If desired, you can change this behavior by using the Allocation Tracking dropdown when testing on devices running Android 8.0 (API level 26) or higher.
Using the Allocation Tracking dropdown, you can choose from the following modes:
Full: captures all object memory allocations. Note that if you have an app that allocates a lot of objects, you might see significant performance issues while profiling.
Sampled: captures a periodic sample of object memory allocations. This is the default behavior and has less impact on app performance while profiling. You might encounter some performance issues with apps that allocate a lot of objects within a short time period.
Off: turns memory allocation off. If not already selected, this mode is enabled automatically while taking a CPU recording and then returned to the previous setting when the recording is finished. You can change this behavior in the CPU recording configuration dialog.
The tracking affects both Java objects and JNI references.
Inspect frame rendering data:
In the CPU Profiler, you can now inspect how long it takes your Java app to render each frame on the main UI thread and RenderThread. This data might be useful when investigating bottlenecks that cause UI jank and low framerates. For example, each frame that takes longer than the 16ms required to maintain a smooth framerate is displayed in red.
To see frame rendering data, record a trace using a configuration that allows you to Trace System Calls. After recording the trace, look for info about each frame along the timeline for the recording under the section called FRAMES.
Fragments in the event timeline:
The event timeline now shows when fragments are attached and detached. Additionally, when you hover over a fragment, a tooltip shows you the fragment status.
View formatted text for connection payloads in the Network profiler:
Previously, the Network profiler displayed only raw text from connection payloads. Android Studio 3.3 now formats certain text types by default, including JSON, XML, and HTML. In the Response and Request tabs, click the View Parsed link to display formatted text, and click the View Source link to display raw text.
Automatic downloading of SDK components:
When your project needs an SDK component from the SDK platforms, NDK, or CMake, Gradle now attempts to automatically download the required packages as long as you’ve previously accepted any related license agreements using the SDK Manager.
Support for Clang-Tidy:
Android Studio now includes support for static code analysis using Clang-Tidy for projects that include native code. To enable support for Clang-Tidy, update your NDK to r18 or higher.
You can then enable or re-enable the inspections by opening the Settings or Preferences dialog and navigating to Editor > Inspections > C/C++ > General > Clang-Tidy. When selecting this inspection in the Settings or Preferences dialog, you can also see the list of Clang-Tidy checks that are enabled and disabled under the Option section of the right-most panel. To enable additional checks, add them to the list and click Apply.
To configure Clang-Tidy with additional options, click Configure Clang-Tidy Checks Options and add them in the dialog that opens.
Removal of options for C++ customization:
The following options have been removed from the Customize C++ Support dialog:
Exceptions Support (-fexceptions)
Runtime Type Information Support (-ftti)
The respective behaviors are enabled for all projects created through Android Studio.
CMake version 3.10.2:
CMake version 3.10.2 is now included with SDK Manager. Note that Gradle still uses version 3.6.0 by default.
New “+” syntax to specify minimum CMake versions:
When specifying a version of CMake in your main module’s build.gradle file, you can now append a “+” to match the behavior of CMake’s cmake_minimum_required() command.
Android App Bundles now support Instant Apps:
Android Studio now lets you build Android App Bundles with full support for Google Play Instant. In other words, you can now build and deploy both installed app and instant experiences from a single Android Studio project and include them in a single Android App Bundle.
If you’re creating a new Android Studio project using the Create New Project dialog, make sure you check the box next to Configure your project > This project will support instant apps. Android Studio then creates a new app project as it normally would, but includes the following properties in your manifest to add Instant app support to your app’s base module
You can then create an instant-enabled dynamic feature module by selecting File > New > New Module from the menu bar and then selecting Instant Dynamic Feature Module from the Create New Module dialog. Keep in mind, creating this module also instant-enables your app’s base module.
To deploy your app to a local device as an instant experience, edit your run configuration and check the box next to General > Deploy as instant app.
Single-variant project sync:
Syncing your project with your build configuration is an important step in letting Android Studio understand how your project is structured. However, this process can be time-consuming for large projects. If your project uses multiple build variants, you can now optimize project syncs by limiting them to only the variant you have currently selected.
You need to use Android Studio 3.3 or higher with Android Gradle plugin 3.3.0 or higher to enable this optimization. When you meet these requirements, the IDE prompts you to enable this optimization when you sync your project. The optimization is also enabled by default on new projects.
To enable this optimization manually, click File > Settings > Experimental > Gradle (Android Studio > Preferences > Experimental > Gradle on a Mac) and select the Only sync the active variant checkbox.
Provide quick feedback:
If you've opted into sharing usage statistics to help improve Android Studio, you'll see two new icons in the status bar at the bottom of the IDE window.
Simply click the icon that best represents your current experience with the IDE. When you do so, the IDE sends usage statistics that allow the Android Studio team to better understand your sentiment. In some cases, such as when you indicate a negative experience with the IDE, you'll have an opportunity to provide additional feedback.
If you haven't already done so, you can enable sharing usage statistics by opening the Settings dialog (Preferences on a Mac), navigating to Appearance & Behavior > System Settings > Data Sharing, and checking Send usage statistics to Google.

New in Android Studio 3.4 Canary 10 (Jan 4, 2019)

New in Android Studio 3.3 RC 3 (Dec 21, 2018)

New in Android Studio 3.4 Canary 9 (Dec 21, 2018)

New in Android Studio 3.4 Canary 8 (Dec 13, 2018)

New Resource Manager:
Resource management is a new tool window for creating, managing, and using resources in your app. This tool window allows you to do the following:
Bulk import: You can now import multiple drawable assets at once by either dragging and dropping them into your Resources tool window or the Resource management import wizard. The wizard can also convert your SVG files into VectorDrawables.
Drag and drop assets: From the Resource management tool window you can drag and drop drawables onto the Layout Editor design and text view surfaces.
View alternative versions: You can now view alternative versions of your resources by double-clicking a resource within the Tool window. This view shows the different versions you have created and the qualifiers that were included.
Tile and list views: You can change the view within the tool window to help visualize your resources.
This update includes fixes for several bugs, including the following:
Issue#120555992: Stop disabling tips of the day
Issue#120460980: Update AGP to Gradle 5.1-milestone-1
Issue#117646654: Stop injecting SDK m2repositories
Issue#116673790: Getting Execution failed for task processDebugResources'. > java.nio.charset.MalformedInputException: Input length = 1
Issue#119210741: Lint offers auto fix to incompatible Android Gradle Plugin versions.
Issue#119994299: Android Studio / Image Assets Wizard / Launcher Icons / Legacy / Tool tip
Issue#119563792: Incorrect warnings in Android Studio Room SQL with FTS
Issue#118538324: Custom layout with Dialog Preference from android x layout issue in Android studio
Issue#120087311: Enforce RestrictTo(LIBRARY) when the API is defined in another project
Issue#120162341: Lint detection of Configuration.densityDpi field is strange when minSdk < 17
Issue#67816403: Option to disable System Image patcher
Issue#119661177: The ViewDataBinding.OnStartListener lifecycle observer leaks the view hierarchy after Fragment.onDestroyView
Issue#120255763: Deterministic Builds Break when using databinding

New in Android Studio 3.3 RC 2 (Dec 7, 2018)

New in Android Studio 3.4 Canary 7 (Dec 7, 2018)

New in Android Studio 3.4 Canary 6 (Dec 2, 2018)

New in Android Studio 3.3 RC 1 (Nov 29, 2018)

New in Android Studio 3.4 Canary 5 (Nov 29, 2018)

New in Android Studio 3.4 Canary 4 (Nov 16, 2018)

New in Android Studio 3.3 Beta 4 (Nov 15, 2018)

New in Android Studio 3.4 Canary 3 (Nov 8, 2018)

New in Android Studio 3.4 Canary 2 (Oct 25, 2018)

New in Android Studio 3.4 Canary 1 (Oct 21, 2018)

New in Android Studio 3.2.1 (Oct 12, 2018)

New in Android Studio 3.3 Canary 13 (Oct 3, 2018)

New in Android Studio 3.3 Canary 12 (Sep 27, 2018)

New in Android Studio 3.2 (Sep 25, 2018)

