191

I want to build an Android Studio app (the Gradle build system), but I want to do this via the command line.

2
  • 9
    For example ./gradlew assembleRelease, ./gradlew assembleDebug Commented Jun 25, 2014 at 6:09
  • If you have multiple build variants, then you should go ./gradlew assembleYourVariantRelease Commented Jul 17, 2019 at 13:06

14 Answers 14

226

Android Studio automatically creates a Gradle wrapper in the root of your project, which is how it invokes Gradle. The wrapper is basically a script that calls through to the actual Gradle binary and allows you to keep Gradle up to date, which makes using version control easier. To run a Gradle command, you can simply use the gradlew script found in the root of your project (or gradlew.bat on Windows) followed by the name of the task you want to run. For instance, to build a debug version of your Android application, you can run ./gradlew assembleDebug from the root of your repository. In a default project setup, the resulting apk can then be found in app/build/outputs/apk/app-debug.apk. On a *nix machine, you can also just run find . -name '*.apk' to find it, if it's not there.

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8 Comments

It took me more than 2 hours to understand what's the proper way to run Gradle from the command line
I ran this from command line c:\path_to_my_app\gradlew.bat ./gradlew assemblyDebug, and it showed me Downloading services.gradle.org/distributions/gradle-2.10-all.zip. And it's stuck there. What do I miss?
You can also install the app with ./gradlew installArm7Debug. Other tasks are easy to find from ./gradlew tasks
I compiled the project and uploaded it to the Android device using ./gradlew assembleDebug and ./gradlew installDebug commands. In the AndroidStudio there is a console which monitors all Android device activities real-time (e.g. if the Android device crashes, the console prints the exception trace). How to get this monitoring facility on a terminal?
How to prevent the gradle from Downloading the -> Downloading services.gradle.org/distributions/gradle-2.xyz-all.zip . I noticed the gradle builds the android project fine but on the command line there is an issue of proxy setting. It can be resolved by putting the proxy settigns (but right now I dont have that priviledge) but I just want to bypass the downloading thing..How can I do that?
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34

there are two build types to build your application using the Gradle build settings: one for debugging your application — debug — and one for building your final package for release — release mode.

Building in Debug Mode

  • First Navigate to Android studio project Root folder using CMD enter image description here

  • run this command gradlew.bat assembleDebug

  • Output window look like this enter image description here

Build signed apk in Release Mode

  • Edit the build.gradle file to build your project in release mode:

     android { ... defaultConfig { ... } signingConfigs { release { storeFile file("myreleasekey.keystore") storePassword "password" keyAlias "MyReleaseKey" keyPassword "password" } } buildTypes { release { ... signingConfig signingConfigs.release } }} 

enter image description here

  • run this command gradlew.bat assembleRelease

5 Comments

Is there a way to auto launch app after build successfull ?
I can't find any way to auto launch app after build
@DhavalJivani launch it in an emulator you mean? If so that's just simple adb commands. You can even target a specific activity to launch. developer.android.com/studio/command-line/adb.html
@DhavalJivani what is best way to test android app in automation testing?. As for web we have selenium in python and node.
@HarshManvar Appium supports both Android and iOS platforms, making it a good choice if you need to automate tests for apps on multiple platforms. Appium supports multiple programming languages, including Java, Python, JavaScript, Ruby, and C#. This flexibility allows you to choose a language that your team is comfortable with.
32

Try this (OS X only):

brew install homebrew/versions/gradle110
gradle build

You can use gradle tasks to see all tasks available for the current project. No Android Studio is needed here.

2 Comments

Make sure you have homebrew installed to begin with!
"no Android Studio needed" - unless you need the Android SDK I guess. At any rate, the project I am trying to build does ask for it.
24

1. Install Gradle and the Android SDK

Either

  • Install these however you see fit
  • Run ./gradlew, or gradlew.bat if on Windows
    • chmod +x ./gradlew may be necessary

From this point onwards, gradle refers to running Gradle whichever way you've chosen. Substitute accordingly.

