New features in Android Studio Preview

This page lists the new features introduced in Android Studio preview releases. The preview builds provide early access to the latest features and improvements in Android Studio. You can download these preview versions. If you encounter any problems using a preview version of Android Studio, let us know. Your bug reports help to make Android Studio better.

Canary releases contain leading edge features under active development, and are lightly tested. While you can use Canary builds for development, be aware that features might be added or changed. Release Candidates (RC) are the next version of Android Studio, and are almost ready for stable release. The feature set for the next version has been stabilized. See Android Studio release names to understand Android Studio version naming.

For the latest news on Android Studio preview releases, including a list of notable fixes in each preview release, see the Release Updates in the Android Studio blog.

Current versions of Android Studio

The following table lists the current versions of Android Studio and their respective channels.

Version Channel
Android Studio Narwhal 3 Feature Drop | 2025.1.3 Stable
Android Gradle plugin 8.13.0 Stable
Android Studio Narwhal 4 Feature Drop | 2025.1.4 Canary

Compatibility with Android Gradle plugin previews

Each preview version of Android Studio is published alongside a corresponding version of the Android Gradle plugin (AGP). Preview versions of Studio should work with any compatible stable version of AGP. However, if you're using a preview version of AGP, you must use the corresponding preview version of Studio (for example, Android Studio Chipmunk Canary 7 with AGP 7.2.0-alpha07). Attempts to use divergent versions (for example, Android Studio Chipmunk Beta 1 with AGP 7.2.0-alpha07) will cause a Sync failure, which results in a prompt to update to the corresponding version of AGP.

For a detailed log of Android Gradle plugin API deprecations and removals, see the Android Gradle plugin API updates.

Studio Labs

Studio Labs lets you try out the latest AI experimental features in a stable version of Android Studio, so you can more quickly integrate our AI assistance offerings in your development workflow. For more information, see Studio Labs.

The following are features currently available in Studio Labs.

Feature Description Docs
Compose preview generation Gemini can automatically generate Compose previews, including mock data for preview parameters, for a specific composable or all composables in a file. Generate Compose previews
Transform UI Use natural language to update your app UI directly from the Compose preview panel. Transform UI

Android Studio Narwhal 4 Feature Drop | 2025.1.4

The following are new features in Android Studio Narwhal 4 Feature Drop | 2025.1.4.

To see what's been fixed in this version of Android Studio, see the closed issues.

Journeys for Android Studio

Journeys for Android Studio helps make end-to-end tests easy to write and maintain by letting you use natural language to describe the steps and assertions for each test—called a journey. By leveraging Gemini's vision and reasoning capabilities, steps written in natural language are converted into actions that Gemini performs on your app, making it both easy to write and understand your journeys. Additionally, you can write and describe more complex assertions, which Gemini evaluates based on what it sees on the device in order to determine whether your journeys pass or fail.

And because Gemini reasons about which actions to perform to satisfy the goals, journeys are more resilient to subtle changes to your app's layout or behavior, resulting in fewer flaky tests when running against different versions of your app and different device configurations.

Write and run journeys right from Android Studio against any local or remote Android device. The IDE provides a new editor experience for crafting journeys as well as rich results that help you better follow Gemini's reasoning and execution of your journey.

Backup and Sync

You can now back up Android Studio settings to cloud storage using either your Google or JetBrains account. This helps sync your settings, such as keymaps, Code Editor settings, system settings, and more. To get started, do one of the following:

  • After opening a project in Android Studio, sign into your Google Account by clicking the avatar in the top-right corner of the IDE, and clicking Sign in.

    1. Follow the prompts in the dialog that appears and make sure to check the box to authorize Android Studio to access your Google Account Storage.
    2. Follow the prompts to authorize Android Studio.

  • Navigate to Settings > Backup and Sync.

    1. Select Google to use your Google Account Storage to sync your app data across Android Studio installs. Alternatively, you can use a JetBrains account to sync your app data across IntelliJ and Android Studio installs.
    2. After you follow the prompts to authorize Android Studio to access your preferred account's storage, return to Android Studio.
    3. On the Settings > Backup and Sync page, you can review the categories of app data that you want to sync to your account.
    4. To disable Backup and Sync, uncheck the box that enables the feature.

If you already have data synced to your selected device, Android Studio gives you the option to either download settings from your remote storage (this is the default option) or upload your local settings and overwrite settings synced to your remote storage.