What's New Assistant:
A new assistant informs you about the latest changes in Android Studio.
The assistant opens when you start Android Studio after a fresh installation or update if it detects that there is new information to show. You can also open the assistant by choosing Help > What's new in Android Studio.
Android Jetpack:
Android Jetpack helps to accelerate Android development with components, tools, and guidance that eliminate repetitive tasks and enable you to more quickly and easily build high-quality, testable apps. Android Studio includes the following updates to support Jetpack. For more information, see the Jetpack documentation.
Navigation Editor:
The new Navigation Editor integrates with the navigation components of Android Jetpack to provide a graphical view for creating the navigation structure of your app. The Navigation Editor simplifies the design and implementation of navigation between in-app destinations.
In Android Studio 3.2, the Navigation Editor is an experimental feature. To enable the Navigation Editor, click File > Settings (Android Studio > Preferences on Mac), select the Experimental category in the left pane, check the box next to Enable Navigation Editor, and restart Android Studio.
AndroidX migration:
As part of Jetpack, we are migrating the Android Support Libraries to a new Android extension library using the androidx namespace. For more information, see the AndroidX overview.
Android Studio 3.2 helps you through this process with a new migration feature.
To migrate an existing project to AndroidX, choose Refactor > Migrate to AndroidX. If you have any Maven dependencies that have not migrated to the AndroidX namespace, the Android Studio build system also automatically converts those project dependencies.
Android App Bundle:
Android App Bundle is a new upload format that includes all of your app’s compiled code and resources, but defers APK generation and signing to the Google Play Store.
Google Play’s new app serving model, called Dynamic Delivery, then uses your app bundle to generate and serve optimized APKs for each user’s device configuration, so each user downloads only the code and resources they need to run your app. You no longer need to build, sign, and manage multiple APKs, and users get smaller, more optimized downloads.
Additionally, you can add dynamic feature modules to your app project and include them in your app bundle. Through Dynamic Delivery, your users can then download and install your app’s dynamic features on demand.
To build a bundle, choose Build > Build Bundle(s) / APK(s) > Build Bundle(s).
Sample data in Layout Editor:
Many Android layouts have runtime data that can make it difficult to visualize the look and feel of a layout during the design stage of app development. You can now easily see a preview of your view in the Layout Editor filled with sample data. When you add a view, a button appears below the view in the Design window. Click this button to set the design-time view attributes. You can choose from a variety of sample data templates and specify the number of sample items with which to populate the view.
To try using sample data, add a RecyclerView to a new layout, click the design-time attributes button below the view, and choose a selection from the carousel of sample data templates.
Slices:
Slices provide a new way to embed portions of your app's functionality in other user interface surfaces on Android. For example, Slices make it possible to show app functionality and content in Google Search suggestions.
Android Studio 3.2 has a built-in template to help you to extend your app with the new Slice Provider APIs, as well as new lint checks to ensure that you're following best practices when constructing the Slices.
To get started right-click a project folder and choose New > Other > Slice Provider.
Kotlin 1.2.61:
Android Studio 3.2 bundles Kotlin 1.2.61, and the new Android SDK integrates better with Kotlin.
IntelliJ IDEA 2018.1.6:
The core Android Studio IDE has been updated with improvements from IntelliJ IDEA through the 2018.1.6 release.
Android profilers:
Sessions:
You can now save Profiler data as sessions to revisit and inspect later. The profiler keeps your session data until you restart the IDE.
When you record a method trace or capture a heap dump, the IDE adds that data (along with your app's network activity) as a separate entry to the current session, and you can easily switch back and forth between recordings to compare data.
System Trace:
In the CPU Profiler, select the new System Trace configuration to inspect your device's system CPU and thread activity. This trace configuration is built on systrace and is useful for investigating system-level issues, such as UI jank.
While using this trace configuration, you can visually mark important code routines in the profiler timeline by instrumenting your C/C++ code with the native tracing API or your Java code with the Trace class.
Inspect JNI references in the Memory Profiler:
If you deploy your app to a device running Android 8.0 (API level 26) or higher, you can now inspect memory allocations for your app’s JNI code using the Memory Profiler.
While your app is running, select a portion of the timeline that you want to inspect and select JNI heap from the drop-down menu above the class list, as shown below. You can then inspect objects in the heap as you normally would and double-click objects in the Allocation Call Stack tab to see where the JNI references are allocated and released in your code.
Import, export, and inspect memory heap dump files:
You can now import, export, and inspect .hprof memory heap dump files created with the Memory Profiler.
Import your .hprof file by clicking Start new profiler session in the profiler’s Sessions pane and then selecting Load from file. You can then inspect its data in the Memory Profiler as you would any other heap dump.
To save heap dump data to review later, use the Export Heap Dump button at the right of the Heap Dump entry in the Sessions pane. In the Export As dialog that appears, save the file with the .hprof filename extension.
Record CPU activity during app startup:
You can now record CPU activity during your app's startup, as follows:
Select Run > Edit Configurations from the main menu.
Under the Profiling tab of your desired run configuration, check the box next to Start recording a method trace on startup.
Select a CPU recording configuration to use from the dropdown menu.
Deploy your app to a device running Android 8.0 (API level 26) or higher by selecting Run > Profile.
Android Studio release notes
Android Studio is the official IDE for Android development, and includes everything you need to build Android apps.
To get the latest version, click Help > Check for updates (on Mac, Android Studio > Check for updates).
You can also download Android Studio here.
If you encounter problems in Android Studio, check the Known issues or Troubleshoot page.
For the latest news on releases, including a list of notable fixes in each preview release, see the release updates.
For information on what’s new in the Android Plugin for Gradle, see its release notes.
3.2 (September 2018)
Android Studio 3.2 is a major release that includes a variety of new features and improvements.
3.2.0 known issues
We strongly recommend against updating to Kotlin 1.2.70.
Android Studio includes a version of Kotlin 1.2.61 that fixes a bug that can cause Android Studio to hang. Kotlin 1.2.71 and later will also include this fix. Kotlin 1.2.70 does not include this fix.
Although you typically don't need to specify the build tools version, when using Android Gradle plugin 3.2.0 with renderscriptSupportModeEnabled set to true, you need to include the following in each module's build.gradle file:
android.buildToolsVersion "28.0.3"
What's New Assistant
A new assistant informs you about the latest changes in Android Studio.
The assistant opens when you start Android Studio after a fresh installation or update if it detects that there is new information to show. You can also open the assistant by choosing Help > What's new in Android Studio.
Android Jetpack
Android Jetpack helps to accelerate Android development with components, tools, and guidance that eliminate repetitive tasks and enable you to more quickly and easily build high-quality, testable apps. Android Studio includes the following updates to support Jetpack. For more information, see the Jetpack documentation.
Navigation Editor
The new Navigation Editor integrates with the navigation components of Android Jetpack to provide a graphical view for creating the navigation structure of your app. The Navigation Editor simplifies the design and implementation of navigation between in-app destinations.
In Android Studio 3.2, the Navigation Editor is an experimental feature. To enable the Navigation Editor, click File > Settings (Android Studio > Preferences on Mac), select the Experimental category in the left pane, check the box next to Enable Navigation Editor, and restart Android Studio.
To learn more, read the Navigation Editor documentation.
AndroidX migration
As part of Jetpack, we are migrating the Android Support Libraries to a new Android extension library using the androidx namespace. For more information, see the AndroidX overview.
Android Studio 3.2 helps you through this process with a new migration feature.
To migrate an existing project to AndroidX, choose Refactor > Migrate to AndroidX. If you have any Maven dependencies that have not migrated to the AndroidX namespace, the Android Studio build system also automatically converts those project dependencies.
The Android Gradle plugin provides the following global flags that you can set in your gradle.properties file:
android.useAndroidX: When set to true, this flag indicates that you want to start using AndroidX from now on. If the flag is absent, Android Studio behaves as if the flag were set to false.
android.enableJetifier: When set to true, this flag indicates that you want to have tool support (from the Android Gradle plugin) to automatically convert existing third-party libraries as if they were written for AndroidX. If the flag is absent, Android Studio behaves as if the flag were set to false.
Both flags are set to true when you use the Migrate to AndroidX command.
If you want to start using AndroidX libraries immediately and don't need to convert existing third-party libraries, you can set the android.useAndroidX flag to true and the android.enableJetifier flag to false.
Android App Bundle
Android App Bundle is a new upload format that includes all of your app’s compiled code and resources, but defers APK generation and signing to the Google Play Store.
Google Play’s new app serving model, called Dynamic Delivery, then uses your app bundle to generate and serve optimized APKs for each user’s device configuration, so each user downloads only the code and resources they need to run your app. You no longer need to build, sign, and manage multiple APKs, and users get smaller, more optimized downloads.
Additionally, you can add dynamic feature modules to your app project and include them in your app bundle. Through Dynamic Delivery, your users can then download and install your app’s dynamic features on demand.
To build a bundle, choose Build > Build Bundle(s) / APK(s) > Build Bundle(s).
For more information, including instructions for building and analyzing an Android App Bundle, see Android App Bundle.
Sample data in Layout Editor
Many Android layouts have runtime data that can make it difficult to visualize the look and feel of a layout during the design stage of app development. You can now easily see a preview of your view in the Layout Editor filled with sample data. When you add a view, a button appears below the view in the Design window. Click this button to set the design-time view attributes. You can choose from a variety of sample data templates and specify the number of sample items with which to populate the view.
To try using sample data, add a RecyclerView to a new layout, click the design-time attributes button below the view, and choose a selection from the carousel of sample data templates.
Slices
Slices provide a new way to embed portions of your app's functionality in other user interface surfaces on Android. For example, Slices make it possible to show app functionality and content in Google Search suggestions.
Android Studio 3.2 has a built-in template to help you to extend your app with the new Slice Provider APIs, as well as new lint checks to ensure that you're following best practices when constructing the Slices.
To get started right-click a project folder and choose New > Other > Slice Provider.
To learn more, including how to test your Slice interactions, read the Slices getting started guide.
Kotlin 1.2.61
Android Studio 3.2 bundles Kotlin 1.2.61, and the new Android SDK integrates better with Kotlin. For more information, see the Android Developers blog.
IntelliJ IDEA 2018.1.6
The core Android Studio IDE has been updated with improvements from IntelliJ IDEA through the 2018.1.6 release.
Android profilers
Try the following new Android Profiler features in Android Studio 3.2.
Sessions
You can now save Profiler data as sessions to revisit and inspect later. The profiler keeps your session data until you restart the IDE.
When you record a method trace or capture a heap dump, the IDE adds that data (along with your app's network activity) as a separate entry to the current session, and you can easily switch back and forth between recordings to compare data.
System Trace
In the CPU Profiler, select the new System Trace configuration to inspect your device's system CPU and thread activity. This trace configuration is built on systrace and is useful for investigating system-level issues, such as UI jank.
While using this trace configuration, you can visually mark important code routines in the profiler timeline by instrumenting your C/C++ code with the native tracing API or your Java code with the Trace class.
Inspect JNI references in the Memory Profiler
If you deploy your app to a device running Android 8.0 (API level 26) or higher, you can now inspect memory allocations for your app’s JNI code using the Memory Profiler.
While your app is running, select a portion of the timeline that you want to inspect and select JNI heap from the drop-down menu above the class list, as shown below. You can then inspect objects in the heap as you normally would and double-click objects in the Allocation Call Stack tab to see where the JNI references are allocated and released in your code.
Import, export, and inspect memory heap dump files
You can now import, export, and inspect .hprof memory heap dump files created with the Memory Profiler.
Import your .hprof file by clicking Start new profiler session in the profiler’s Sessions pane and then selecting Load from file. You can then inspect its data in the Memory Profiler as you would any other heap dump.
To save heap dump data to review later, use the Export Heap Dump button at the right of the Heap Dump entry in the Sessions pane. In the Export As dialog that appears, save the file with the .hprof filename extension.
Record CPU activity during app startup
You can now record CPU activity during your app's startup, as follows:
Select Run > Edit Configurations from the main menu.
Under the Profiling tab of your desired run configuration, check the box next to Start recording a method trace on startup.
Select a CPU recording configuration to use from the dropdown menu.
Deploy your app to a device running Android 8.0 (API level 26) or higher by selecting Run > Profile.
Export CPU traces:
After you record CPU activity with the CPU Profiler, you can export the data as a .trace file to share with others or inspect later.
To export a trace after you’ve recorded CPU activity, do the following:
Right-click on the recording you want to export from the CPU timeline.
Select Export trace from the dropdown menu.
Navigate to where you want to save the file and click Save.
Import and inspect CPU trace files:
You can now import and inspect .trace files created with the Debug API or CPU Profiler. (Currently, you can't import System Trace recordings.)
Import your trace file by clicking Start new profiler session in the profiler’s Sessions pane and then selecting Load from file. You can then inspect its data in the CPU Profiler similar to how you normally would, with the following exceptions:
CPU activity is not represented along the CPU timeline.
The thread activity timeline indicates only where trace data is available for each thread and not actual thread states (such as running, waiting, or sleeping).
Record CPU activity using the Debug API:
You can now start and stop recording CPU activity in the CPU Profiler by instrumenting your app with the Debug API. After you deploy your app to a device, the profiler automatically starts recording CPU activity when your app calls startMethodTracing(String tracePath), and the profiler stops recording when your app calls stopMethodTracing(). While recording CPU activity that’s triggered using this API, the CPU Profiler shows Debug API as the selected CPU recording configuration.
Energy Profiler:
The Energy Profiler displays a visualization of the estimated energy usage of your app, as well as system events that affect energy usage, such as wakelocks, alarms, and jobs.
The Energy Profiler appears as a new row at the bottom of the Profiler window when you run your app on a connected device or Android Emulator running Android 8.0 (API 26) or higher.
Click the Energy row to maximize the Energy Profiler view. Place your mouse pointer over a bar in the timeline to see a breakdown of energy use by CPU, network, and location (GPS) resources, as well as relevant system events.
System events that affect energy usage are indicated in the System timeline below the Energy timeline. Details of system events within the specified time range are shown in the event pane when you select a time range in the Energy timeline.
To see the call stack and other details for a system event, such as a wakelock, select it in the event pane. To go to the code responsible for a system event, double-click the entry in the call stack.
Android Studio release notes
Android Studio is the official IDE for Android development, and includes everything you need to build Android apps.
To get the latest version, click Help > Check for updates (on Mac, Android Studio > Check for updates).
You can also download Android Studio here.
If you encounter problems in Android Studio, check the Known issues or Troubleshoot page.
For the latest news on releases, including a list of notable fixes in each preview release, see the release updates.
For information on what’s new in the Android Plugin for Gradle, see its release notes.
3.2 (September 2018)
Android Studio 3.2 is a major release that includes a variety of new features and improvements.
3.2.0 known issues
We strongly recommend against updating to Kotlin 1.2.70.
Android Studio includes a version of Kotlin 1.2.61 that fixes a bug that can cause Android Studio to hang. Kotlin 1.2.71 and later will also include this fix. Kotlin 1.2.70 does not include this fix.
Although you typically don't need to specify the build tools version, when using Android Gradle plugin 3.2.0 with renderscriptSupportModeEnabled set to true, you need to include the following in each module's build.gradle file:
android.buildToolsVersion "28.0.3"
What's New Assistant
A new assistant informs you about the latest changes in Android Studio.
The assistant opens when you start Android Studio after a fresh installation or update if it detects that there is new information to show. You can also open the assistant by choosing Help > What's new in Android Studio.
Android Jetpack
Android Jetpack helps to accelerate Android development with components, tools, and guidance that eliminate repetitive tasks and enable you to more quickly and easily build high-quality, testable apps. Android Studio includes the following updates to support Jetpack. For more information, see the Jetpack documentation.
Navigation Editor
The new Navigation Editor integrates with the navigation components of Android Jetpack to provide a graphical view for creating the navigation structure of your app. The Navigation Editor simplifies the design and implementation of navigation between in-app destinations.
In Android Studio 3.2, the Navigation Editor is an experimental feature. To enable the Navigation Editor, click File > Settings (Android Studio > Preferences on Mac), select the Experimental category in the left pane, check the box next to Enable Navigation Editor, and restart Android Studio.
To learn more, read the Navigation Editor documentation.
AndroidX migration
As part of Jetpack, we are migrating the Android Support Libraries to a new Android extension library using the androidx namespace. For more information, see the AndroidX overview.
Android Studio 3.2 helps you through this process with a new migration feature.
To migrate an existing project to AndroidX, choose Refactor > Migrate to AndroidX. If you have any Maven dependencies that have not migrated to the AndroidX namespace, the Android Studio build system also automatically converts those project dependencies.
The Android Gradle plugin provides the following global flags that you can set in your gradle.properties file:
android.useAndroidX: When set to true, this flag indicates that you want to start using AndroidX from now on. If the flag is absent, Android Studio behaves as if the flag were set to false.
android.enableJetifier: When set to true, this flag indicates that you want to have tool support (from the Android Gradle plugin) to automatically convert existing third-party libraries as if they were written for AndroidX. If the flag is absent, Android Studio behaves as if the flag were set to false.
Both flags are set to true when you use the Migrate to AndroidX command.
If you want to start using AndroidX libraries immediately and don't need to convert existing third-party libraries, you can set the android.useAndroidX flag to true and the android.enableJetifier flag to false.
Android App Bundle
Android App Bundle is a new upload format that includes all of your app’s compiled code and resources, but defers APK generation and signing to the Google Play Store.
Google Play’s new app serving model, called Dynamic Delivery, then uses your app bundle to generate and serve optimized APKs for each user’s device configuration, so each user downloads only the code and resources they need to run your app. You no longer need to build, sign, and manage multiple APKs, and users get smaller, more optimized downloads.
Additionally, you can add dynamic feature modules to your app project and include them in your app bundle. Through Dynamic Delivery, your users can then download and install your app’s dynamic features on demand.
To build a bundle, choose Build > Build Bundle(s) / APK(s) > Build Bundle(s).
For more information, including instructions for building and analyzing an Android App Bundle, see Android App Bundle.
Sample data in Layout Editor
Many Android layouts have runtime data that can make it difficult to visualize the look and feel of a layout during the design stage of app development. You can now easily see a preview of your view in the Layout Editor filled with sample data. When you add a view, a button appears below the view in the Design window. Click this button to set the design-time view attributes. You can choose from a variety of sample data templates and specify the number of sample items with which to populate the view.
To try using sample data, add a RecyclerView to a new layout, click the design-time attributes button below the view, and choose a selection from the carousel of sample data templates.
Slices
Slices provide a new way to embed portions of your app's functionality in other user interface surfaces on Android. For example, Slices make it possible to show app functionality and content in Google Search suggestions.
Android Studio 3.2 has a built-in template to help you to extend your app with the new Slice Provider APIs, as well as new lint checks to ensure that you're following best practices when constructing the Slices.
To get started right-click a project folder and choose New > Other > Slice Provider.
To learn more, including how to test your Slice interactions, read the Slices getting started guide.
Kotlin 1.2.61
Android Studio 3.2 bundles Kotlin 1.2.61, and the new Android SDK integrates better with Kotlin. For more information, see the Android Developers blog.
IntelliJ IDEA 2018.1.6
The core Android Studio IDE has been updated with improvements from IntelliJ IDEA through the 2018.1.6 release.
Android profilers
Try the following new Android Profiler features in Android Studio 3.2.
Sessions
You can now save Profiler data as sessions to revisit and inspect later. The profiler keeps your session data until you restart the IDE.
When you record a method trace or capture a heap dump, the IDE adds that data (along with your app's network activity) as a separate entry to the current session, and you can easily switch back and forth between recordings to compare data.
System Trace
In the CPU Profiler, select the new System Trace configuration to inspect your device's system CPU and thread activity. This trace configuration is built on systrace and is useful for investigating system-level issues, such as UI jank.
While using this trace configuration, you can visually mark important code routines in the profiler timeline by instrumenting your C/C++ code with the native tracing API or your Java code with the Trace class.
Inspect JNI references in the Memory Profiler
If you deploy your app to a device running Android 8.0 (API level 26) or higher, you can now inspect memory allocations for your app’s JNI code using the Memory Profiler.
While your app is running, select a portion of the timeline that you want to inspect and select JNI heap from the drop-down menu above the class list, as shown below. You can then inspect objects in the heap as you normally would and double-click objects in the Allocation Call Stack tab to see where the JNI references are allocated and released in your code.
Import, export, and inspect memory heap dump files
You can now import, export, and inspect .hprof memory heap dump files created with the Memory Profiler.
Import your .hprof file by clicking Start new profiler session in the profiler’s Sessions pane and then selecting Load from file. You can then inspect its data in the Memory Profiler as you would any other heap dump.
To save heap dump data to review later, use the Export Heap Dump button at the right of the Heap Dump entry in the Sessions pane. In the Export As dialog that appears, save the file with the .hprof filename extension.
Record CPU activity during app startup
You can now record CPU activity during your app's startup, as follows:
Select Run > Edit Configurations from the main menu.
Under the Profiling tab of your desired run configuration, check the box next to Start recording a method trace on startup.
Select a CPU recording configuration to use from the dropdown menu.
Deploy your app to a device running Android 8.0 (API level 26) or higher by selecting Run > Profile.
Export CPU traces
After you record CPU activity with the CPU Profiler, you can export the data as a .trace file to share with others or inspect later.
To export a trace after you’ve recorded CPU activity, do the following:
Right-click on the recording you want to export from the CPU timeline.
Select Export trace from the dropdown menu.
Navigate to where you want to save the file and click Save.
Import and inspect CPU trace files
You can now import and inspect .trace files created with the Debug API or CPU Profiler. (Currently, you can't import System Trace recordings.)
Import your trace file by clicking Start new profiler session in the profiler’s Sessions pane and then selecting Load from file. You can then inspect its data in the CPU Profiler similar to how you normally would, with the following exceptions:
CPU activity is not represented along the CPU timeline.
The thread activity timeline indicates only where trace data is available for each thread and not actual thread states (such as running, waiting, or sleeping).
Record CPU activity using the Debug API
You can now start and stop recording CPU activity in the CPU Profiler by instrumenting your app with the Debug API. After you deploy your app to a device, the profiler automatically starts recording CPU activity when your app calls startMethodTracing(String tracePath), and the profiler stops recording when your app calls stopMethodTracing(). While recording CPU activity that’s triggered using this API, the CPU Profiler shows Debug API as the selected CPU recording configuration.
Energy Profiler
The Energy Profiler displays a visualization of the estimated energy usage of your app, as well as system events that affect energy usage, such as wakelocks, alarms, and jobs.
The Energy Profiler appears as a new row at the bottom of the Profiler window when you run your app on a connected device or Android Emulator running Android 8.0 (API 26) or higher.
Click the Energy row to maximize the Energy Profiler view. Place your mouse pointer over a bar in the timeline to see a breakdown of energy use by CPU, network, and location (GPS) resources, as well as relevant system events.
System events that affect energy usage are indicated in the System timeline below the Energy timeline. Details of system events within the specified time range are shown in the event pane when you select a time range in the Energy timeline.
To see the call stack and other details for a system event, such as a wakelock, select it in the event pane. To go to the code responsible for a system event, double-click the entry in the call stack.
Lint checking:
Android Studio 3.2 includes many new and improved features for lint checking.
The new lint checks help you to find and identify common code problems, ranging from warnings about potential usability issues to high-priority errors regarding potential security vulnerabilities.
Lint checks for Java/Kotlin interoperability:
To make sure that your Java code interoperates well with your Kotlin code, new lint checks enforce the best practices described in the Kotlin Interop Guide. Examples of these checks include looking for the presence of Nullability annotations, use of Kotlin hard keywords, and placing lambda parameters last.
To enable these checks, click File > Settings (Android Studio > Preferences on Mac) to open the Settings dialog, navigate to the Editor > Inspections > Android > Lint > Interoperability > Kotlin Interoperability section, and select the rules that you want to enable.
Lint checks for Slices:
New lint checks for Slices help to ensure that you are constructing Slices correctly. For example, lint checks warn you if you have not assigned a primary action to a Slice.
New Gradle target:
Use the new lintFix Gradle task to apply all of the safe fixes suggested by the lint check directly to the source code. An example of a lint check that suggests a safe fix to apply is SyntheticAccessor.
Metadata updates:
Various metadata, such as the service cast check, have been updated for lint checks to work with Android 9 (API level 28).
Warning if running lint on a new variant:
Lint now records which variant and version a baseline is recorded with, and lint warns you if you run it on a different variant than the one with which the baseline was created.
Improvements to existing lint checks:
Android Studio 3.2 includes many improvements to existing lint checks. For example, the resource cycle checks now apply to additional resource types, and the translation detector can find missing translations on the fly, in the editor.
Issue IDs more discoverable
Issue IDs are now shown in more places now, including in the Inspection Results window. This makes it easier for you to find the information that you need to enable or disable specific checks through lintOptions in build.gradle.
Data Binding V2:
Data Binding V2 is now enabled by default and is compatible with V1. This means that, if you have library dependencies that you compiled with V1, you can use them with projects using Data Binding V2. However, note that projects using V1 cannot consume dependencies that were compiled with V2.
D8 desugaring:
In Android Studio 3.1, we integrated the desugaring step into the D8 tool as an experimental feature, reducing overall build time. In Android Studio 3.2, desugaring with D8 is turned on by default.
New code shrinker:
R8 is a new tool for code shrinking and obfuscation that replaces ProGuard.
Changed default ABIs for multi-APKs:
When building multiple APKs that each target a different ABI, the plugin no longer generates APKs for the following ABIs by default: mips, mips64, and armeabi.
Improved editor features for CMake build files:
If you use CMake to add C and C++ code to your project, Android Studio now includes improved editor features to help you to edit your CMake build scripts, such as the following:
Syntax highlighting and code completion: The IDE now highlights and suggests code completion for common CMake commands. Additionally, you can navigate to a file by clicking it while pressing the Control key (Command on Mac).
Code reformatting: You can now use IntelliJ’s code reformat option to apply code styles to your CMake build scripts.
Safe refactoring: The IDE’s built-in refactoring tools now also check if you are renaming or deleting files that you reference in your CMake build scripts.
Navigate external header files:
When using the Project window in previous versions of Android Studio, you could navigate and inspect only the header files that belong to libraries you build from a local project. With this release, you can now also view and inspect header files included with external C/C++ library dependencies that you import into your app project.
If you already include C/C++ code and libraries in your project, open the Project window on the left side of the IDE by selecting View > Tool Windows > Project from the main menu and select Android from the drop-down menu. In the cpp directory, all headers that are within the scope of your app project are organized under the include node for each of your local C/C++ library dependencies, as shown below.
Native multidex enabled by default:
Previous versions of Android Studio enabled native multidex when deploying the debug version of an app to a device running Android API level 21 or higher. Now, whether you’re deploying to a device or building an APK for release, the Android plugin for Gradle enables native multidex for all modules that set minSdkVersion=21 or higher.
AAPT2 moved to Google's Maven repository:
Beginning with Android Studio 3.2, the source for AAPT2 (Android Asset Packaging Tool 2) is Google's Maven repository.
The new version of AAPT2 fixes many issues, including improved handling of non-ASCII characters on Windows.
Removal of configuration on demand:
The Configure on demand preference has been removed from Android Studio.
Android Studio no longer passes the --configure-on-demand argument to Gradle.
ADB Connection Assistant:
The new ADB Connection Assistant provides step-by-step instructions to help you set up and use a device over the Android Debug Bridge (ADB) connection.
To start the assistant, choose Tools > Connection Assistant.
The ADB Connection Assistant provides instructions, in-context controls, and a list of connected devices in a series of pages in the Assistant panel.
Emulator improvements:
You can now save and load snapshots of an AVD (Android virtual device) at any time in the Android Emulator, making it fast and easy to return an emulated device to a known state for testing. When you edit an AVD using the AVD Manager, you can specify which AVD snapshot to load when the AVD starts.
Controls for saving, loading, and managing AVD snapshots are now in the Snapshots tab in the emulator's Extended controls window.

