Upgrade Gradle for Android

The Google Mobile Ads Android SDK 22.4.0 added a <property> element in its Android manifest. Building against this version or higher requires using Gradle 6.7.1 or higher and Android Gradle plugin 4.2.0 or higher. This guide instructs you on how to make sure your Unity editor is compatible.

Prerequisites

Complete the Get started guide. Make sure to:

• Set Minimum API level to 21
• Set Target API level to 33 or higher
• Enable Custom Main Gradle Template and Custom Gradle Properties Template settings

Unity 2022.2 and later

Unity 2022.2 and higher comes with newer versions of Gradle for Android by default. No additional action is required to support Google Mobile Ads Android SDK 22.4.0.

Unity 2022.1 and earlier

Unity 2022.2 and earlier use an older version of Gradle for Android which is not supported by Google Mobile Ads Android SDK 22.4.0. The following steps show how to upgrade to the minimally required Gradle version based on your build process:

Important: Remove old Assets/Plugins/Android/*.gradle files before you begin. Different Gradle versions use different formats for these files. This may cause issues when building your Unity project.

1. Enable custom Gradle templates

   Go to Project Settings > Player > Android > Publishing Settings > Build, and select:

   • Custom Base Gradle Template

   

2. Modify Base Gradle Template

   Open the Assets/Plugins/Android/baseProjectTemplate.gradle file and set the dependencies to use Gradle build tools 4.2.0.

     allprojects {
         buildscript {
             dependencies {
                 classpath 'com.android.tools.build:gradle:4.2.0'
                 **BUILD_SCRIPT_DEPS**
             }
         }
     }
     ...
   

3. Update Gradle

   Update your Gradle version to 6.7.1. The steps for this are slightly different depending on whether you export your project as an Android Studio project as part of your build process.

   Unity Integrated Builds

   Install Gradle

   Download Gradle version 6.7.1.

   Set Gradle path in Unity

   In Unity, open Unity Preferences > External Tools and set the custom Gradle path.

   

   Key Point: We recommend using Gradle 6.7.1 to minimize the chance of the Gradle update introducing other build errors in your project.

   Android Studio Builds

   Export the Android Studio project

   Open the File > Build Settings menu, enable Export Project is checked, and press the Export button. Once exported, open the project in Android Studio.

   Update Gradle wrapper

   Open the ./gradle/wrapper/gradle-wrapper.properties file and set the distributionUrl to use Gradle 6.7.1.

   distributionBase=GRADLE_USER_HOME
   distributionPath=wrapper/dists
   zipStoreBase=GRADLE_USER_HOME
   zipStorePath=wrapper/dists
   distributionUrl=https\://services.gradle.org/distributions/gradle-6.7.1-bin.zip
   

   Key Point: We recommend using Gradle 6.7.1 to minimize the chance of the Gradle update introducing other build errors in your project.