You can install the Gradle build tool on Linux, macOS, or Windows. This document covers installing using a package manager like SDKMAN! or Homebrew, as well as manual installation.

Use of the Gradle Wrapper is the recommended way to upgrade Gradle.

You can find all releases and their checksums on the releases page.

Prerequisites

Gradle runs on all major operating systems and requires only a Java Development Kit version 8 or higher to run. To check, run java -version. You should see something like this:

❯ java -version
java version "1.8.0_151"
Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.8.0_151-b12)
Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM (build 25.151-b12, mixed mode)

Gradle ships with its own Groovy library, therefore Groovy does not need to be installed. Any existing Groovy installation is ignored by Gradle.

Gradle uses whatever JDK it finds in your path. Alternatively, you can set the JAVA_HOME environment variable to point to the installation directory of the desired JDK.

Installing with a package manager

SDKMAN! is a tool for managing parallel versions of multiple Software Development Kits on most Unix-like systems (macOS, Linux, Cygwin, Solaris and FreeBSD). We deploy and maintain the versions available from SDKMAN!.

❯ sdk install gradle

Homebrew is "the missing package manager for macOS".

❯ brew install gradle

Other package managers are available, but the version of Gradle distributed by them is not controlled by Gradle, Inc. Linux package managers may distribute a modified version of Gradle that is incompatible or incomplete when compared to the official version (available from SDKMAN! or below).

↓ Proceed to next steps

Installing manually

Step 1. Download the latest Gradle distribution

The distribution ZIP file comes in two flavors:

  • Binary-only (bin)

  • Complete (all) with docs and sources

Need to work with an older version? See the releases page.

Step 2. Unpack the distribution

Linux & MacOS users

Unzip the distribution zip file in the directory of your choosing, e.g.:

❯ mkdir /opt/gradle
❯ unzip -d /opt/gradle gradle-5.6.3-bin.zip
❯ ls /opt/gradle/gradle-5.6.3
LICENSE  NOTICE  bin  getting-started.html  init.d  lib  media

Microsoft Windows users

Create a new directory C:\Gradle with File Explorer.

Open a second File Explorer window and go to the directory where the Gradle distribution was downloaded. Double-click the ZIP archive to expose the content. Drag the content folder gradle-5.6.3 to your newly created C:\Gradle folder.

Alternatively, you can unpack the Gradle distribution ZIP into C:\Gradle using an archiver tool of your choice.

Step 3. Configure your system environment

To run Gradle, the path to the unpacked files from the Gradle website need to be on your terminal’s path. The steps to do this are different for each operating system.

Linux & MacOS users

Configure your PATH environment variable to include the bin directory of the unzipped distribution, e.g.:

❯ export PATH=$PATH:/opt/gradle/gradle-5.6.3/bin

Alternatively, you could also add the environment variable GRADLE_HOME and point this to the unzipped distribution. Instead of adding a specific version of Gradle to your PATH, you can add $GRADLE_HOME/bin to your PATH. When upgrading to a different version of Gradle, just change the GRADLE_HOME environment variable.

Microsoft Windows users

In File Explorer right-click on the This PC (or Computer) icon, then click Properties → Advanced System Settings → Environmental Variables.

Under System Variables select Path, then click Edit. Add an entry for C:\Gradle\gradle-5.6.3\bin. Click OK to save.

Alternatively, you could also add the environment variable GRADLE_HOME and point this to the unzipped distribution. Instead of adding a specific version of Gradle to your Path, you can add %GRADLE_HOME%/bin to your Path. When upgrading to a different version of Gradle, just change the GRADLE_HOME environment variable.

↓ Proceed to next steps

Verifying installation

Open a console (or a Windows command prompt) and run gradle -v to run gradle and display the version, e.g.:

❯ gradle -v

------------------------------------------------------------
Gradle 5.6.3
------------------------------------------------------------

(environment specific information)

If you run into any trouble, see the section on troubleshooting installation.

You can verify the integrity of the Gradle distribution by downloading the SHA-256 file (available from the releases page) and following these verification instructions.

Next steps

Now that you have Gradle installed, use these resources for getting started:

Getting help

You might check the User Manual at GRADLE_HOME/docs/userguide/userguide.html. It is also available on the Gradle web site. Typing gradle help prints the command line help. Typing gradle tasks shows all the tasks of a Gradle build.