2. Setup the Android SDK

  • If you've manually installed the SDK

    • export ANDROID_HOME=<install location>
    • You may want to put that in your ~/.profile if it's not done automatically
  • Accept the licenses: yes | sdkmanager --licenses

    • sdkmanager can be found in $ANDROID_HOME/tools/bin
    • sdkmanager may have to be run as root
  • Try running gradle

    • If there are complaints about licenses or SDKs not being found, fix the directory permissions
      • chown -R user:group $ANDROID_HOME
      • If you're reckless and/or the only user: chmod 777 -R $ANDROID_HOME

3. Building

  • gradle tasks lists all tasks that can be run
  • :app:[appname] is the prefix of all tasks, which you'll see in the Gradle logs when you're building
    • This can be excluded when running a task

Some essential tasks

  • gradle assemble: build all variants of your app
    • Resulting .apks are in app/[appname]/build/outputs/apk/[debug/release]
  • gradle assembleDebug or assembleRelease: build just the debug or release versions
  • gradle installDebug or installRelease build and install to an attached device
    • Have adb installed
    • Attach a device with USB debugging and USB file transfer enabled
    • Run adb devices, check that your device is listed and device is beside it

Automatically build and install upon changes

This avoids having to continuously run the same commands

gradle -t --continue installDebug 
  • -t: aka --continuous, automatically re-runs the task after a file is changed
  • --continue: Continue after errors. Prevents stopping when errors occur

Run gradle -h for more help

Comments

9

You're likely here because you want to install it too!

Build

gradlew 

(On Windows gradlew.bat)

Then Install

adb install -r exampleApp.apk 

(The -r makes it replace the existing copy, add an -s if installing on an emulator)

Bonus

I set up an alias in my ~/.bash_profile, to make it a 2char command.

alias bi="gradlew && adb install -r exampleApp.apk" 

(Short for Build and Install)

Comments

7

Cheatsheet for running Gradle from the command line for Android Studio projects on Linux:

cd <project-root> ./gradlew ./gradlew tasks ./gradlew --help 

Should get you started..

Comments

7

I faced the same problem and seems that there have been many changes by google.

I can tell you the steps for installing purely via command line from scratch. I tested it on Ubuntu on 22 Feb 2021.

create sdk folder

export ANDROID_SDK_ROOT=/usr/lib/android-sdk sudo mkdir -p $ANDROID_SDK_ROOT 

install openjdk

sudo apt-get install openjdk-8-jdk 

download android sdk

Go to https://developer.android.com/studio/index.html Then down to Command line tools only Click on Linux link, accept the agreement and instead of downloading right click and copy link address

cd $ANDROID_SDK_ROOT sudo wget https://dl.google.com/android/repository/commandlinetools-linux-6858069_latest.zip sudo unzip commandlinetools-linux-6858069_latest.zip 

move folders

Rename the unpacked directory from cmdline-tools to tools, and place it under $ANDROID_SDK_ROOT/cmdline-tools, so now it should look like: $ANDROID_SDK_ROOT/cmdline-tools/tools. And inside it, you should have: NOTICE.txt bin lib source.properties.

set path

PATH=$PATH:$ANDROID_SDK_ROOT/cmdline-tools/latest/bin:$ANDROID_SDK_ROOT/cmdline-tools/tools/bin 

This had no effect for me, hence the next step

browse to sdkmanager

cd $ANDROID_SDK_ROOT/cmdline-tools/tools/bin 

accept licenses

yes | sudo sdkmanager --licenses 

create build

Finally, run this inside your project

chmod 777 gradlew sudo ./gradlew assembleDebug 

This creates an APK named -debug.apk at //build/outputs/apk/debug The file is already signed with the debug key and aligned with zipalign, so you can immediately install it on a device.

FINAL STEPS

Here are the final steps. Make 2 .sh files with these contents. Use chmod 777 before on both. No sudo required.