New in Android Studio 3.3 Canary 11 (Sep 20, 2018)

When using Gradle Kotlin DSL, you can now set source and target compatibility in compileOptions
Improved incremental Java compilation when using annotation processors: This update decreases build times by improving support for incremental Java compilation when using annotation processors.
For projects that include Kotlin code: Incremental Java compilation is enabled by default, even if your project uses the data-binding or retro-lambda plugin.
Android App Bundles now support Instant Apps: Android Studio now includes support for building Android App Bundles with full support for Instant Apps. In other words, you can now build and deploy both installed app and Instant App experiences from a single Android Studio project, and include them in a single Android App Bundle.
If you’re creating a new Android Studio project using the Create New Project dialog, make sure you check the box next to Configure your project > This project will support instant apps. Android Studio then creates a new app project as it normally would, but includes the following properties in your manifest to add instant app support to your app’s base module
You can then add dynamic feature modules that are instant app-enabled by selecting File > New > New Module from the menu bar and then selecting Instant Dynamic Feature Module from the Create New Module dialog.
If you already have a project that supports Dynamic Delivery, you can still add instant app-enabled dynamic features using the New Module wizard, as described above. However, keep in mind that doing so also enables instant app support for your app’s base module.
To deploy your app to a local device as an instant app, edit your run configuration and check the box next to General > Deploy as instant app.
Support for Clang-Tidy: Android Studio now includes support for static code analysis using Clang-Tidy for projects that include native code. To enable support for Clang-Tidy, you need to update your NDK to r18 or higher.
You can then enable or re-enable the inspections by opening the Settings or Preferences dialog, navigating to Editor > Inspections > C/C++ > General > Clang-Tidy. When selecting this inspection in the Settings or Preferences dialog, you can also see the list of Clang-Tidy checks the IDE enables and disables by default under the Option section of the right-most panel. To enable additional checks, simply add them to the list and click Apply.
To configure Clang-Tidy with additional options, click Configure Clang-Tidy Checks Options and add them in the dialog that opens.
This update includes fixes for several bugs, including the following:
Fixed an issue in Layout Editor that was causing java.lang.NoSuchMethodError when previewing a customized date.

New in Android Studio 3.3 Canary 10 (Sep 13, 2018)

New in Android Studio 3.3 Canary 9 (Sep 13, 2018)

New in Android Studio 3.2 RC 3 (Sep 13, 2018)

New in Android Studio 3.3 Canary 8 (Aug 30, 2018)

New in Android Studio 3.2 RC 2 (Aug 25, 2018)

New in Android Studio 3.2 RC 1 (Aug 24, 2018)

New in Android Studio 3.3 Canary 7 (Aug 23, 2018)

New in Android Studio 3.3 Canary 6 (Aug 16, 2018)

This update includes the following new features and changes in behavior:
You can now view a list of active Gradle Daemons in Android Studio. To do this, double-press the Shift key to bring up the Search Everywhere dialog, type "Show Gradle Daemons", and click on the Show Gradle Daemons result that appears.
Linter now produces a warning if using a vector image larger than 200 x 200 dp.
The Navigation Editor supports new argument types from library versions 1.0.0-alpha03 and 1.0.0-alpha04.
Single-variant project sync: Syncing your project with your build configuration is an important step in letting Android Studio understand how your project is structured. However, this process can be time-consuming for large projects. If your project uses multiple build variants, you can now optimize project syncs by limiting them to only the variant you have currently selected. When syncing your project using Android Studio 3.3 Canary 6 or higher, the IDE prompts you to enable this optimization. To enable this optimization manually, click File > Settings > Experimental > Gradle (Android Studio > Preferences > Experimental > Gradle on a Mac) and check Only resolve selected variants. Note: This optimization currently supports projects that include only the Java programming language. If, for example, the IDE detects Kotlin or C++ code in your project, it does not automatically enable this optimization, and you should not enable it manually.
This update includes fixes for several bugs, including the following:
Users were unable to install JetBrains plugins.
Android Studio wasn't properly resolving kotlinx.android.synthetic.* imports.
Linter was producing false positive MissingTranslation errors for Japanese strings.
When using synthetic properties from the Kotlin Android Extensions plugin, the linter was improperly marking some ID values as unused.
Quick fix for findViewById resulted in a compilation error.
Using @BindingAdapter with duplicate values now results in a warning along with a log entry.

New in Android Studio 3.3 Canary 5 (Aug 8, 2018)

New in Android Studio 3.1.4.0 (Aug 7, 2018)

New in Android Studio 3.3 Canary 4 (Aug 3, 2018)

NEW FEATURES AND CHANGES IN BEHAVIOR:
The SliceProvider template has been updated.
The bundle Gradle task can now generate universal APKs.
The Navigation Editor now sorts attributes in dropdown lists alphabetically.
Single-variant project sync: Syncing your project with your build configuration is an important step in letting Android Studio understand how your project is structured. However, this process can be time-consuming for large projects. If your project uses multiple build variants, you can now optimize project syncs by limiting them to only the variant you have currently selected.
Provide quick feedback: If you've opted into sharing usage statistics to help improve Android Studio, you'll see two new icons in the status bar at the bottom of the IDE window--a smiling face and a frowning face. Simply click the icon that best represents your current experience with the IDE. When you do so, the IDE sends usage statistics that allow the Android Studio team to better understand your sentiment. In some cases, such as when you indicate a negative experience with the IDE, you'll have an opportunity to provide additional feedback. If you haven't already done so, you can enable sharing usage statistics by opening the Settings dialog (Preferences on a Mac), navigating to Appearance & Behavior > System Settings > Data Sharing, and checking Send usage statistics to Google.
Updated Project Structure dialog: Android Studio 3.3 Canary 4 introduces updates to the Project Structure dialog (PSD). When you open the dialog by selecting File > Project Structure from the menu bar, you can manage how your project is configured with the following new features:
Visualize the actual structure of a project, as resolved by Gradle as a project sync. For example, you can visualize the dependency graph of each module.
Get notifications when new versions of your library dependencies are available.
Configure a project through the dialog UI, without manually editing build.gradle files.
FIXES FOR SEVERAL BUGS:
Data binding was causing issues with caching task outputs.
MergeSourceSetFolders was using the worker API regardless of the flag that was set.
The Fabric plugin couldn't easily access a project mapping file.
Adding MultiDexApplication as an application name was broken when using AndroidX.
Building bundles with R8 enabled was causing crashes.
CMake server mode was causing issues with C++ code completion.
Some folders weren't properly marked as non-source folders, causing some issues.
JNI_OnLoad and JNI_OnUnload now show quick fixes if parameter or return types are incorrect.
Documentation preview wasn't properly handling certain types of content.
Fractional HiDPI wasn't working properly on Windows machines.
Layout editor was improperly displaying small fonts on HiDPI monitors.
In some cases, the Navigation Editor wasn't recognizing NavHosts.
The API Version Distribution chart was out of date.
Using analyzeProjectStructure on a large project was resulting in an ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException.
Device File Explorer files was saving files to a set location. This is now configurable.
The Force HTTP setting in the Android Studio SDK updater was being ignored.
The Android Studio SDK updater was prohibiting proxy caching.

New in Android Studio 3.2 Beta 4 (Jul 17, 2018)

New in Android Studio 3.3 Canary 3 (Jul 13, 2018)

New in Android Studio 3.2 Beta 2 (Jul 4, 2018)

New in Android Studio 3.3 Canary 2 (Jul 4, 2018)

New in Android Studio 3.2 Beta 1 (Jun 22, 2018)

New in Android Studio 3.2 Canary 18 (Jun 12, 2018)

New in Android Studio 3.1.3.0 (Jun 10, 2018)

New in Android Studio 3.2 Canary 17 (Jun 10, 2018)

New in Android Studio 3.2 Canary 16 (May 30, 2018)

New in Android Studio 3.2 Canary 15 (May 18, 2018)

New in Android Studio 3.1.2.0 (Apr 24, 2018)

New in Android Studio 3.2 Canary 12 (Apr 23, 2018)

New in Android Studio 3.2 Canary 11 (Apr 21, 2018)

New in Android Studio 3.2 Canary 10 (Apr 10, 2018)

New in Android Studio 3.2 Canary 9 (Apr 3, 2018)

New in Android Studio 3.2 Canary 8 (Mar 27, 2018)

New in Android Studio 3.2 Canary 7 (Mar 20, 2018)

New in Android Studio 3.1 Canary 9 (Jan 25, 2018)

New in Android Studio 3.1 Canary 8 (Jan 13, 2018)

New in Android Studio 3.1 Canary 6 (Dec 21, 2017)

GENERAL BUG FIXES AND THE FOLLOWING NEW FEATURES:
Upgrades the base IDE to IntelliJ 2017.3. You may notice changes in behavior and performance as a result of this merge. If you encounter changes you believe to be regressions, please report a bug.
Updates the Kotlin plugin to version 1.2.
Updates to Data Binding:
You can now use a LiveData object as an observable field in data binding expressions. The ViewDataBinding class now includes a new setLifecycle method that you need to use to use to observe LiveData objects.
New compiler: You can preview a new incremental compiler for your data binding classes. To enable this compiler, add android.databinding.enableV2=true to your gradle.properties file, or include the following command line argument: -Pandroid.databinding.enableV2=true. Keep in mind, this compiler is not backwards compatible, so you need to recompile all of your data binding classes with this feature enabled to take advantage of incremental compilation.
The ObervableField class can now accept other Observable objects in its constructor. The ObservableField object registers a change when one of its Observable dependencies register a change.
KNOWN ISSUES:
Updating existing projects to the alpha 6 Android Gradle plugin fails. You must manually update to 3.1.0-alpha06 as described above.
When using Java 8 language features, the intentions menu item to “Set Language Level to 8" is missing.
AAPT2 may throw an error when adding a tabbed activity to a project which is created with Maps activity.
You may get an IsolationException error while building LintTest project.
Certain devices may cause a java.lang.AssertionError while working with profilers.
You may receive a "File Creation failed" error while recording espresso tests for Instant Apps that include code written in Kotlin.
You may receive a fatal exception when using Java 8 language features with Android Instant Apps projects.
Your app may see FATAL_EXCEPTION "Error inflating class ImageView" when adding color resources to an ImageView using the theme attribute.
You may receive a TimeoutException while deploying a Wear project to the emulator.
When creating a Android Instant Apps project that includes a BottomNavigationView, you may get a null pointer exception.

New in Android Studio 3.1 Canary 5 (Dec 6, 2017)

New in Android Studio 3.0.1.0 (Nov 20, 2017)

New in Android Studio 3.1 Canary 4 (Nov 18, 2017)

New in Android Studio 3.1 Canary 3 (Nov 10, 2017)

New in Android Studio 3.0.0.18 (Oct 28, 2017)

