How do I remove directories from Indexing in Android Studio?

Question

I have a large project folder that contains many sub projects. Only 4 are part of the Android project, the rest are C code.

However, it appears that Android Studio is indexing ALL of it, which takes a long time.

How do I exclude these other directories from indexing?

There no way to explicitly do it, and the Module Settings only lists the Android projects so I cannot remove the other folders from there.

score 26 · Answer 1 · answered Jun 01 '15 at 22:59

26

Select the directory in the Project explorer.
CtrlShiftA or ShiftCmdA
Search for Excluded and hit enter.

Careful, I haven't been able to find a way to 're-include' folders back yet.

answered Jun 01 '15 at 22:59

Gautam

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A dirty way to re-include the folder is to edit the parent .iml file and remove the corresponding excludeFolder entry. – David Burström Oct 18 '17 at 16:18
1

@DavidBurström Don't the `.iml` files get overwritten by Android Studio on each project build? Pretty sure you'll need to remove it from a `build.gradle` file somewhere, which is where the `excludeFolder` entry gets generated from. – Joshua Pinter Nov 12 '17 at 14:50
@JoshuaPinter Yes, you're right. I've just posted a new solution that I've used successfully. – David Burström Nov 12 '17 at 22:35
@DavidBurström Good stuff. Same solution I found for it: https://stackoverflow.com/a/47244842/293280 – Joshua Pinter Nov 13 '17 at 03:13

score 18 · Answer 2 · edited May 31 '20 at 13:58

18

(optional) Switch to project view if you can't see the folders you want to exclude
Right click the folder you want to exclude
In the contextual menu click "Mark directory as" --> "Excluded"
It should look like this:
(optional) If you want to include a folder, click "Mark directory as" --> "Cancel exclusion"

edited May 31 '20 at 13:58

β.εηοιτ.βε

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answered May 31 '20 at 13:27

Tea Ghosty

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This is simplest solution worked for me. Just make sure to reopen project after excluding directory – sultanmyrza Jul 26 '20 at 12:02

score 9 · Answer 3 · answered Nov 12 '17 at 22:34

9

Use the 'idea' plugin to exclude directories. For some reason, it seems the idea configuration is ignored if a subproject is configuring it (and will always exclude the project.buildDir and .gradle folders), but it works if you tell the root project which directories to exclude:

In your root project build.gradle file, do

apply plugin: 'idea'
idea {
  module {
    excludeDirs.add(file('path/to/subproject'))
    excludeDirs.add(file('path/to/othersubproject'))
  }
}

After syncing, you'll notice that the root projects .iml file contains corresponding <excludeFolder> tags, and that Android Studio no longer indexes the directories.

answered Nov 12 '17 at 22:34

David Burström

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When you say "anymore", which versions are involved then? – David Burström Sep 21 '19 at 16:56
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excludeDirs += works, but excludeDirs.add does not work. This applies to Android Studio 3.5: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/58033717/android-studio-how-to-exclude-doc-folder-from-search-and-other-functionality – Mike76 Sep 21 '19 at 17:35
This might be a bug of the idea gradle plugin. Does the above snippet still work for you for recent Studio and gradle versions? – Mike76 Sep 21 '19 at 17:36
how to exclude a particular file type from indexing? – Vivek Mangal Apr 12 '22 at 07:44

score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Apr 13 '21 at 06:09

0

In the left side project panel, right click the file you want to exclude from indexing, and then select Mark as Plain Text.

answered Apr 13 '21 at 06:09

Sourav Kannantha B

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score 0 · Answer 5 · answered Dec 14 '22 at 08:27

As there is no "Mark directory as" menu in Android Studio, I found out that such settings like including and excluding directories are stored in a ".iml" file. Named like "project-name.iml".

A line like bellow is used to exclude a dir:

<excludeFolder url="file://$MODULE_DIR$/src/main/x/" />

So, Re-including is done as easily as removing the line.

How do I remove directories from Indexing in Android Studio?

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