Download_APK_Code_NOSUDO4.sh

# Don't forget to do chmod 777 Download_APK_Code_NOSUDO2.sh #!/bin/bash if [ -d "camera-samples" ]; then echo "############################# Deleting older code base. ######################################" rm -rf camera-samples fi echo "########################### Download Source Code: Start ... #####################################" git clone git://git.quicinc.com/camera-samples -b iot-concam-apk.lnx.1.1 echo "########################## Download Source Code: Done . . . ####################################" 

Build_App_NOSUDO4.sh

# Don't forget to do chmod 777 Build_App_NOSUDO2.sh #!/bin/bash currentDir=$(pwd) export ANDROID_SDK_ROOT=$(pwd) # echo "############################################ Install JDK ... ################################################" # apt-get install openjdk-8-jdk if [ -e "commandlinetools-linux-6858069_latest.zip" ]; then echo "############################# Deleting older zip file. ######################################" rm -rf commandlinetools-linux-6858069_latest.zip fi echo "########################################### Download Command Line Tools .. ###################################" wget https://dl.google.com/android/repository/commandlinetools-linux-6858069_latest.zip echo "########################################### Download Command Line Tools Done .. ##############################" if [ -d "cmdline-tools" ]; then echo "############################# Deleting older cmdline-tools. ######################################" rm -rf cmdline-tools fi echo "########################################### Unzip Command Line Tools Start .. #################################" unzip commandlinetools-linux-6858069_latest.zip echo "########################################### Unzip Command Line Tools Done .. #################################" echo "########################################### Creating Directory Structure .. #################################" mv cmdline-tools tools mkdir cmdline-tools cp -r tools cmdline-tools/ rm -rf tools/ PATH=$PATH:$ANDROID_SDK_ROOT/cmdline-tools/latest/bin:$ANDROID_SDK_ROOT/cmdline-tools/tools/bin echo "########################################## Updated Path : $PATH ###############################################" cd $ANDROID_SDK_ROOT/cmdline-tools/tools/bin echo "########################################## Accept All Licenses .. #############################################" yes | sdkmanager --licenses cd $currentDir/camera-samples/Camera2Video echo "sdk.dir = $ANDROID_SDK_ROOT" > local.properties echo "######################################## Building APK . . . #################################################" chmod 777 gradlew ./gradlew assembleDebug echo "####################################### Building APK Done. . . ############################################" echo "##################################### APK generated here: $currentDir/app/build/outputs/apk/debug/app-debug.apk ###################################" ########################################################## 

Run these commands.

chmod 777 Download_APK_Code_NOSUDO4.sh chmod 777 Build_App_NOSUDO4.sh ./Download_APK_Code_NOSUDO4.sh ./Build_App_NOSUDO4.sh 

REFERENCES

https://gist.github.com/guipmourao/3e7edc951b043f6de30ca15a5cc2be40

Android Command line tools sdkmanager always shows: Warning: Could not create settings

"Failed to install the following Android SDK packages as some licences have not been accepted" error

https://developer.android.com/studio/build/building-cmdline#sign_cmdline

///////////////////////////////////

WINDOWS

Here are the steps for Windows via Powershell. Tested on 6th March 2021. You can start completely from scratch.

Prerequisites

  1. Download git
  2. Install JDK. I used jdk-8u281-windows-x64.exe

Make a file DownloadAndBuild.ps1 with these contents.