The new Android plugin for Gradle includes a variety of improvements and new features, but it primarily improves build performance for projects that have a large number of modules. When using the new plugin with these large projects, you should experience the following:
Faster build configuration times due to new delayed dependency resolution.
Variant-aware dependency resolution for only the projects and variants you are building.
Faster incremental build times when applying simple changes to code or resources.
This version also includes the following:
Support for Android 8.0.
Support for building separate APKs based on language resources.
Support for Java 8 libraries and Java 8 language features (without the Jack compiler).
Support for Android Test Support Library 1.0 (Android Test Utility and Android Test Orchestrator).
Improved ndk-build and cmake build speeds.
Improved Gradle sync speed.
AAPT2 is now enabled by default.
Using ndkCompile is now more restricted. You should instead migrate to using either CMake or ndk-build to compile native code that you want to package into your APK. To learn more, read Migrate from ndkcompile.
If you're ready to upgrade to the new plugin, see Migrate to Android Plugin for Gradle 3.0.0.
Kotlin support:
As announced at Google I/O 2017, the Kotlin programming language is now officially supported on Android. So with this release, Android Studio includes Kotlin language support for Android development.
You can incorporate Kotlin into your project by converting a Java file to Kotlin (click Code > Convert Java File to Kotlin File) or by creating a new Kotlin- enabled project using the New Project wizard.
Java 8 language features support:
You can now use certain Java 8 language features and consume libraries built with Java 8. Jack is no longer required, and you should first disable Jack to use the improved Java 8 support built into the default toolchain.
To update your project to support the new Java 8 language toolchain, update the Source Compatibility and Target Compatibility to 1.8 in the Project Structure dialog (click File > Project Structure). To learn more, read how to use Java 8 language features.
Android Profiler:
The new Android Profiler replaces the Android Monitor tool and provides a new suite of tools to measure your app's CPU, memory, and network usage in realtime. You can perform sample-based method tracing to time your code execution, capture heap dumps, view memory allocations, and inspect the details of network-transmitted files.
To open, click View > Tool Windows > Android Profiler (or click Android Profiler in the toolbar).
The event timeline at the top of the window shows touch events, key presses, and activity changes so you have more context to understand other performance events in the timeline.
Note: The Logcat view also moved to a separate window (it was previously inside Android Monitor, which was removed).
From the Android Profiler's overview timeline, click on the CPU, MEMORY, or NETWORK timelines to access the corresponding profiler tools.
CPU Profiler:
The CPU Profiler helps you analyze the CPU thread usage of your app by triggering a sample or instrumented CPU trace. Then, you can troubleshoot CPU performance issues using a variety of data views and filters.
Memory Profiler:
The Memory Profiler helps you identify memory leaks and memory churn that can lead to stutter, freezes, and even app crashes. It shows a realtime graph of your app's memory use, lets you capture a heap dump, force garbage collections, and track memory allocations.
Network Profiler:
The Network Profiler allows you to monitor the network activity of your app, inspect the payload of each of your network requests, and link back to the code that generated the network request.
APK profiling and debugging:
Android Studio now allows you to profile and debug any APK without having to build it from an Android Studio project—as long as the APK is built to enable debugging and you have access to the debug symbols and source files.
To get started, click Profile or debug APK from the Android Studio Welcome screen. Or, if you already have a project open, click File > Profile or debug APK from the menu bar. This displays the unpacked APK files, but it does not decompile the code. So, to properly add breakpoints and view stack traces, you need to attach Java source files and native debug symbols.
Device File Explorer:
The new Device File Explorer allows you to inspect your connected device's filesystem, and transfer files between the device and your computer. This replaces the filesystem tool available in DDMS.
To open, click View > Tool Windows > Device File Explorer.
Instant Apps support:
New support for Android Instant Apps allows you to create Instant Apps in your project using two new module types: Instant App modules and Feature modules (these require that you install the Instant Apps Development SDK).
Android Studio also includes a new modularize refactoring action to help you add support for Instant Apps in an existing project. For example, if you want to refactor your project to place some classes in an Instant App feature module, select the classes in the Project window and click Refactor > Modularize. In the dialog that appears, select the module where the classes should go and click OK.
And when you're ready to test your Instant App, you can build and run your Instant App module on a connected device by specifying the Instant App's URL within the run configuration launch options: Select Run > Edit Configurations, select your Instant App module, and then set the URL under Launch Options.
Android Things modules:
New Android Things templates in the New Project and New Module wizards to help you start developing for Android-powered IOT devices.
Adaptive Icons wizard:
Image Asset Studio now supports vector drawables and allows you to create adaptive launcher icons for Android 8.0 while simultaneously creating traditional icons ("Legacy" icons) for older devices.
To start, right-click on the res folder in your project, and then click New > Image Asset. In the Asset Studio window, select Launcher Icons (Adaptive and Legacy) as the icon type.
Note: You must set compileSdkVersion to 26 or higher to use adaptive launcher icons.
Support for font resources:
To support the new font resources in Android 8.0, Android Studio includes a font resources selector to help bundle fonts into your app or configure your project to download the fonts on the device (when available). The layout editor can also preview the fonts in your layout.
To try downloadable fonts, ensure that your device or emulator is running Google Play Services v11.2.63 or higher. For more information, read about Downloadable Fonts.
Firebase App Indexing Assistant:
The Firebase Assistant has been updated with a new tutorial to test App Indexing. To open the Assistant, select Tools > Firebase. Then select App Indexing > Test App Indexing.
The tutorial includes new buttons to test your public and personal content indexing:
In step 2, click Preview search results to verify that your URLs are showing up in Google Search results.
In step 3, click Check for errors to verify that the indexable objects in your app have been added to the personal content index.
Android App Links Assistant:
The App Links Assistant has been updated with the following new capabilities:
Add URL tests for each URL mapping to be sure your intent filters handle real-world URLs.
You can also define these URL tests by hand using the tag described below.
Create a Digital Asset Links file with the appropriate object entry to support Google Smart Lock, and add the corresponding asset_statements tag to your manifest file.
URL intent-filter validator:
Android Studio now supports a special tag in the manifest file that allows you to test your intent filter URLs. These are the same tags that the App Links Assistant can create for you.
To declare a test URL for an intent filter, add a element alongside the corresponding element.If any one of the test URLs does not pass the intent filter definition, a lint error appears. Such an error still allows you to build debug variants, but it will break your release builds.
Layout Editor:
The Layout Editor has been updated with a number of enhancements, including the following:
New toolbar layout and icons.
Updated layout in the component tree.
Improved drag-and-drop view insertions.
New error panel below the editor, showing all issues with suggestions to fix (if available).
Various UI enhancements for building with ConstraintLayout, including the following:
New support to create barriers.
New support to create groups: In the toolbar, select Guidelines > Add Group (requires ConstraintLayout 1.1.0 beta 2 or higher)
New UI to create chains: Select multiple views, and then right-click and select Chain.
Layout Inspector:
The Layout Inspector includes enhancements to make it easier to debug issues with your app layouts, including grouping properties into common categories and new search functionality in both the View Tree and the Properties panes.
APK Analyzer:
You can now use the APK Analyzer from the command line with the apkanalyzer tool.
The APK Analyzer has also been updated with the following improvements:
For APKs built with ProGuard, you can load ProGuard mapping files that add capabilities to the DEX viewer, including:
Bolded nodes to indicate that the nodes should not be removed when shrinking code.
A button to show nodes that were removed during the shrinking process.
A button that restores the original names of nodes in the tree view that were obfuscated by ProGuard.
The DEX Viewer now shows the estimated size impact of each package, class and method.
New filtering options at the top to show and hide fields and methods.
In the tree view, nodes that are references not defined in the DEX file appear in italics.
Preview for D8 DEX compiler:
Android Studio 3.0 includes an optional new DEX compiler called D8. It will eventually replace the DX compiler, but you can opt-in to use the new D8 compiler now.
DEX compilation directly impacts your app's build time, .dex file size, and runtime performance. And when comparing the new D8 compiler with the current DX compiler, D8 compiles faster and outputs smaller .dex files, while having the same or better app runtime performance.
To try it, set the following in your project's gradle.properties file:
android.enableD8=true
Google's Maven repository:
Android Studio now uses Google’s Maven Repository by default instead of depending on the Android SDK Manager to get updates for Android Support Library, Google Play Services, Firebase, and other dependencies. This makes it easier to keep your libraries up to date, especially when using a continuous integration (CI) system.
All new projects now include the Google Maven repository by default. To update your existing project, add google() in the repositories block of the top-level build.gradle file:
OTHER CHANGES:
Native debugging with Android Studio no longer supports 32-bit Windows. We've chosen to focus on other platforms because very few developers are using this platform. If you are using 32-bit Windows and you plan to debug native code, you should keep using Android Studio 2.3.
Upgraded the base IDE to IntelliJ 2017.1.2, which adds a number of new features from 2016.3 and 2017.1, such as Java 8 language refactoring, parameter hints, semantic highlighting, draggable breakpoints, instant results in search, and much more.
Added many new lint checks.
Also see the latest Android Emulator updates.

New in Android Studio 3.0 RC 2 (Oct 21, 2017)

New in Android Studio 3.0 RC 1 (Oct 14, 2017)

New in Android Studio 3.0 Beta 7 (Oct 4, 2017)

New in Android Studio 3.0 Beta 6 (Sep 17, 2017)

New in Android Studio 3.0 Beta 5 (Sep 9, 2017)

New in Android Studio 3.0 Beta 4 (Sep 2, 2017)

New in Android Studio 3.0 Beta 2 (Aug 12, 2017)

New in Android Studio 3.0 Beta 1 (Aug 10, 2017)

New in Android Studio 3.0 Canary 9 (Aug 2, 2017)

New in Android Studio 3.0 Canary 8 (Aug 1, 2017)

New in Android Studio 3.0 Canary 7 (Jul 18, 2017)

New in Android Studio 3.0 Canary 6 (Jul 12, 2017)

New in Android Studio 3.0 Canary 5 (Jul 1, 2017)

New in Android Studio 2.3.3 (Jun 9, 2017)

New in Android Studio 3.0 Canary 3 (Jun 6, 2017)

New in Android Studio 3.0 Canary 2 (May 27, 2017)

New in Android Studio 2.4 Preview 7 (Apr 29, 2017)

New in Android Studio 2.3.2 (Apr 27, 2017)

New in Android Studio 2.4 Preview 6 (Apr 14, 2017)

New in Android Studio 2.3.1 (Apr 5, 2017)

New in Android Studio 2.4 Preview 4 (Apr 4, 2017)

New in Android Studio 2.4 Preview 2 (Mar 17, 2017)

New in Android Studio 2.4 Preview 1 (Mar 15, 2017)

New in Android Studio 2.3 (Mar 3, 2017)

Primarily a bug fix and stability release, but it also includes a number of new features.
New:
Android Studio can now convert PNG, BMP, JPG, and static GIF files to WebP format. WebP is an image file format from Google that provides lossy compression (like JPEG) as well as transparency (like PNG) but can provide better compression than either JPEG or PNG. For more information, see Convert Images to WebP in Android Studio.
The new App Links Assistant simplifies the process of adding Android App Links to your app into a step-by-step wizard. Android App Links are HTTP URLs that bring users directly to specific content in your Android app.
The Layout Editor now includes support for two new ConstraintLayout features:
Define a view size based on an aspect ratio.
Create packed, spread, and weighted linear groups with constraint chains.
For more information, see Build a Responsive UI with ConstraintLayout.
The Layout Editor also now lets you create a list of favorite attributes so you don't have to click View all attributes to access the attributes you use most.
When adding a material icon using the Vector Import Dialog (File > New > Vector Asset), you can now filter the list of available icons by category or by icon name. For more information, see Adding a material icon.
New and updated annotations. The new @RestrictTo annotation for methods, classes, and packages lets you restrict an API. The updated @VisibleForTesting annotation now has an optional otherwise argument that lets you designate what the visibility of a method should be if not for the need to make it visible for testing. Lint uses the otherwise option to enforce the intended visibility of the method.
New lint baseline support allows you to use a snapshot of your project's current set of warnings as a baseline for future inspection runs so only new issues are reported. The baseline snapshot lets you start using lint to fail the build for new issues without having to go back and address all existing issues first.
New lint checks, including the following:
Obsolete SDK_INT Checks: Android Studio removes obsolete code that checks for SDK versions.
Object Animator Validation: Lint analyzes your code to make sure that your ObjectAnimator calls reference valid methods with the right signatures and checks that those methods are annotated with @Keep to prevent ProGuard from renaming or removing them during release builds.
Unnecessary Item Decorator Copy: Older versions of the RecyclerView library did not include a divider decorator class, but one was provided as a sample in the support demos. Recent versions of the library have a divider decorator class. Lint looks for the old sample and suggests replacing it with the new one.
WifiManager Leak: Prior to Android 7.0 (API level 24), initializing the WifiManager with Context.getSystemService() can cause a memory leak if the context is not the application context. Lint looks for these initializations, and if it cannot determine that the context is the application context, it suggests you use Context.getApplicationContext() to get the proper context for the initialization.
Improved Resource Prefix: The existing resourcePrefix lint check had many limitations. You can now configure your project with a prefix, such as android { resourcePrefix 'my_lib' }, and lint makes sure that all of your resources are using this prefix. You can use variations of the name for styles and themes. For example for the my_lib prefix, you can have themes named MyLibTheme, myLibAttr, my_lib_layout, and so on.
Switch to WebP: This check identifies images in your project that can be converted to WebP format based on your project’s minSdkVersion setting. An associated quickfix can automatically convert the images, or you can convert images to WebP manually.
Unsafe WebP: If your project already includes WebP images, this check analyzes your project to ensure that your minSdkVersion setting is high enough to support the included images. For more information about WebP support in Android and Android Studio, see Which browsers natively support WebP? and Create WebP Images Using Android Studio.
Changes:
A separate button to push changes with Instant Run: After deploying your app, you now click Apply Changes to quickly push incremental changes to your running app using Instant Run. The Run and Debug buttons are always available to you when you want to reliably push your changes and force an app restart.
Instant Run is supported only when deploying your app to a target device running Android 5.0 (API level 21) or higher.
Instant Run is no longer disabled for projects that link to external native projects using CMake or ndk-build. However, you can only use Instant Run to push incremental changes to your Java code, not your native code.
Cold swaps (which you can force for a running app by clicking Run ) are now more reliable. Forcing a cold swap also fixes the issue where changes to notification and widget UIs were not updated on the target device.
Includes optimizations that make app startup much faster. These optimizations may affect profiling, so you should temporarily disable Instant Run whenever profiling your app.
The AVD Manager and SDK Manager buttons are now included in the lean Navigation Bar as well as the full Toolbar. To use the lean Navigation Bar, click View to open the View menu, then ensure that Navigation Bar is selected and Toolbar is not selected.
The "Hybrid" debugger has been renamed to "Dual" debugger.
In the Run/Debug Configurations dialog, under Defaults in the left pane, the following run configuration names have changed with no behavior changes:
The JUnit name has changed to Android JUnit. If you have a project that uses JUnit run configurations, those configurations are transformed to Android JUnit run configurations the first time you open the project with Android Studio. A dialog appears to inform you of the name change.
The Android Tests name has changed to Android Instrumented Tests.
The GPU Debugger has been removed from Android Studio as of version 2.3. An open-source, standalone version of the tool will be made available soon on GitHub.
The Run/Debug option is no longer available when you right-click a *.gradle build script.
All templates now use ConstraintLayout as the default layout.
The Widgets palette in the Layout Editor has been redesigned.

New in Android Studio 2.3 RC 1 (Feb 18, 2017)

New in Android Studio 2.3 Beta 4 (Feb 10, 2017)

New in Android Studio 2.3 Beta 3 (Jan 26, 2017)

New in Android Studio 2.3 Beta 2 (Jan 11, 2017)

New in Android Studio 2.3 Beta 1 (Dec 16, 2016)

New in Android Studio 2.3 Canary 3 (Dec 13, 2016)

New in Android Studio 2.2.3 (Dec 7, 2016)

New in Android Studio 2.3 Canary 2 (Nov 23, 2016)

New in Android Studio 2.3 Preview (Nov 11, 2016)

IDE: We've upgraded the base IDE from IntelliJ 2016.1 to 2016.2, which adds a number of new features -- ligatures, breadcrumbs, editor background images, revamped UI for inspections, notifications and the debugger, and more.
Layout Editor: The layout editor now supports chains and ratios for ConstraintLayout.
Lint: Lint now has "baseline support" which lets you check in a current set of warnings -- and from now on, only new issues are reported. This lets a project with a lot of technical debt set a baseline and then break the build only when new issues are introduced, without having to go and fix all existing issues first. In order not to forget about the technical debt though it creates an info-level issue which tells you that you've filtered out bugs.
WebP: Android Studio 2.3 now provides PNG to WebP Conversion. With the new conversion wizard, you can quickly generate WebP images and if you're using the lossy encoding, inspect the diffs of your images. Using WebP images in your app saves APK space and is more performant. Learn more about the new WebP Support in this tech doc.
Data Binding: In addition to a lot of bug fixes in the editing support for data binding, there is a new feature to help debug apps using data binding. Normally the IDE will automatically compute the data binding classes "on the fly" such that they are always correct and up to date with your edits in the XML files. However, when you are debugging your app, you may want to see and step into exactly the code that was compiled.
Pixel and Pixel XL: Pixel and Pixel XL device definitions added to the Layout Editor and AVD Manager to help test your app with Android 7.1 Developer Preview Release.
Incremental SDK Updates: This version of Studio includes support for incremental patching of SDK components, such as system images. We can now provide patches for system images (which are often very large) and updating those with Studio 2.3 will allow a much smaller and faster download.
Bug Fixes. A notable & highly requested enhancement (b.android.com/220197) we also added is a search box to the Vector Asset Wizard You can now quickly filter through the vector icons based on the name of the asset.
Build System: Support for the new Gradle plugin 2.3.0. There are some notable changes:
The user cache for dex files is now enabled by default, which should speed up builds
Configuration times for very large projects should be significantly faster
For Instant Run, the "startup delay" (where large apps stall for a few seconds at startup) should be gone
Instant Run is using "APK Splits" when targeting Android N which is a bit more reliable than the classloader tricks it uses to target older platforms

New in Android Studio 2.2.2 (Oct 20, 2016)

New in Android Studio 2.2.1 (Oct 13, 2016)

New in Android Studio 2.2.1 Beta (Oct 8, 2016)

New in Android Studio 2.2 (Sep 19, 2016)

