How to speed up Android Studio + Gradle?

Question

I’m going through the hardest time using Android Studio due to the delay in the project compilation process. What settings improve performance of Android Studio + Gradle?

Answer 1

There are some settings that can help to give an accelerated in the process of build of Gradle:

1. Always use the latest versions of Android Studio, Gradle Plugin and Gradle.

2. Perform the following settings:

   • Configure your build process using daemon Gradle (decreases startup time of process that makes the build). Since with the deamon the process will not need to be initialized always (only the first time).
   • Enable build in parallel (causes independent modules to be compiled in parallel). This setting is good if your computer has more than one core.
   • Adjust the memory used by Gradle.

   All this through the gradle.properties.

   You can both set up in your gradle.properties from the root of your project or globally at seu_home/.gradle/gradle.properties.

   # Project-wide Gradle settings.
   
   # IDE (e.g. Android Studio) users:
   # Settings specified in this file will override any Gradle settings
   # configured through the IDE.
   
   # For more details on how to configure your build environment visit
   # http://www.gradle.org/docs/current/userguide/build_environment.html
   
   # The Gradle daemon aims to improve the startup and execution time of Gradle.
   # When set to true the Gradle daemon is to run the build.
   # TODO: disable daemon on CI, since builds should be clean and reliable on servers
   org.gradle.daemon=true
   
   # Specifies the JVM arguments used for the daemon process.
   # The setting is particularly useful for tweaking memory settings.
   # Default value: -Xmx10248m -XX:MaxPermSize=256m
   org.gradle.jvmargs=-Xmx2048m -XX:MaxPermSize=512m -XX:+HeapDumpOnOutOfMemoryError -Dfile.encoding=UTF-8
   
   # When configured, Gradle will run in incubating parallel mode.
   # This option should only be used with decoupled projects. More details, visit
   # http://www.gradle.org/docs/current/userguide/multi_project_builds.html#sec:decoupled_projects
   org.gradle.parallel=true
   
   # Enables new incubating mode that makes Gradle selective when configuring     projects. 
   # Only relevant projects are configured which results in faster builds for large multi-projects.
   # http://www.gradle.org/docs/current/userguide/multi_project_builds.html#sec:configuration_on_demand
   org.gradle.configureondemand=true
   

   Or by settings by Settings of Android Studio:

3. Do not use the self-importance of Android Studio, there is a unsolved bug that leaves the IDE slower.

4. Use the mode offline of Android Studio, ignoring dependency update checks:

References

1. https://stackoverflow.com/a/19500539/3404639
2. https://stackoverflow.com/a/23648341/3404639