 $location = Get-Location if (Test-Path "$location\camera-samples") { Write-Host "########################### Deleting older code base: Start. ################################" Remove-Item -Force -Recurse -Path "$location\camera-samples" Write-Host "########################### Deleting older code base: Done. #################################" } Write-Host "########################## Download Source Code: Start. #####################################" git clone https://source.codeaurora.org/quic/la/camera-samples -b iot-concam-apk.lnx.1.1 Write-Host "########################## Download Source Code: Done. ####################################" if (Test-Path "$location\commandlinetools-win-6858069_latest.zip") { Write-Host "########################### Deleting older zip file: Start. ################################" Remove-Item -Force -Recurse -Path "$location\commandlinetools-win-6858069_latest.zip" Write-Host "########################### Deleting older zip file: Done. #################################" } Write-Host "########################## Download Command Line Tools: Start. #####################################" $client = new-object System.Net.WebClient $client.DownloadFile("https://dl.google.com/android/repository/commandlinetools-win-6858069_latest.zip","commandlinetools-win-6858069_latest.zip") Write-Host "########################## Download Command Line Tools: End. #####################################" if (Test-Path "$location\cmdline-tools") { Write-Host "########################### Deleting older folder: Start. ################################" Remove-Item -Force -Recurse -Path "$location\cmdline-tools" Write-Host "########################### Deleting older folder: Done. #################################" } Write-Host "########################## Extract Command Line Tools: Start. #####################################" Expand-Archive "$location\commandlinetools-win-6858069_latest.zip" -DestinationPath "$location" Write-Host "########################## Extract Command Line Tools: End. #####################################" Write-Host "########################## Create Directory Structure: Start. #####################################" Rename-Item -Path "$location\cmdline-tools" -newName "$location\tools" New-Item -ItemType Directory -Force -Path "$location\cmdline-tools" Move-Item -Path "$location\tools" -Destination "$location\cmdline-tools" Write-Host "########################## Create Directory Structure: End. #####################################" Write-Host "########################## Accept Licenses: Start. #####################################" Set-Location -Path $location/cmdline-tools/tools/bin for($i=0;$i -lt 100;$i++) { $response += "y`n"}; $response | ./sdkmanager.bat --licenses Write-Host "########################## Accept Licenses: End. #####################################" Write-Host "########################## Build APK: Start. #####################################" Set-Location -Path $location/camera-samples/Camera2Video $Env:ANDROID_SDK_ROOT = $location .\gradlew assembleDebug Write-Host "########################## Build APK: End. #####################################" Write-Host "##################################### APK generated here: $location/camera-samples/Camera2Video/app/build/outputs/apk/debug/app-debug.apk ###################################" PAUSE 

Right-click and run via Powershell. This will download an Android project via git, install the SDK and build the Android App.

Edit as per your convenience.

2 Comments

While this link may answer the question, it is better to include the essential parts of the answer here and provide the link for reference. Link-only answers can become invalid if the linked page changes. - From Review
I have added the full answer here.
5

Build Android app by command line

MacOS variant

./gradlew <moduleName>:assemble<build_variant> //e.g ./gradlew <moduleName>:assembleDebug 

*./ means current directory

[More info]

Comments

4

For Mac use this command

 ./gradlew task-name 

Comments

2

Only for MAC Users

Extending Vji's answer.

Step by step procedure:

  1. Open Terminal
  2. Change your directory to your Project(cd PathOfYourProject)
  3. Copy and paste this command and hit enter:

    chmod +x gradlew 
  4. As Vji suggested:

    ./gradlew task-name 

    DON'T FORGOT TO ADD .(DOT) BEFORE /gradlew

Comments

2

Official Documentation is here:

To build a debug APK, open a command line and navigate to the root of your project directory. To initiate a debug build, invoke the assembleDebug task:

gradlew assembleDebug 

This creates an APK named module_name-debug.apk in project_name/module_name/build/outputs/apk/.

Comments

0

note, you can also do this within Android Studio by clicking the gradle window, and then the 'elephant' button. This will open a new window called "run anything" (can also be found by searching for that name in 'search everywhere') where you can manually type any gradle command you want in. Not "quite" command line, but often provides more of what I need than windows command line.

This allows you to give optional params to gradle tasks, etc.

Comments

-1

enter code hereCreate script file with below gradle and adb command, Execute script file

./gradlew clean 

./gradlew assembleDebug ./gradlew installDebug

adb shell am start -n applicationID/full path of launcher activity

Comments

-2

Adding value to all these answers,

many have asked the command for running App in AVD after build sucessful.

adb install -r {path-to-your-bild-folder}/{yourAppName}.apk 

Comments

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