Suggested fixes for crashes

In Android Studio Meerkat Feature Drop, we launched Gemini insights for crashes reported in the App Quality Insights tool window. Now, Android Studio can use Gemini to analyze the crash data along with your source code to suggest potential fixes. After selecting a crash in the App Quality Insights tool window, navigate to the Insights tab and click Suggest a fix after Gemini generates an insight for the crash. Gemini then generates suggested code changes that you can review and accept in an editor diff tab.

New setting to open new projects with the Project view

There is a new setting to have new projects open in Project view by default. To enable the setting go to File (Android Studio on macOS) > Settings > Advanced Settings > Project View and select Set Project view as the default.

Compose Preview Screenshot Testing tool

Use the Compose Preview Screenshot Testing tool to test your Compose UIs and prevent regressions. The new tool helps you generate HTML reports that let you visually detect any changes to your app's UI. Learn more at Compose Preview Screenshot Testing.

Embedded Layout Inspector component tree enhancement

Interacting with the component tree in the Embedded Layout Inspector is now more intuitive and efficient thanks to several key improvements. These updates are designed to streamline your workflow and provide clearer insights into your Compose UI structures.

  1. Horizontal Scrolling: You can now scroll horizontally within the component tree, making it easier to navigate and inspect wide or deeply nested layouts without losing context.
  2. Automatic Scrolling on Selection: Selecting an item in the component tree will now automatically scroll the view, both horizontally and vertically, to bring the selected item neatly into focus. This ensures the element you're interested in is always front and center.
  3. Improved Relationship Visualization: We've refined the support lines within the component tree to offer more explicit visual cues for understanding node relationships. Dotted lines now clearly indicate a call stack relationship between a parent and its child node, helping you trace programmatic connections more effectively. Solid lines continue to represent all other standard parent-child relationships within the tree.

These enhancements aim to provide a smoother, more efficient debugging experience, allowing you to quickly understand and refine your UI.

The component tree in the Embedded Layout Inspector now supports horizontal scrolling and automatic scrolling on selection.
Embedded Layout Inspector Component Tree Enhancement

Use a local LLM

Android Studio Narwhal 4 Feature Drop lets you choose the LLM that powers the IDE's AI features.

Android Studio Gemini chat window showing the model picker with options for Gemini and a local LLM.
Model picker in Android Studio.

The LLM must be on your local machine, which is advantageous if you have limited internet connectivity or restrictions regarding the use of AI models, or you just want to experiment with open-source research models.

A local LLM offers an alternative to the LLM support built into Android Studio. However, Gemini in Android Studio typically provides the best Android development experience because Gemini is tuned for Android and supports all features of Android Studio. With Gemini, you can choose from a variety of models for your Android development tasks, including the no-cost default model or models accessed with a paid Gemini API key.

Support for local LLMs requires installation of an LLM provider such as LM Studio or Ollama on your local computer along with a compatible model of your choice.

Android SDK Upgrade Assistant now supports Android 16 / API 36

The migration from Android 15 / API 35 to Android 16 / API 36 has been added to the Android SDK Upgrade Assistant. To get help migrating, go to Tools > Android SDK Upgrade Assistant.

Android Gradle plugin 9.0

Android Gradle plugin 9.0 is a new major release of AGP, and brings API and behavior changes.

To update to Android Gradle plugin 9.0.0-alpha02, use the Android Gradle plugin Upgrade Assistant in Android Studio Narwhal 4 Feature Drop | 2025.1.4.

The AGP upgrade assistant helps preserve existing behaviors when upgrading your project when appropriate, allowing you to upgrade your project to use AGP 9.0, even if you're not ready to adopt all the new defaults in AGP 9.0.

Compatibility

The maximum Android API level that Android Gradle plugin 9.0.0-alpha02 supports is API level 36.

Android Gradle plugin 9.0.0-alpha02 requires Gradle 9.0.0.

Behavior changes

Android Gradle plugin 9.0 has the following new behaviors:

Behavior Recommendation
Android Gradle plugin 9.0 uses NDK version r28c by default. Consider specifying the NDK version you want to use explicitly.
Android Gradle plugin 9.0 by default requires consumers of a library to use the same or higher compile SDK version. Use the same or higher compile SDK when consuming a library. If this is not possible, or you want to give consumers of a library you publish more time to switch, set AarMetadata.minCompileSdk explicitly.

