Android Studio Portable May 2026

Just don't forget to safely eject the drive. Gradle hates being ghosted.

However, if you are willing to write a batch script, understand environment variables, and accept that the emulator is off-limits, you can achieve it. You won't be running the AVD on a stranger's laptop. But you will be able to commit a hotfix to production from a hotel business center.

@echo off REM Set drive letter to current directory's drive set DRIVE=%~d0 REM Set environment variables set ANDROID_HOME=%DRIVE%\PortableDev\AndroidSDK set ANDROID_SDK_ROOT=%DRIVE%\PortableDev\AndroidSDK set GRADLE_USER_HOME=%DRIVE%\PortableDev\.gradle REM Launch Studio with custom configs start "" "%DRIVE%\PortableDev\AndroidStudio\bin\studio64.exe" Only for the disciplined masochist. android studio portable

But dig deeper, and you’ll find that the portable dream isn't dead. It just requires a different mindset: moving from a literal portable executable to a .

org.gradle.offline=true Then, copy the entire .gradle/caches folder from your main machine to the USB drive. When you move to a new PC, you must manually copy that cache folder to the target PC's user directory—or use a symlink to point it back to the USB drive. If you are determined to create a portable Android Studio environment, here is the battle-tested folder structure for your USB drive (let’s call it D:\ ): Just don't forget to safely eject the drive

By creating a simple text file named idea.properties inside the Android Studio bin folder, you can override the default paths. The magic happens with relative paths:

# Use relative paths instead of absolute ones idea.config.path=./config idea.system.path=./system idea.plugins.path=./plugins idea.log.path=./logs If you place this file next to the studio64.exe launcher, the IDE will keep all its settings inside the USB drive folder instead of writing to C:\Users\[You]\AppData . Even with portable configs, the Android SDK is a problem. The SDK Manager stores absolute paths to emulator binaries and build tools. You won't be running the AVD on a stranger's laptop

This is the closest thing to a "Portable Mode" available.