NEW:
All new Layout Editor with tools custom-built to support ConstraintLayout.
New Layout Inspector lets you examine snapshots of your layout hierarchy while your app is running on the emulator or a device.
New Assistant window to help you integrate Firebase services into your app.
New APK Analyzer tool so you can inspect the contents of your packaged app.
New Espresso Test Recorder tool (currently in beta) to help you create UI tests by recording your own interactions.
New build cache (currently experimental) to speed up build performance.
New C/C++ build integration with CMake and ndk-build. Compile and build new or existing native code into libraries packaged into your APK, and debug using lldb. For new projects, Android Studio uses CMake by default, but also supports ndk-build for existing projects. To learn how to include native code in your Android application, read Add C and C++ Code to Your Project. To learn how to debug native code with lldb, see Debug Native Code.
New Samples Browser so you can easily look up Google Android sample code from within Android Studio to jump start app development.
New Merged Manifest Viewer to help you diagnose how your manifest file merges with your app dependencies across project build variants.
The Run window now contains log messages for the current running app. Note that you can configure the logcat Monitor display, but not the Run window.
Android Studio now comes bundled with OpenJDK 8. Existing projects still use the JDK specified in File > Project Structure > SDK Location. You can switch to use the new bundled JDK by clicking File > Project Structure > SDK Location and checking the Use embedded JDK checkbox.
Added new help menus and buttons in the UI so you can more easily find the online documentation.
New Android Emulator features:
Added new Virtual Sensors and Cellular > Signal Strength controls.
Added an LTE option to the Cellular > Network type control.
Added simulated vertical swipes for scrolling through vertical menus with a mouse wheel.
New Run/Debug Configuration features:
The Debugger tab of the Android App and Android Tests templates now contain several new options for debugging with LLDB.
The Profiling tab of the Android App and Android Tests templates now contain a Capture GPU Commands option for enabling GPU tracing. You can display GPU traces in the GPU Debugger (a beta feature).
The Android Tests template now has a Firebase Test Lab Device Matrix option for the Deployment Target.
The Native Application template has been deprecated. If you use this template in a project, Android Studio automatically converts it to the Android App template.
The Android Application template has been renamed to Android App.
CHANGES:
Updated the IDE codebase from IntelliJ 15 to IntelliJ 2016.1
Instant Run now requires the platform SDK corresponding to the target device API level to be installed.
Instant Run will automatically disabled if user is running the app under a work profile or as a secondary user.
Improved performance for Gradle sync within the IDE, especially for large projects.
Improved build times for both full and incremental builds with new app packaging code.
Improved Jack compiler performance and features, including support for annotation processors and dexing in process. To learn more, read the Android plugin for Gradle 2.2.0 release notes.
Added an updated AccelerometerPlay sample so you can try out the emulator Accelerometer control. Select File > New > Import Sample to import the project.
Removed the Scale AVD property from the AVD Manager.
The Android Emulator -port and -ports command-line options now report which ports and serial number the emulator instance is using, and warn if there are any issues with the values you provided.
Improved the Create New Class dialog and the corresponding file templates. Note: If you've previously customized the AnnotationType, Class, Enum, Interface, or Singleton file templates, you need to modify your templates to comply with the new templates or you won’t be able to use the new fields in the Create New Class dialog.
Improved the Vector Asset Studio user interface and added support for Adobe Photoshop Document (PSD) files.
Improved the Image Asset Studio user interface.
Improved the Theme Editor's Resource Picker.
Fixed memory leaks and reduced overall memory usage in Android Studio.
Added a Background button in the SDK Manager so you can get back to work and install your packages in the background.
Improved Accessibility features, including support for screen readers and keyboard navigation.
Enhanced Code Analysis includes code quality checks for Java 8 language usage and more cross-file analysis.
Several toolbar icons have changed.
Fixed many reliability issues for Instant Run where changes were not getting deployed or the app would crash:
Some app assets were not deployed to your running app. ( Bug: #213454)
App crashes when user transitions between Instant Run and non Instant Run sessions where a Serializable class does not have serialVersionUID defined. (Bug: #209006)
Style changes aren’t reflected with Instant Run. (Bug: #210851)
Instant Run session is unreliable and causes FileNotFoundException. (Bug: #213083)
Changes to drawables not reflected until full rebuild is performed for KitKat. (Bug: #21530)
Resource changes aren’t reflected with Instant Run when custom sourceSets contain nested paths. (Bug: #219145)
Hot and warm swap don't work if changed class contains annotation with enum value. (Bug: #209047)
Changes to annotation data not reflected with Instant Run. (Bug: #210089)
Instant Run doesn't pick up code changes if you make changes outside the IDE. (Bug: #213205)
Instant Run session is unreliable due to mismatch security token. (Bug: #211989
Cold swap fails for devices that doesn’t properly support run-as. (Bug: #210875)
App crash after instant run restart. (Bug: #219744)
ClassNotFoundException observed when switching from Instant Run to Instant Debug. (Bug: #215805)

New in Android Studio 2.2 RC 2 (Sep 9, 2016)

New in Android Studio 2.2 RC (Sep 2, 2016)

New in Android Studio 2.2 Beta 3 (Aug 28, 2016)

New in Android Studio 2.2 Beta 2 (Aug 19, 2016)

New in Android Studio 2.1.3 (Aug 16, 2016)

New in Android Studio 2.2 Beta 1 (Aug 12, 2016)

New in Android Studio 2.2 Preview 7 (Aug 2, 2016)

New in Android Studio 2.2 Preview 6 (Jul 19, 2016)

New in Android Studio 2.2 Preview 5 (Jul 9, 2016)

Performance: We fixed two big memory leaks -- one related to Gradle sync and the other related to layout rendering; both should help significantly with memory usage. We also improved the locking behavior of layout XML preview so it shouldn't cause the editor to lag when typing during background layout preview rendering.
Other: A lot of fixes across the product - in deployment, editor, data binding, C++/CMake/NDK support, lint, Espresso test runner, Firebase, etc.
Updated platform metadata for Android Nougat (e.g. code completion for context.getSystemService() should return all the valid constants as of N, etc.)
Fixes for the most common exceptions reported via the crash reporter
Instant Run: A number of important bug fixes which should help with performance and correctness:
Fixed a bug where assets were not properly packaged
Disable the small optimization where edits in the main app module skip certain tasks: this was not safe and could lead to some edits missing when running the app
Fix a bug which meant assets would not be incrementally packaged in alpha4
No longer crunch PNGs in library dependencies
Fix bug where updating launcher icons would not trigger an app reinstall
The resize screen feature has been tweaked visually and should be much faster.
The screenshot action has been added back to the Context menu, and there is a preference panel in options where you can set the "prefer XML editor for layout files" option as in previous releases.
Lint icons no longer show up on the design surface by default, but you can turn them back on via options (including from the lint notifications panel.)
PhotoShop file support: Layers in 16 bit and 32 bit images are now decoded
Fixed many bugs, including the bug starred by a bunch of users where on Windows, include tags would stop working
Layout Editor:
Auto connect mode is now off by default.
New constraint layout library version alpha4.
There's a lint warning (and quickfix to update) if you're using alpha3 or older.
The focus of the update is on layout performance.
There's also documentation on the various attributes, and code completion should work better with this version in the IDE
Note: There is an incompatible change in the Guideline class and attributes: layout_constraintGuide_begin, layout_constraintGuide_end and layout_constraintGuide_Percent

New in Android Studio 2.2 Preview 4 (Jun 23, 2016)

New in Android Studio 2.2 Preview 3 (Jun 9, 2016)

New in Android Studio 2.1.2 (Jun 6, 2016)

New in Android Studio 2.1.2 Beta (Jun 4, 2016)

New in Android Studio 2.2 Preview 2 (May 27, 2016)

New in Android Studio 2.2 Preview 1 (May 18, 2016)

New in Android Studio 2.1.1 (May 11, 2016)

New in Android Studio 2.1 (Apr 26, 2016)

New in Android Studio 2.1 RC (Apr 24, 2016)

New in Android Studio 2.1 Beta 3 (Apr 19, 2016)

New in Android Studio 2.1 Beta 2 (Apr 15, 2016)

New in Android Studio 2.1 Beta (Apr 13, 2016)

New in Android Studio 2.0 (Apr 7, 2016)

New in Android Studio 2.0 RC 3 (Apr 6, 2016)

New in Android Studio 2.0 RC 2 (Apr 4, 2016)

New in Android Studio 2.1 Preview 5 (Apr 1, 2016)

New in Android Studio 2.0 RC 1 (Mar 30, 2016)

New in Android Studio 2.1 Preview 4 (Mar 25, 2016)

New in Android Studio 2.1 Preview 3 (Mar 16, 2016)

New in Android Studio 2.0 Beta 7 (Mar 16, 2016)

New in Android Studio 2.1 Preview 1 (Mar 9, 2016)

New in Android Studio 2.0 Beta 6 (Feb 26, 2016)

New in Android Studio 2.0 Beta 5 (Feb 19, 2016)

New in Android Studio 2.0 Preview Beta 5 (Feb 17, 2016)

New in Android Studio 2.0 Preview Beta 4 (Feb 12, 2016)

New in Android Studio 2.0 Preview Beta 3 (Feb 11, 2016)

New in Android Studio 2.0 Preview Beta 2 (Feb 5, 2016)

New in Android Studio 2.0 Preview 9 (Jan 31, 2016)

New in Android Studio 2.0 Preview 8 (Jan 28, 2016)

New in Android Studio 2.0 Preview 7 (Jan 23, 2016)

New in Android Studio 2.0 Preview 6 (Jan 20, 2016)

New in Android Studio 2.0 Preview 4 (Dec 18, 2015)

New in Android Studio 2.0 Preview 3 (Dec 10, 2015)

New in Android Studio 1.5.1 (Dec 7, 2015)

New in Android Studio 2.0 Preview 2 (Dec 4, 2015)

New in Android Studio 1.5 Beta (Nov 18, 2015)

New in Android Studio 1.4.1 (Nov 18, 2015)

New in Android Studio 1.5 Preview 2 (Oct 22, 2015)

New in Android Studio 1.4 (Oct 1, 2015)

Design Tools:
Vector Assets:
Starting with API 21, you can use Vector Drawables for image assets. For most apps, using VectorDrawables decreases the amount of density dependent drawables you need to maintain, and will also give you sharp image assets regardless of the screen device densities your app supports.
With Android Studio 1.4, we are making the process of importing SVG images or Material icons much easier. If you update your Gradle Android plugin to 1.4.0-beta3 (or higher) in the project structure dialogue or your project build.gradle file ( 'com.android.tools.build:gradle:1.4.0-beta3' ), you can now use the new Vector Asset Studio by right-clicking the res/drawable folder in your project and selecting New → Vector Asset from the content menu.
We are also excited to offer backwards compatibility for your vector assets in Android Studio 1.4. Once you have a vectorDrawable image in your res/drawable, the Gradle plugin will automatically generate raster PNG images for API level 20 and below during build time. This means you only need to update and maintain your vector asset for your app project and Android Studio can take care of image conversion process. Note, it is still best practice to create density dependent launcher icons in your res/mipmap folder. Learn more by watching the DevByte video on the new Vector Asset Studio tool.
Theme Editor:
We understand that managing your app theme and style can be a bit complex. With Android Studio 1.4, we are releasing a preview of the Theme Editor to help with this task. This first version of the Theme Editor is focused on editing and updating the material theme colors (colors.xml) in your app project. In future releases, we will cover more attributes of your app theme and styles files. To access the editor, navigate from top level menu Tools → Android → Theme Editor.
Project Templates:
We know many of you use the New Project Wizard app templates to start a new app project or to quickly add an activity to an existing app. To help with the visual design of your apps, we updated the app templates to include the Android Design Support Library alongside the AppCompat Support library.
From the template wizard you can start projects with a basic blank template with a floating action button or start from a range of user interface components such as the navigation drawer, or AppBar with scrolling view. We also re-introduced the empty app template for those who want minimum code generation when adding an activity to your project.
With Android Studio 1.4, you can also validate your apps on the new Nexus 5X and Nexus 6P screen sizes.
Performance Monitors:
GPU Rendering Monitor:
Now it is possible to quickly inspect the GPU rendering performance of your app. To enable GPU monitoring, make sure you turn on monitoring for your Android hardware device or emulator under Setting → Developer Options → Profile GPU rendering → In adb shell dumpsys gfxinfo . To learn more about the GPU rendering results, check out the developer documentation.
Network Monitor:
With Android Studio 1.4, you can also monitor the network usage of your app. With the monitor you can track the transmit and receive rates of your app over time.
Developer Services:
Firebase:
It is now even easier to add a Firebase mobile backend to your Android app. Firebase includes data storage, user authentication, static hosting, and more. To access the feature, navigate from the top level menu and select File → Project Structure → Cloud. Learn more about Firebase in this tutorial.

New in Android Studio 1.4 RC 3 (Sep 27, 2015)

New in Android Studio 1.4 RC 2 (Sep 24, 2015)

New in Android Studio 1.4 RC 1 (Sep 20, 2015)

New in Android Studio 1.4 Beta 4 (Sep 15, 2015)

New in Android Studio 1.4 Beta 3 (Sep 10, 2015)

New in Android Studio 1.3.2 Beta (Aug 21, 2015)

New in Android Studio 1.4 Preview 3 (Aug 21, 2015)

New in Android Studio 1.4 Preview 2 (Aug 15, 2015)

New in Android Studio 1.4 Preview (Aug 14, 2015)

New in Android Studio 1.3.1 Beta (Aug 8, 2015)

New in Android Studio 1.3 (Jul 31, 2015)

New in Android Studio 1.3 RC 4 (Jul 25, 2015)

New in Android Studio 1.3 RC 3 (Jul 18, 2015)

New in Android Studio 1.3 RC 1 (Jul 10, 2015)

New in Android Studio 1.3 Beta (Jun 20, 2015)

New in Android Studio 1.2.2 Beta (Jun 10, 2015)

New in Android Studio 1.3 Preview 3 (Jun 10, 2015)

New in Android Studio 1.3 Preview 2 (Jun 2, 2015)

New in Android Studio 1.3 Preview 1 (Jun 1, 2015)

New in Android Studio 1.2.0.12 (May 1, 2015)

New in Android Studio 1.2 RC 3 (Apr 29, 2015)

New in Android Studio 1.2 RC (Apr 22, 2015)

New in Android Studio 1.2 Beta 3 (Apr 11, 2015)

New in Android Studio 1.2 Beta 2 (Apr 10, 2015)

New in Android Studio 1.2 Beta (Apr 3, 2015)

New in Android Studio 1.2 Preview 4 (Mar 26, 2015)

New in Android Studio 1.2 Preview 3 (Mar 20, 2015)

New in Android Studio 1.2 Preview 2 (Mar 14, 2015)

New in Android Studio 1.2 Preview 1 (Mar 10, 2015)

New in Android Studio 1.1 (Feb 23, 2015)

New in Android Studio 1.1 RC 1 (Feb 12, 2015)

New in Android Studio 1.1 Beta 4 (Feb 6, 2015)

New in Android Studio 1.1 Beta 3 (Feb 3, 2015)

New in Android Studio 1.1 Beta 2 (Jan 31, 2015)

New in Android Studio 1.1 Beta (Jan 30, 2015)

New in Android Studio 1.1 Preview 2 (Jan 23, 2015)

In this build, there are several new lint checks:
Check for suspicious language/region combinations (where you are defining a translation for a language and specific locale, where the combination of language and region is unusual and it's possible that you've used the wrong code.)
Checks that the tag passed to a Log.severity(tag, ...) call and its surrounding Log.isLoggable(tag) calls refer to the same tag. Similarly, it also checks that the logging level passed in to isLoggable matches the type of logging call, e.g. if if you check isLoggable(..., Log.DEBUG) you should log with Log.d, not Log.v or Log.i.
Checks that the tag passed to the logging calls, if its value can be resolved, is at most 23 characters long (as required by the Logging API.)
Checks that calls to info, verbose and debug logging calls are surrounded by a conditional (e.g. isLoggable or BuildInfo.DEBUG) but only if that logging call "performs work" (e.g. concatenates non constant strings or performs methods calls etc). This check is off by default.
Check for using drawables instead of mipmaps for the launcher icon, where the application is also filtering the set of densities packaged into the APK. There is also a quickfix in the IDE for migrating an icon from a @drawable to a @mipmap.
In addition, the default launcher icons have been updated to a Material Design look, and it now also includes an xxxhdpi density icon.
Bug fixes:
56986: Incorrect flag for portuguese
59042: strings.xml reformated every time I create new Activity
77158: Sync removes modules that do not have a Gradle counterpart.
81457: Fixes low resolution icon in Linux.
82387: Add intention to correct XML namespace for support lib
82564: Making AVD Manager separate (non-modal) window.
92005: Allow cancelling task that retrieves device screenshots
93284: Including comments when merging xml
94499: Fixing the device preview in the search and create cases
97006: Gradle lint does not recognize Context.getDrawable() as API 21+
98297: Fix run dialog modality to allow avd manager interaction
98317: Fixing resource merge to work within new project wizard
98997: Pick test runner from Gradle while creating test configuration
101279: Fix id reference check to properly handle undefined id's
103257: Append .exe extension on Windows (mksdcard)
103257: Welcome Wizard, on Windows, shows "Tools directory not found" error incorrectly

