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How to update Kotlin in Android Studio

How to update Kotlin in Android Studio

Yusuf I.

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The Problem

You can avoid unexpected issues by keeping the Kotlin versions in your project updated, especially when updating Gradle versions.

Each Kotlin version has a minimum and maximum supported Gradle version and using incompatible versions may cause errors such as:

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BUILD FAILED in 8s
[!] Your project requires a newer version of the Kotlin Gradle plugin.
    Find the latest version on https://kotlinlang.org/docs/gradle.html#plugin-and-versions, then update project/android/build.gradle:
    ext.kotlin_version = '<latest-version>'
Exception: Gradle task assembleDebug failed with exit code 1

The Solution

When updating Kotlin to the latest version, update the Android Gradle plugin (AGP), Gradle, and the Java Development Kit (JDK) to avoid incompatibility issues.

First, open the project-level build.gradle file located in the root of your project and update the plugins block. The example below will update Kotlin to version 1.9.20:

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plugins {
    id 'com.android.application' version '8.2.2' apply false
    id 'com.android.library' version '8.2.2' apply false
    id 'org.jetbrains.kotlin.android' version '1.9.20' apply false
}

The lines containing com.android.application and com.android.library update the Android Gradle plugin.

Next, update Gradle by navigating to the gradle/gradle-wrapper.properties file and changing the version number in the distributionUrl. Here we’re using Gradle version 8.2:

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distributionUrl=https\://services.gradle.org/distributions/gradle-8.2-bin.zip

To update the JDK to use Java 17, open the app/build.gradle file and update the following lines:

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compileOptions {
    sourceCompatibility JavaVersion.VERSION_17
    targetCompatibility JavaVersion.VERSION_17
}
kotlinOptions {
    jvmTarget = '17'
}

Finally, update the Gradle JDK in Android Studio Settings. Go to File (or Android Studio on macOS) > Settings > Build, Execution, Deployment > Build Tools > Gradle and change the “Gradle JDK” field to “17”.

Gradle JDK Settings

For more information about the Android build system, visit https://developer.android.com/build.

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