AGP 9.0 includes updates to the following Gradle properties' defaults. This gives you the choise to preserve the AGP 8.13 behavior when upgrading:

Property Function Change from AGP 8.13 to AGP 9.0 Recommendation
android.uniquePackageNames Enforces that each library has a distinct package name. false → true Specify unique package names for all libraries within your project. If that is not possible, you can disable this flag while you migrate.
android.dependency.useConstraints Controls the use of dependency constraints between configurations.
The default in AGP 9.0 is false which only uses constraints in application device tests (AndroidTest). Setting this to true will revert back to the 8.13 behavior. 		true → false Don't use dependency constraints everywhere unless you need them. Accepting the new default of this flag also enables optimizations in the project import process which should reduce the import time for builds with many android library subprojects.
aandroid.enableAppCompileTimeRClass Compile code in applications against a non-final R class, bringing application compilation in line with library compilation.
This improves incrementality and paves the way for future performance optimizations to the resource processing flow. 		false → true Many projects can just adopt the new behavior with no source changes. If the R class fields are used anywhere that requires a constant, such as switch cases, refactor to use chained if statements.
android.sdk.defaultTargetSdkToCompileSdkIfUnset Uses the compile SDK version as the default value for the target SDK version in apps and tests.
Before this change, the target SDK version would default to the min SDK version. 		false → true Specify the target SDK version explicitly for apps and tests.
android.onlyEnableUnitTestForTheTestedBuildType Only creates unit test components for the tested build type.
In the default project this results in a single unit test for debug, where the previous behavor was to have unit tests run for debug or release. 		false → true If your project doesn't require tests to run for both debug and release, no change is required.
android.proguard.failOnMissingFiles Fails the build with an error if any of the keep files specified in the AGP DSL don't exist on disk. Before this change typos in filenames would result in files being silently ignored. false → true Remove any invalid proguard files declarations
android.r8.optimizedResourceShrinking Allows R8 to keep fewer Android resources by considering classes and Android resources together. false → true If your project's keep rules are already complete, no change is required.
android.r8.strictFullModeForKeepRules Allows R8 to keep less by not implicitly keeping the default constructor when a class is kept. That is, -keep class A no longer implies -keep class A { <init>(); }
 false → true If your project's keep rules are already complete, no change is required.

Replace -keep class A with -keep class A { <init>(); } in your project's keep rules for any cases where you need the default constructor to be kept.
android.defaults.buildfeatures.shaders Enables shader compilation in all subprojects true → false Enable shader compilation in only the subprojects that contain shaders to be compiled by setting the following in those projects' Gradle build files: 
android {
  buildFeatures {
    shaders = true
  }
}

Removed features

Android Gradle plugin 9.0 removes the following functionality:

Changed DSL

Android Gradle plugin 9.0 has the following breaking DSL changes:

Removed DSL

Android Gradle plugin 9.0 removes:

Removed Gradle properties

The following Gradle properties were initially added as ways to globally disable features that were enabled by default.

These features have been disabled by default since AGP 8.0 or lower. Enable these features in only the sub-projects that use them for a more efficient build.

Property Function Replacement
android.defaults.buildfeatures.aidl Enables AIDL compilation in all subprojects Enable AIDL compilation in only the subprojects where there are AIDL sources by setting the following property in those projects' Gradle build files: 
android {
  buildFeatures {
    aidl = true
  }
}
 in the Gradle build file of each subproject containing AIDL sources
android.defaults.buildfeatures.renderscript Enables RenderScript compilation in all subprojects Enable renderscript compilation in only the subprojects where there are renderscript sources by setting the following property in those projects' Gradle build files: 
android {
  buildFeatures {
    renderScript = true
  }
}

Removed APIs

Android Gradle plugin 9.0 removes:

  • The deprecated and disabled BaseExtension.registerTransform APIs, which only remained to allow compiling against the latest AGP version while targeting running on AGP 4.2 or lower.

Enforced Gradle properties

AGP 9.0 throws an error if you set the following Gradle properties.

The Android Gradle plugin Upgrade Assistant won't upgrade projects to AGP 9.0 that use these properties.

Property Function
android.r8.integratedResourceShrinking Resource shrinking is now always run as part of R8, the previous implementation has been removed.