New in Android Studio 1.1 Preview 1 (Jan 16, 2015)

In addition to the bug fixes there are some notable improvements:
New projects now create launcher icons as @mipmap resources instead of @drawable
The various "cleanup" detectors for lint (e.g. checking that FragmentTransactions are committed, and that TypedArrays are recycled, and so on), now run incrementally within the IDE. They've also been extended to search for additional problems, such as missing close calls on database cursors, or missing release calls on SurfaceTextures
There are a couple of new lint checks:
A lint check which tries to identify string resources that should probably be using plurals instead
A lint check which warns you that @android:string/yes returns OK, not Yes
Several other lint checks that were bytecode based and only ran from Gradle (not lint in the IDE) have been ported to run incrementally in the IDE: Uses of SimpleDateFormat which should probably use getDateInstance instead, checks that addJavaScriptInterface points to a class annotated with @JavaScriptInterface, and a check looking for leaked Handler objects.
There is a new template for creating watch faces for Android Wear
The following bugs in the issue tracker were fixed:
Android Studio doesn't start, unable to find valid JVM
Restrict IconDensities check with splits density data
Incorrect inspection about Android problem for non-Android project
Lint report doesn't explain how to suppress warnings from Gradle.
tools:background should not trigger an overdraw warning
False positive in lint PropertyEscape
Lint: Make TypographyQuotes work with plurals
Library project is created with launcher icon resources
The xxhdpi launcher icon differs from other densities
src, layout folders are empty while creating new project
AVD Default orientation
Update lint to ECJ 4.4, ASM 5.0.3: NullPointerException by running lint
Don't match resource names for format-parameter only strings
"Palette" show twice in View > Tools Window
Fixing the device preview in the search and create cases
Making AVD Manager separate (non-modal) window.
Allow settings.gradle to include projects dynamically
can't create outgoing link from widgets that are in included layouts
Check if mksdcard can be executed
Update wizards to use new headers
AVD Manager: SD Card Radio Button Selection
AVD Manager: Fix Key lines of the Verify Configuration Screen
install, bad link to linux KVM
save screenshot: respect device art masks
Added "Download JDK 7" quick-fix.
uncommitted fragment transactions not highlighted by lint
@DrawableRes doesn't match R.mipmap drawables
Translations Editor does not show newly added locale
Making the AVD ID field look non-editable
Properly handle parent class lookup in the API check for this-expressions
Lint uses incorrect API level while analyzing Java Library modules
FlagManager asserts on region code es-419
ADV Manager has start button but no stop button!
Move Clear All and Scroll to End actions
Installer now waits for uninstaller
studio.exe can again run on Win64
NPE when missing dependency during import
Updating api distributions and distribution dialog text
Updating title of AVD Manager window
Adding hardware buttons for nexus one and nexus s
file paths (in local.properties) are no longer treated as relative if they belong to a different platform.
Use black icons only
device chooser: Prefer to use a device rather than the emulator
After switching device types, the system image list broke
Use $ as separator inner classes in fragment names
Fix scaling of device diagram.
Adding defaults for new avd creation wizard
Fixing avd duplication
Fixing button styles in avd manager
Compute default parameter values quickly
Fixing skin chooser on windows
Do not require approval of all licenses
Improve JDK detection algorithm
NPE on configuring library documentation
Closing exported device files.
Try to detect jdk location automatically on entering the step
Visual feedback for 'Detect JDK' button processing
Do not download samples
apk installation: do not throw error for unexpected dumpsys output
device chooser: special case Google APIs target
Misc other fixes for crashes reported via the crash reporter
Bug fixes not tagged with a bug number in the commit message.
This does not include the work and fixes to the build system for Gradle plugin 1.1, still in progress. Note that Android Studio 1.1 works fine with version 1.0 of the Android Gradle plugin.

New in Android Studio 1.0.2 (Dec 19, 2014)

New in Android Studio 1.0.1 Dev (Dec 13, 2014)

New in Android Studio 1.0 RC 4 (Dec 5, 2014)

New in Android Studio 1.0 RC 2 (Nov 27, 2014)

New in Android Studio 1.0 RC 1 (Nov 24, 2014)

New in Android Studio 0.9.2 Dev (Nov 7, 2014)

New in Android Studio 0.9.1 Dev (Nov 4, 2014)

New in Android Studio 0.9.0 Dev (Nov 1, 2014)

New in Android Studio 0.8.14 Dev (Oct 24, 2014)

New in Android Studio 0.8.13 Dev (Oct 18, 2014)

New in Android Studio 0.8.12 Dev (Oct 10, 2014)

A brand new AVD Manager (AVDs are virtual devices for the emulator). The new AVD Manager is more tightly integrated with the IDE. For example, when attempting to run your app, you can quickly create a Nexus 5 or Nexus 7 AVD directly from the Run dialog. Here's the new AVD list, where you can view and edit AVDs (and you can see how much disk space each AVD is using), you can start AVDs, etc.
You can also create new AVD's, and it's easy to base these on existing hardware defaults, across different categories like phone, tablet, wear and TV.
Once you've picked the hardware, you can then configure it with a specific architecture and Android version.
Finally you can pick a display name, default orientation, GPU/snapshot options - or any of the more advanced settings such as the size of external storage and so on.
When creating new projects, we now default to using HTTPS instead of HTTP for the Gradle wrapper. We've also added a lint (and a quickfix) to warn about existing projects using HTTP:
If you prefer to edit layout XML files manually (using the XML editor rather than the graphical layout editor), you can now click on the Options icon in the toolbar above the layout editor or the layout preview window, and choose to "Prefer XML editor":
Once chosen, from now on newly created layouts will open with the XML editor rather than the layout editor.
The translation editor is now available from string editors:
The Android Project view is now chosen by default. You can switch back to the plain Project View by right clicking on the dropdown above the project view.
You can now import the tools namespace in XML with a quickfix: just write the tools: prefix and then the IDE will offer to insert the corresponding namespace declaration.
Similarly, with the android: prefix it imports the Android namespace rather than showing all available namespaces and asking you to pick one.
A lot of bug fixes, among them a file descriptor leak which led to machine problems after repeated APK deploy operations, and several significant patch update mechanism bugs, described in detail below. And many others.

New in Android Studio 0.8.11 Dev (Sep 19, 2014)

New in Android Studio 0.8.10 Dev (Sep 12, 2014)

New in Android Studio 0.8.9 Dev (Sep 4, 2014)

New in Android Studio 0.8.8 Dev (Sep 1, 2014)

New in Android Studio 0.8.5 Dev (Aug 7, 2014)

New in Android Studio 0.8.4 Dev (Jul 25, 2014)

New in Android Studio 0.8.3 Dev (Jul 22, 2014)

New in Android Studio 0.8.2 Dev (Jul 14, 2014)

New in Android Studio 0.8.0 Beta (Jun 28, 2014)

New in Android Studio 0.6.1 Dev (Jun 13, 2014)

New in Android Studio 0.6.0 Dev (Jun 7, 2014)

New in Android Studio 0.5.9 Dev (May 30, 2014)

Updated to IntelliJ 13.1.3 RC, picking up the following builds: 135.815, 135.863, and 135.908.
Many bug fixes.
GRADLE:
Support for the new 0.10.4 plugin, also released today. Studio 0.5.9 continues to work with 0.9.+, but if you are using it with 0.10.+, make sure you use at least 0.10.4.
Improved message console during builds:
The most important change is that it now includes all output from Gradle, since prior to this, it could show an error message like "Execution failed for :app:proguardRelease: Please correct the above errors first", without actually showing the output from the proguard task.
Various tweaks such as making the window searchable, sorting lines in output order rather than by severity category (though it will auto-jump to the first error), hiding the Info icon and "Information:" prefix for normal output lines, showing Gradle's deprecated and incubating feature output as warnings, etc.
Improved project structure editor:
Master/Detail view: In the Project Structure dialog, instead of showing items in a giant 2-dimensional table, show a master/details view where there is a list of items on the left-hand side with + and - buttons to add and remove items; clicking on an item in the list shows details in a 2-column table on the right-hand side.
The Project Structure editors now includes information not just from the Gradle file being edited but the computed Gradle model as well, which lets it for example show default values, such as the greyed out (true) and (false) values shown in the screenshot above.
There's a new panel for editing project-global properties, such as the plugin version and repository for all modules. It also lets you edit the Gradle wrapper version being used (which edits gradle-wrapper.properties rather than the top level build.gradle file.)
EDITING:
ProGuard editor support: syntax highlighting, code completion for ProGuard flags, toggle comment action.
Go to declaration for a resource now sorts the results based on the parent folder qualifiers, which makes navigation to strings in apps with many translations much more predictable.
Many editor refactoring fixes. Renaming a styleable will now update all styleable+attr field references too (and find usages will include these). Similarly renaming a custom view will now update all the R field references.
Layout editor id property renaming. You can now view and edit the id property without the @+id/ prefix, and more importantly changing the id will now either just change the id of this component without updating any references, or perform a full id refactoring. (Prior to this, changing the id would change layout references in the layout, but not in the Activity class, breaking the app.) When you change an id, and there are references to this id, the layout editor will ask you whether you also want to update usages.
LINT:
New Gradle lint check which warns about octal literals. Some users have tried to specify a version code like "031252", but Groovy will use the leading 0 to interpret this as an octal number which is probably not at all what was intended.
New Gradle lint check (off by default) which checks all the dependencies in your Gradle files and searches MavenCentral to see if there are any more recent versions available.

New in Android Studio 0.5.8 Dev (May 9, 2014)

Fixed a number of crash reports from recent canary builds
Integrated two more IntelliJ EAP builds: 135.760 (release notes) and the earlier 135.689
Gradle:
Support for Gradle 1.12, and the new Android Gradle plugin 0.10.
If you configure a "resource prefix" for your Android library (see the build system docs), in order to avoid accidental name clashes, Studio will flag all resources that do not conform to the given prefix, and it will also default newly suggested identifiers in the layout editor, create resource dialogs etc to identifiers which begin with the prefix.
Layout Editor:
Support for "show in included", which lets you view and edit layouts that are included in other layouts "in context".
The layout editor and XML layout preview rendering now supports "hover": as you move your mouse around, the view under the mouse is highlighted slightly and shown with a faint dashed border. This makes it easier to understand the structure of your layout without having to click to select each view.
The frequently reported bug where using cut, copy and paste shortcut keys in the property sheet would operate on the whole widgets rather than the property sheet text has been fixed.
Lint: Several new checks:
A layout include tag check which ensures that if you specify layout parameters on an include tag you also specify layout_width and layout_height, since otherwise the other layout parameters will be ignored
A locale folder check which ensures that you are using the correct ISO code for a couple of locales where there is a more modern ISO code but where the code is not yet the right one to use
A check to ensure that you are not calling WebView#addJavascriptInterface on platforms lower than API 17
A check which discourages use of signatureOrSystem level permissions
Several checks that have only been available from the lint command line (because they rely on analyzing bytecode, which is not available inside Studio where there is no compile-on-save) have been ported to run incrementally in the editor in Studio. This includes the Parcel creator check, the view constructor check, the wrong draw/layout call check, and the valid fragment check.
Import: When editing build.gradle files under the project root which have not been imported into the project, there is an editor banner warning you that it's missing and offering to import it
Run Configurations: Improved "reuse this device" handling: Show device chooser again if the set of available devices has changed
Many, many bug fixes
A couple of app compat library checks:
Ensures that when using the appcompat library, you call the right methods - e.g. getSupportActionBar() instead of getActionBar(). NOTE: This lint check may incorrectly report issues in projects which are not using AppCompat at all. This bug has been fixed and will appear in 0.5.9.
Ensures that your menu resource files are using the correct form of showAsAction. A frequent problem for developers manually adding or removing app compat dependencies was forgetting to change between android:showAsAction and app:showAsAction. Worse yet, using the app: namespace one without appcompat could result in an aapt crash. Lint now validates these files.

New in Android Studio 0.5.7 Dev (Apr 26, 2014)

New in Android Studio 0.5.6 Dev (Apr 25, 2014)

New in Android Studio 0.5.5 Dev (Apr 17, 2014)

Update to a new IntelliJ 13.x EAP build: 135.667.
Editing:
New resource type inspection. This finds errors where you are passing the wrong type of resource to a method which accepts a resource id
The resource type metadata is also used to drive code completion
Support for the new annotations which shipped with the most recent version of the support library, such as @NonNull and @Nullable, as well as annotations to declare resource types and valid constants. Add a dependency on com.android.support:support-annotations:+ to use these in your projects. In the upcoming 0.10.x version of the Android Gradle plugin, the plugin will extract these annotations into your libraries' AAR files such that clients of your library can get the same resource type checks as is shown above for the SDK APIs.
Removed many incorrect @Nullable annotations from the SDK builtin annotation database, so there should be fewer incorrect null warnings in your code.
The Gradle build file editor is now smarter about the Android Gradle plugin's DSL. It should no longer create incorrect errors and warnings, and go to declaration should be able to jump to the right methods. (This work is ongoing and in upcoming releases code completion and documentation will be improved.)
Layout Rendering:
The layout configuration menus now show you whether picking a specific device will result in jumping to a different layout. For example, if you are looking at a layout with a phone, and there is an xlarge version of the same layout, then switching to a Nexus 10 will force the editor to switch to the xlarge version of the layout. We now display this information in the menu such that you can instantly see when this happens, to help make it clear when a layout is not a match
Smarter device selection. Rather than always remembering the most recently used device per layout, and always defaulting to Nexus 4, it now keeps a list of the most recently chosen devices, and always switches to the first matching device among the most recently chosen devices. This means that if you for example switch to a 7" tablet layout, it will show all subsequent layouts you open with the same device, except when that device is not a match for the layout -- for example if you open an xlarge layout, in which case it will open the most recently chosen compatible device, such as a 10" tablet layout.
The property sheet custom editor for colors now includes support for the ARGB format
Project:
Importing modules should now work properly. You can import existing Eclipse ADT projects as well as Gradle modules into an existing Gradle project; it will copy in the sources as is done for full project import, as well as handle dependencies transitively. Import modules either from the project structure dialog or the File | Import Module action.
New project structure dialog implementation: Should be faster, includes Gradle sync notification, should only perform a Gradle sync at the end when necessary, and won't list invalid IntelliJ module warnings as before. This is actively being worked on and the individual editors (for flavors, build types, signing configurations etc) will be improved in upcoming builds.
Templates:
New templates to create manifest, AIDL, resource XML files etc in specific source sets.
Attach to Process:
The process chooser, shown when attaching to a running process, now includes device names and is "speed search" enabled (which is true for most views in IntelliJ such as the project view, where you can start typing and the list is automatically filtered)
Many bug fixes

New in Android Studio 0.5.4 Dev (Apr 4, 2014)

New in Android Studio 0.5.3 Dev (Mar 28, 2014)

New in Android Studio 0.5.2 Dev (Mar 21, 2014)

New in Android Studio 0.5.1 Dev (Mar 8, 2014)

New in Android Studio 0.5.0 Dev (Mar 7, 2014)

