Managing Android Studio with the Toolbox App
As an Android developer, you’re most likely using Android Studio for development. Installing, updating, and uninstalling, especially you have several variants, is sometimes time consuming and can distract us from coding. I recently learned something which can help make this easier for developers, the Toolbox App.
Toolbox App is a free application from JetBrains that allows you to manage your development tools. It’s like a control panel for IntelliJ and their other IDEs but it can be used too for Android Studio.
With Toolbox, you can download Android Studio and install side by side stable, beta, and canary versions. Look for Android Studio, click on the down icon, and choose the ones to install.
Each IDE you install will have a settings icon at the right with the following items: go to Settings, roll back or downgrade, or uninstall the IDE. In the Settings screen, you will see what’s new, check updates, and change the display name in the list. There is an option to enable the IDE to update automatically. Choose to stay on specific version (e.g. 3.6, 4.0) or on a specific channel if you won’t have to be notified about a new canary version on your beta IDE.
If you have many IDEs installed, drag them and reorder. When there’s an update to an IDE, an Update button and a “What’s new” text will be displayed. Clicking that text displays the release notes. This allows you to read them first before deciding to update or not.
In the Toolbox App Settings (opened by clicking on the settings icon on the top-right), the following options are available:
- update the IDEs and the Toolbox app itself automatically
- change where the IDEs will be installed
- select the “Keep only the latest version” to save space or if you do not want to keep previous versions
- log in to your JetBrains account to link your licenses
After starting to use the Toolbox App, I feel more productive as I focus on actual development instead of spending time managing the tools. You must try it too if you haven’t yet.