Support for the Android Gradle plugin 0.9. (Note that it also requires 0.9 or higher, and there are a couple of incompatible changes: See this page for how to update your project if you are affected: tools.android.com/tech-docs/new-build-system/migrating_to_09).
Editor support for Android transition resource files: validation, code completion, documentation
A large number of bug fixes.
New bundled version of IntelliJ 13.1 EAP build:
This means we're switching from the stable 13.0.x releases to 13.1 to pick up some platform support we need, but we also pick up some great new features:
Postfix code completion: http://blog.jetbrains.com/idea/2014/03/postfix-completion/
Code templates in code completion, and block reformatting: http://blog.jetbrains.com/idea/2014/02/intellij-idea-13-1-eap-134-1342-is-out/
Full release notes for the two new 13.1 EAP builds we're picking up: 134.1160 and 134.1342.
Gradle Support
Offline mode for sync and build
Support for source folders outside the module content root
Support for build variants in library projects
Lint:
Architectural improvements allow many cross-file checks to be run incrementally in the IDE such that they show up in the editor while editing, rather than requiring a full Analysis run to be performed. For example, while you are editing an Activity class, it will incrementally ensure that your findViewById calls perform a valid cast based on how those id's are used in the layout resource files:
Similarly, it will check your String.format calls to ensure that the types of the parameters match the formatting conversion specifiers found in the value resource files. Other newly incremental checks include the array size check, the unknown id check, the missing orientation check, the locale check and the text field input type check.
The lint.xml configuration file can now filter out errors in files not just by exact relative paths but also by regular expressions.
flag Gradle packageSuffix usage where the suffix does not start with a dot

New in Android Studio 0.4.6 (Feb 20, 2014)

New in Android Studio 0.4.5 (Feb 15, 2014)

New in Android Studio 0.4.4 (Feb 6, 2014)

BUG FIXES:
Merged to the latest IntelliJ 13 EAP build 133.696
Retina support on OSX. If you're displaying Android Studio on a retina-density screen on OSX, using JDK 6 or recent versions of JDK 7, we will render your layouts in full Retina resolution. This is not just for layouts, but for the editor margin previews of drawable resources too. It's hard to convey this on a web page without Retina density, but here's a zoomed in view of the editor preview before (with Retina density text, and non-Retina icon painting as handled in Studio versions prior to 0.4.4). This makes an even bigger difference in the layout editor and with the XML layout preview feature, since the images in question are much larger. You can typically see your phone layouts in full resolution (no scaling involved.)
LINT:
New lint check warning about using a with size wrap_contents
Lint checks suggesting to use SparseLongArray and LongSparseArray
Lint running inside Android Studio now consults a project's lint.xml (to for example change the severity of an issue from warning to error or vice versa)
The layout editor now supports rendering device frames (which was only available in layout preview until this point). It also has a render settings menu (to turn off device frames) and a Refresh action.
Lint now checks Gradle files. It will warn about:
Obsolete dependencies (e.g. not using the latest play services, not using the latest build tools, etc)
Using absolute paths
Using Windows path separators
Using incompatible combinations of tools libraries (such as using a support library older than the target SDK version)
Using + syntax in dependencies (not enabled by default)
Accidentally calling DSL methods (such as attempting to set versionName by calling a local method named getName)
Using constructs not properly handled by the IDE support (such as reassigning a project's directory)
TEMPLATES:
Newly created projects are initialized with the right build.gradle setup such that you can simply put .jar and .aar files into the libs/ directory and they will automatically be used (similar to how the libs/ folder worked in Eclipse ADT.)
The New Notification template is back (found under New > Android Component)
GRADLE INTEGRATION:
The Gradle daemon is shutdown on IDE exit, which should fix the Android Studio update mechanism on Windows (starting after the next update.)

New in Android Studio 0.4.3 (Jan 24, 2014)

Support for the new version of the Android Gradle plugin 0.8. It does not require updating; you can continue to use version 0.7 of the gradle plugin with this version of Studio.
Updated to the latest IntelliJ 13 EAP build, #133.609 (release notes).
Gradle IDE support:
Updating from one version of the Gradle plugin to the next is easier; rather than just opening a search window showing .gradle files referencing the plugin, the upgrade quickfix now performs the edits to the plugin dependency and the gradle wrapper properties file directly and in one shot
We now automatically sync with Gradle's model after a build if we detect that the model is stale
Fixed a bug around library syncing (where library dependency classes and resources could suddenly not be found by the IDE)
Lint:
New lint check which looks for cycles in style definitions, cycles in layout definitions, cycles in resource aliases and cycles in color and drawable definitions.
New lint check for duplicate item definitions inside styles
New lint check for padding symmetry in right-to-left contexts
New lint check for a resource definition pattern which can cause some versions of aapt to crash
Layout editing:
The layout editor property sheet now handles setting properties in custom namespaces
Improved threading behavior of layout rendering code (which should make editing in the XML editor with the layout render preview window more responsive)
In addition to creating new locales from the Locale menu you can now open up and edit existing translations
Fixed bug where the layout editor could show stale resource strings
Eclipse Import:
You can now import Eclipse-style projects even if they don't have .classpath and .project files as long as they use the same directory structure
More graceful handling of imports if there is a problem such as a missing dependency
Many other bug fixes.
Version 0.8 of the Android Gradle plugin provides the following improvements:
Supports Gradle 1.10, requires Build-Tools 19.0.0+
Fixed issue 64302: Add renderscript support mode jar to the dependencies in the IDE model.
Fixed issue 64094: buildConfigField can now replace previous values inside the same type/flavors.
Add support for NDK prebuilts in library projects.
Parallelize pre-dexing to speed up clean builds.
Incremental dexing re-enabled (though it'll be automatically disabled in some builds for some cases that dx doesn't support yet.)
Added 'provided' dependency scope for compile only (not packaged) dependencies. Additional scope per buildtype and flavors are also available (debugProvided, myFlavorProvided,etc...)
Variant API improvements:
getPreBuild() returns the prebuild task for the variant
getSourceSets() returns the sorted sourcesets for the task, from lower to higher priority
createZipAlignTask(String taskName, File inputFile, File outputFile).
This creates and return a new zipalign task. Useful if you have a custom plugin providing custom signing of APKs. This also makes the assemble task depend on the new zipalign task, and wires variant.getOutputFile() to return the result of the zipalign task.
project.android.registerJavaArtifact() now receives a Configuration object to pass the dependencies to the IDE. See artifactApi sample.
New "lintVital" task, run automatically as part of assembling release variants, which checks only fatal-severity issues
Replace Java parser in lint with ECJ; must faster and fixes bug where lint could hang on certain source constructs
Lint HTML report now writes links to source files and images as URLs relative to the report location

New in Android Studio 0.4.2 (Jan 9, 2014)

New in Android Studio 0.4.1 (Jan 9, 2014)

Updated to the latest Intellij 13.0.2 release build, 133.471.
Gradle IDE integration:
New option for setting command line flags passed to Gradle, which for example allows you to pass any Gradle command line flag to the build, such as --stacktrace:
The project structure dialog now handles build.gradle file editing better, such as preserving comments and code blocks inside lists that it is editing
For newly created projects, the plugin and repositories are defined in a single place, in the top level build.gradle, rather than in each module’s build.gradle file.
Gradle 1.10 has been released, but Android Gradle plugin 0.7.3 (which Studio 0.4.1 is using) does not work properly with Gradle 1.10, and the error message was very confusing (because the plugin crashes before it gets to the version check). In 0.4.1 we detect the mismatched version earlier and give a sensible message. We are working on an updated Android Gradle plugin which (among other feature work) will work with Gradle 1.10.
Streamlined import. If a project contains a gradle wrapper, or if Studio knows where Gradle is installed, the project is imported directly without asking for more information.
Many fixes around Gradle sync error handling and notification. We now give better feedback during a sync (with editor notifications), and especially after a sync if the sync failed, since in that case a lot of functionality will not work right. There are more diagnostics and suggestions which should help pinpoint and address the problems.
Eclipse project import:
Supports importing instrumentation tests. When importing an ADT project, it looks at the sibling directories and the child directories of the imported project, and if it finds an instrumentation ADT project, the sources are merged into the Gradle instrumentation test source set of the project.
Supports importing NDK projects. If the imported project contains NDK sources, these are imported into the jni/ source set of the project, the module name is inferred from the Makefile and stored in the Gradle file, and the ndk.dir property is defined in local.properties.
Additional import diagnostics, warning about SDK installs missing needed Maven repositories, using obsolete build tools, etc.
The import now handles more complex dependencies, using Eclipse linked resources, path variables, and so on. If you point to an Eclipse workspace (or if the project is inside a workspace, the import will find it automatically), it can use the workspace metadata to resolve path expressions; otherwise, you can provide manual mappings for these as part of the import wizard.
DDMS:
New Heap Dump action, which lets you select a process, generate a heap dump and save it as an HPROF file for use with a memory profiler.
Lint:
New manifest warning which flags attributes in a manifest file which are ignored and can therefore be misleading.
Fixed some false positives in checks when used in Gradle projects
Layout Rendering:
If you have the latest API 19 SDK installed, Nexus 5 is available from the device list
Bug fixes:
A lot of bug fixes, including but not limited to issues 63534, 63624, 12222499, 63623, 63881, 63622, 58302, 63596, 63926, 64358, 63928, 64014, 63997.

New in Android Studio 0.4.0 (Dec 19, 2013)

Support for the new Android Gradle plugin, 0.7.0, which has improvements for render script, lint, BuildConfig, ProGuard, and additional features around source folders and flavors, along with many bug fixes. For more information, see the Build System documentation.
Note that Studio 0.4.0 requires the the new version of the Gradle plugin, so you have to migrate your projects to 0.7.0.
Studio now supports Gradle Offline mode. This is useful if you find yourself without a network connection, and your dependencies are using the plus-syntax to pick up the latest available version. In that case, Gradle will once per day (by default) connect to the artifact repository to see if there is a more recent version. If that network connection fails, the build fails. If you don't have a network connection, this is problematic. You can now open the Compiler > Gradle options and enable Offline mode, which will tell Gradle to ignore update-to-date checks:
The Asset Studio wizard is now available (until this point it was only available as part of the New Project wizard for generating launcher icons). Right click on a drawable folder and invoke "New > Image Asset":
You can also create nine-patch images now by right clicking on .png images and invoking "Create Nine Patch...".
A large number of bug fixes, particularly around SDK handling and project import/upgrade, but also to the rendering sandbox, custom view rendering, template handling, etc.
Initial Eclipse (ADT) project import. You can now directly import Eclipse projects (rather than having to export them to Gradle from Eclipse as in the past). This importer also makes structural changes to the import:
It migrates the project structure from the old ADT directory structure to the new Gradle-build system one
It removes inlined library projects that it recognizes (ActionBarSherlock, v7 GridLayout) and replaces the source code with a simple Gradle dependency to the corresponding library
Similarly it removes .jar files that it recognizes and replaces them with Gradle dependencies
It generates an import summary where it lists potential import issues (for example, if you were using library projects without manifest merging, there is potential manifest registration duplication now)
(The import does not yet fully support path variables and linked resources; this will be fixed in 0.4.1)

New in Android Studio 0.3.7 (Dec 4, 2013)

Gradle:
The experimental "Direct Gradle Invocation" mode is now the default. This should result in builds being about 20% faster, and the raw Gradle error output can now be found in the Gradle Console window. (You can turn off this mode in Settings > Compiler > Gradle). (The bug related to this with unsaved edits in Studio 0.3.6 has also been fixed.)
Improved error diagnostics. In addition to fixing error parsing for manifest merging errors, dex exceptions and multi-line javac errors, there are now import hyperlinks for resolving common import problems, such as missing platforms, missing support library repositories, or errors in local properties.
Improved SDK management. When opening a project which points to a specific SDK (via its local.properties file), Studio will check whether that SDK corresponds to the IDE SDK, and if not, will ask the user whether to use the Studio one or the project one. This ensures that IDE and command line builds are consistent.
"Add Library As..." on .jar files now works for Gradle projects; it adds in a proper dependency in the build.gradle file
New projects now create an empty gradle.properties file (with some commented out suggestions) to make it easier to tweak VM parameters for Gradle
Repositories for dependencies can now be edited in the Project Structure Dialog
Layout Editing:
Layout rendering sandbox: Custom views in layouts are now rendered in a sandbox such that they do not accidentally overwrite files or mistakingly execute commands if they believe they are running in a real Android environment. Note that if you download third party custom view libraries and insert references to these in your own layouts, and then view the layouts in the layout editor, the layout renderer will execute the custom view code in the IDE process with your desktop privileges. We do not promise a completely secure environment for libraries on the desktop; when adding third party libraries you should trust the source or validate that the Gradle files (which are executed at build time) and its custom views (which are executed in the layout editor) are safe. However, the layout rendering sandbox takes some initial steps to locking down access for custom views from doing thing accidentally. Thanks to Lawrence Angrave for discovering and reporting this potential danger.
RTL Support Improvements: When editing RelativeLayouts in the layout editor, the editor now creates RTL-aware layouts (using start/end in addition to (or instead of, depending on the minSdkVersion) left/right.
RTL Multi-configuration Editing: You can now edit your layouts and simultaneously see your layout rendered in an RTL context.
Templates:
New templates for adding custom views, services, broadcast receivers, fragments, daydreams, etc. To invoke, right click on the target package and invoke New > Android Component.
Lint:
New check looking for potential PRNG (pseudo random number generator) problems. Looks for code which may be affected by issues described in http://android-developers.blogspot.com/2013/08/some-securerandom-thoughts.html.
New lint check which looks for calls to Context#checkCallingPermission without using the result of that call (which probably meant to call Context#enforceCallingPermission instead).
New lint check which looks in Gradle projects for permission for use of the mock location provider permission and makes sure these are only specified in debug manifests. This helps avoid accidentally requesting that permission in release builds. There's also a quickfix in Studio for migrating the permission to a debug-specific manifest, though a bug prevents it from working if the debug folder already exists (fixed for next release).
Bug fixes:
Fix weight handling when resizing elements in a LinearLayout
Properly compute bounds of tags in layouts
Fix GridLayout editing with API 19
Adding activities via templates no longer clobber dependencies in the build.gradle file
API check now properly checks nested calls
Detect and abort layout rendering on cyclic parent styles
Don't flag hex color definition characters as potential typos
Fix bug where on startup, layout XML files would be missing the layout editor tab
Make Add Translation and Render Locales use only local locales, not all locales referenced by libraries

New in Android Studio 0.3.6 (Nov 15, 2013)

New in Android Studio 0.3.5 (Nov 12, 2013)

New in Android Studio 0.3.4 (Nov 9, 2013)

Updated platform to IntelliJ 13 beta.
The SDK manager is now available from Welcome Wizard so you can configure SDKs before creating a project
Many other bug fixes
Many bug fixes
Gradle:
New Module editor. In 0.3.2 we introduced the module dependency editor where you could add libraries graphically; this is now just one tab among many other categories of module data you can edit: flavors, signing configurations, build types, etc. This area is still being actively worked on.
Gradle will now build the selected modules rather than all modules when Make is invoked with a selection.
Gradle Console. If you enable the new experimental in-process Gradle build mode (Compiler > Gradle > Use in-process build (faster, experimental)), you can open a Gradle Console which will show the full, raw Gradle output rather than just the simplified errors listed in the Messages window. The window does not open automatically, but the Messages window has a "Show Console Output" button in the left-hand-side toolbar, and it also adds a "See complete output in console" message you can double click on to trigger.
"Clean project" now runs a clean target to clear all build output.
A file-locking bug affecting Windows users (issue 61300) has been fixed. This bug would prevent cleaning and rebuilding a project as soon as a layout file had been opened.
Layout Editor:
Support for using sourceCompatibility 1.7 even the IDE is running on JDK 1.6 (as it is by default on Mac OSX for example, even when JDK 1.7 is installed). We now convert the bytecode of compiled classes on the fly such that they can be executed by the layout renderer.
Support non-rectangular shapes in Drawable render preview
Drop preview now shows more accurate widget bounds
XML editor:
When editing layouts, the layout_width and layout_height attributes are inserted automatically
The quote-matching bug (issue 11332) has been fixed
Namespace prefixes are now highlighted separate from attribute names
DDMS:
Dumpsys support. You can now click on the Dumpsys action in the toolbar, which will execute "adb dumpsys" on the connected device and display information in the editor about the selected process.
Nexus 5 device images for the screenshot feature (which optionally surrounds the screenshot with device art).
Nexus 5 metadata for creating virtual devices in the emulator
Templates:
Linked field editing. Editing parameter names such as activity names and layout names now dynamically update other suggestions. For example, if you change the activity name to "HomeActivity", the layout and fragment resource name suggestions change to "activity_home" and "fragment_home". It will also automatically pick unique names when appropriate such that you can create new activities without conflicting with existing ones.

New in Android Studio 0.3.2 (Nov 1, 2013)

New in Android Studio 0.3.1 (Oct 24, 2013)

New in Android Studio 0.3.0 (Oct 22, 2013)

Updated the IDE base to the IntelliJ EAP build #132.637 sources.
Gradle Builds:
Much faster gradle project import: Importing one of our apps went down from two and a half minutes to fourteen seconds. This speedup also applies to syncing your existing project with Gradle, reopening existing projects, etc. Furthermore, we now only run the build target to generate sources, not a full compilation.
The improved performance is made possible by changes in Gradle 1.8 and Android Gradle plugin version 0.6.+, which are now the minimum supported versions. If you open an already imported project that uses the Gradle wrapper pointing to an old version of Gradle you will be able to automatically fix the wrapper properties and re-import the project.
The Gradle 0.6.3 plugin is now also available (or soon available; it is staging on maven central, so should be available in the next few hours), which improves resource merging handling (better error handling, more accurate error locations, source element references no longer merged into the R class documentation, etc).
NOTE: Earlier today we published plugin 0.6.2 with incorrect dependencies. Make sure you're using 0.6.3 (or 0.6.1). To be sure, you can explicitly specify "0.6.3" instead of "0.6.+" in your build.gradle files, or run gradlew on the command line with --refresh-dependencies to ensure that Gradle looks up the most recent available version.
Gradle Dependency Editing:
You can now edit your Gradle module dependencies (and add and remove modules) from the Project Structure dialog; you no longer need to edit your build.gradle file by hand.
Template Support:
Revised new blank activity template with support for action bars on older versions of Android (via the appcompat library), and new navigation styles such as using the navigation drawer.
Layout Rendering:
Support for xliff strings. It will now insert id (or if available example) attributes into the layout editor preview strings.
As usual, many bug fixes:
From b.android.com: 60801, 60823, 59444, 60848, 57904, 60266, 60893, 60879, 60820, 61050, 61113, 60894
Other bugs and crashes not tracked in the issue tracker

New in Android Studio 0.2.13 (Oct 9, 2013)

New in Android Studio 0.2.11 (Oct 4, 2013)

Updated the IDE base to the IntelliJ EAP build #132.425 sources.
Of particular interest to Android Studio users is the new support for Gradle code insight and dependency resolving
New projects: Improved package validation. Android application package names have stricter package name requirements than Java packages: Package segments cannot start with an underscore, and only ASCII letters (and digits, dots and underscores) can be used.
Misc bug fixes in the gradle build area.
Canary and Dev channels:
We now have additional channels. We will continue to post ~weekly releases, and those will initially go to the Canary channel. If no critical issues are uncovered we will then post the build to the Dev channel.
You can find more details on the Android Studio channels on the Preview Channel page.
To change which channel you are updating Studio from, go to your Settings or Preferences dialog, select the Updates category on the left and then make your selection on the right.
Layout rendering:
Support for designtime attributes, which allow you to show sample data in your layouts without affecting the runtime app. For more details, see Designtime Layout Attributes.
Included layouts now render the edited (unsaved) contents of other editor buffers
The layout preview is smarter about when to trigger a re-render; for example, it will ignore edits that affect only whitespace or comments, edits to an attribute that does not yet have a value, etc.
There's now a large progress indicator in the center of the view for the first render, and a smaller indicator in the upper right corner when re-rendering after editor switches.
Fixed issue where the render preview window sometimes didn't open automatically on IDE restart, and fixed issue where switching between files would sometimes briefly show the old layout contents.
Improved error message when you accidentally use a drawable resource in place of a color resource
Text editing:
Resource inlining: Dimension and integer resources are now also inlined, as well as string resources outside method calls. Perhaps more importantly, the long standing issue of resource folds showing stale contents or appearing on the wrong code statement has been fixed (see bug 60529).
The editor spell checker is now aware of the target language used in a Android string resource file, and will no longer use the English dictionary to flag "errors" in for example Spanish text in values-es/strings.xml. If your base values/ folder is not in English, use the tools:locale attribute on the root element to let the tools know what your default language is.
Theme resolution chain display (added in 0.2.10, see Android Studio 0.2.10 Released) now also handles theme attributes (such as ?foo)
Fixed XML validation for dimensions to allow floating point numbers
Android Device View, LogCat:
Console code folding for elided stack frames. When an exception is nested, the VM will truncate the stack display of the inner exception. It does this when it gets to a point where the rest of the stacktrace is the same as in the outer stacktrace, but many users were not aware of that and thought they were missing vital information. In LogCat inside Android Studio, we now create a fold region on the "4 more ...lines" section, and when you expand it we reconstruct the full stack trace.
You can now view the logcat output of a particular process by just clicking on the process in the device panel. If you don't want this behavior, you can deselect the toggle button "Only show logcat from selected process" on the logcat toolbar.
Lint:
New check for duplicate words in strings
Fixed some bugs (which had resulted in false positives in source code involving enums or string arrays)

New in Android Studio 0.2.10 (Sep 25, 2013)

Updated the IDE base to the IntelliJ EAP build #132.325 sources. The release notes for this version of the IDE which lists the bugs fixed are here: This fixes the dark theme todo-token color many users reported
New integrated performance trace file viewer: If you already have .trace files that you have generated programmatically or with DDMS, just open it in Android Studio with File > Open. Otherwise, open the DDMS view (View > Tool Windows > Android), select your application, and click on the “Start Method Tracing” icon.
Fixed miscellaneous bugs, including a deadlock
Improved Quick Documentation (View > Quick Documentation, or F1):
Now resolves framework resources as well, such as @android/string/ok => "Ok"
The quick documentation now shows the resource resolution chain. Here we're showing quick documentation for @android:color/primary_text_dark; in addition to resolving this to the color #ffffff, which is shown, it also shows the color reference chain was @android:color/primary_text_dark, which pointed to a statelist file primary_text_dark.xml, and from there we picked up the default state to go to @android:color/bright_foreground_dark, which resolves to @android:color/background_light, and that color is finally defined as #ffffffff. (There are some additional fixes for this feature to handle theme attributes (?name) in the preview build.)
As shown above, we now preview colors (previously we only showed drawable bitmaps, and textual resources such as strings and dimensions).
For array resources, we now display the elements of the arrays
In Java files, resource documentation and editor margin previewing now properly handles android.R resources.
The feature which displays icons in the left hand gutter for drawable references is now finds the smallest density bitmaps of a resource to use for editor margin previews. Since large images are ignored for performance reasons, this makes more icons eligible for editor preview.
Layout Rendering:
Layout rendering now detects cycles in layout dependencies and displays the invalid chain
Added new Nexus 7 device specs to the preview render device list along with device frame art (which also works for the Screenshot action)
If you have the Android source code installed for the Android version currently being rendered, and a custom view throws an exception during painting, the stack frame displayed in the error output will hyperlink directly to the relevant code in the Android source code for frames in the android package.
Editing:
Indirect AAR library dependencies are now handled correctly
Gradle Integration:
Much faster project import! When using Gradle 1.8 and the Android Gradle plug-in 0.5.7 you'll experience considerably faster project imports.
Android Studio now saves Gradle's VM options across sessions
Further improvements to the Gradle output parser: it now recognizes duplicate resource errors specifically, and adds separate error messages pointing directly to each of the declaration locations in the separate files
Fixed bug where it was not possible to import a project using the Gradle wrapper with Gradle 1.6

New in Android Studio 0.2.9 (Sep 17, 2013)

New in Android Studio 0.2.8 (Sep 12, 2013)

IDE:
Updated the IDE base to the IntelliJ EAP build #132.106 sources. The release notes for this version of the IDE are here: http://confluence.jetbrains.com/display/IDEADEV/IntelliJ+IDEA+13+132.106+Release+Notes.
Lint:
Lint is now properly supported in the IDE. In particular, it now understands library dependencies, such that you for example will no longer get warnings from third party libraries, e.g. unused resources in the appcompat library:
Several lint checks were tweaked: it no longer complains about missing CREATOR fields in interfaces, the API check handles nested conditionals for SDK_INT checks, and the Handler leak check no longer flags handlers using specific loopers
Gradle Integration:
The project structure dialog now shows custom content for Gradle projects. In particular, there is a new panel where you can choose a single installation home for your Android SDK; you no longer need to go and create individual SDK instances for each build target:
We plan to add additional panels here where you can edit your Gradle project structure graphically, but for now you still need to edit your Gradle files manually.
We've also hidden panels that do not apply since information edited there is thrown away during model syncing with the Gradle files.
Removed actions from the Build menu that do not apply in Gradle projects (such as Generate Ant Build.)
Importing Gradle projects now intercepts attempts to import the directory rather than the build.gradle file, which in earlier versions would use the wrong type of import. Similarly, we detect attempts to directly import projects from ADT and suggests exporting as a Gradle project from Eclipse first
Support for features in the next version of the Android plugin (not yet released), such as importing projects with unresolved dependencies, supporting a compile-only action, etc
Fix misc bugs, such as layout render error mesage handling for DatePicker, a bug which caused adding missing sizes to replace @dimen sizes, and the XML source editor bug where it would incorrectly warn about "Fix "Namespace '' not bound".

New in Android Studio 0.2.7 (Sep 6, 2013)

IDE:
Updated the IDE base to the IntelliJ EAP build #132.27 sources (previously, we've used nightly snapshots)
Editing:
.aar (Android Archive files, which are used when you for example use a Gradle dependency on the support library) are now properly handled by the editors. In earlier versions, the layout editor could render resources from .aar dependencies, but now code completion, XML resource validation etc. also properly handle these dependencies.
The IDE will no longer auto-import the "android.R" class, since that can easily lead to confusion between the imported R class and the application R class. Similarly, if you use the Preferences > Code Style > Java > Imports > Insert Imports for Inner Classes mode, it will now deliberately exclude R classes.
The API detector now properly checks methods inherited through the support library classes
An important bug related to file refreshing after builds was fixed; this should fix cases of the R class not being resolved and shown in red in the editor.
XML validation now properly handles empty parent style references (used in the appcompat library), and the layout rendering now handles HTML entities in style definitions
XML code completion now works on @+id/ and theme (?attr) prefixes.
Gradle Integration:
The Gradle tool window now displays all available tasks for a Gradle-based Android project. We are currently displaying all available tasks, including auto-generated ones which may not be intended for users; we will be cleaning up this lists in future updates.)
The gradle output parser has been revamped; it should now properly include source locations for errors in resource merging, and unrecognized output is added as information items, so you should no longer need to go to a terminal and run gradlew to get full diagnostic information; it should all be available within the IDE.
HTTP proxy settings in the IDE are now passed to Gradle, and gradle connection failures during import/sync point to the proxy configuration panel
Important fixes to library dependencies in Gradle project sync
The New Project template now offers the Android support library, the Android compatibility library and the Grid Layout backport library as optional dependencies; when the corresponding checkboxes are selected the right dependencies are added to the Gradle files
Fix misc user reported crashes

New in Android Studio 0.2.6 (Sep 2, 2013)

New in Android Studio 0.2.5 (Aug 17, 2013)

New in Android Studio 0.2.4 (Aug 15, 2013)

Merged with the latest IntelliJ 13 development snapshot. This included a lot of Android editor work, including:
Support for XML attribute documentation. Until now, only XML tags had documentation, but as of this release you can invoke F1 (View | Quick Documentation) on an XML attribute to view its SDK documentation. If you've enabled auto-popup of documentation (Options > Editor > Code Completion > Autopopup code completion) this will also show the documentation while completing.
Ability to jump between a layout and its associated activity. Navigate | Related File... will now let you jump between a layout and its associated activity. You can also click on the editor margin icons which are shown for this purpose.
Intention to create missing onClick handlers (as well as navigation for existing click handlers).
Many, many other editor fixes, such as the ability to navigate to parent styles in theme definitions, XML flag completion improvements, XML dimension unit completion, app namespace attribute handling in code completion, navigation to permissions, actions and categories in manifest files, and ability to work with SDK sources. For details, see IntelliJ YouTrack issues 57990, 91585, 102168, 102168, 102176, 102173, 92709, 102169, 102177 and 111650. And that's just the Android specific fixes; the platform itself had hundreds of CLs. Note however that we grabbed a daily snapshot, not a stable milestone.
Gradle integration improvements:
Project synchronization with Gradle, during startup, is now non-blocking.
Importing or creating a Gradle-based Android project does not use RMI anymore, resulting in less overhead. We are currently working with the Gradle and IntelliJ teams on making project import faster.
Renaming a module folder (not a module itself) updates the project’s settings.gradle file.
In addition to providing better error messages during project import, Android Studio also provides links to actions that can help users solve the relevant issue.
Updated the bundled Gradle version in Android Studio to 1.7.
Layout Editing:
The chosen rendering locale is now project wide (except for layouts located in locale-specific layout folders). Switching to different locale will now apply to all layouts in the same project. As part of this work the erratic locale behavior of locales (which could open up in random locales) should be fixed.
Rendering targets are now also project wide, and there is a new "Automatically Pick Best" mode, on by default, which causes the rendering target to pick the best available version.
Some bugs related to rendering custom views should be fixed.
Lint:
There is a new lint check which makes sure that methods which override View#onDetachedFromWindow also end up calling super.onDetachedFromWindow(). Failure to do this can lead to significant memory leaks.
There is a new lint check which looks for additional types of typos in namespace declarations.
Lint's API check now handles non-numeric minSdkVersion declarations in the manifest (e.g. when using code names for preview platforms.)

New in Android Studio 0.2.3 (Aug 2, 2013)

New in Android Studio 0.2.2 (Jul 30, 2013)

New in Android Studio 0.2.1 (Jul 19, 2013)

New in Android Studio 0.2.0 Build 130.737825 (Jul 12, 2013)

Merged in the latest IntelliJ codebase changes. In addition to new features this includes fixes for issues reported by Studio users such as tweaks to Linux font sizes and font rendering.
Save Screenshot support for the layout preview and layout editor windows
Lint bug fixes
And fixes for a number of crash reports; thanks for submitting these.
Gradle IDE integration fixes:
Android Gradle plug-in 0.5.0. This new version of the plug-in is not backwards compatible. When opening a project that uses an older version of the plug-in, Studio will show the following error as a balloon in the upper right corner of the IDE:
You will need to change the version of the Android Gradle plug-in to 0.5.0. Just click the link “Search in build.gradle files” to look for the places where this change needs to be made. (See the Troubleshooting section below for more info).
Gradle errors from aapt no longer point to merged output files in the build/ folder, they point back to the real source locations
Parallel Builds. It's now possible to use Gradle's parallel builds. Please be aware that parallel builds are in "incubation" (see Gradle's documentation.) This feature is off by default. To enable it, go to "Preferences" > "Compiler" and check the box "Compile independent modules in parallel."
Inter-module dependencies are now properly configured. Instead of depending on the compiled output, we link to the module itself, making it possible to debug code.
Updated to the new Gradle Plugin version 0.5:
Fixed IDE model to contain the output file even if it's customized through the DSL. Also fixed the DSL to get/set the output file on the variant object so that it's not necessary to use variant.packageApplication or variant.zipAlign
Fixed dependency resolution so that we resolved the combination of (default config, build types, flavor(s)) together instead of separately.
Fixed dependency for tests of library project to properly include all the dependencies of the library itself.
Fixed case where two dependencies have the same leaf name.
Fixed issue where Proguard rules file cannot be applied on flavors.
Release notes for the new Gradle plugin are here: http://tools.android.com/tech-docs/new-build-system
Further work on the new resource repository used for layout rendering, resource folding in the editor, etc:
Basic support for .aar library dependencies (e.g. using a library without a local copy of the sources). Still not working for resource XML validation and navigation in source editors.
Cycle detection in resource references
Quick Documentation (F1), which can show all translations of the string under the caret, will now also show all resource overlays from the various Gradle flavors and build types, as well as libraries. They are listed in reverse resource overlay order, with strikethrough on the versions of the string that are masked. In the below screenshot for example, we have flavors f1/f2 and fa/fb, and the string has both a default translation and a values-no version only in flavor fa, and this is all shown in the table which pops up when you press F1 with the caret on the string key name:
You can also invoke Quick Documentation when editing a strings.xml file by invoking it in the name value attribute, to see all the alternate translations. Note that this feature is not just specific to strings; you can invoke Quick Documentation to see the various resource overlays of dimensions, drawables, etc.
Fixes to handle updating the merged resources when the set of module dependencies change
XML rendering fixes to properly handle character entity declarations and XML and unicode escapes
Template bug fixes:
New projects now get a properly configured local.properties file on creation.
Various bug fixes to the new project/module/activity wizards

New in Android Studio 0.1.9 Build 130.729444 (Jul 2, 2013)

New in Android Studio 0.1.8 (Jul 2, 2013)