Enabling IPv6 on Gradle

Like every other JVM application, Gradle prefers IPv4 over IPv6 by default. On an IPv6-only network — or any time you want Gradle to reach out over IPv6 — the build can fail to resolve hosts or download dependencies because the Gradle daemon keeps picking IPv4 addresses.

The fix is the same java.net.preferIPv6Addresses system property used for Java and Maven. When you run Gradle from IntelliJ IDEA or Android Studio, the cleanest place to set it is the IDE’s vmoptions file.

The vmoptions file#

Add the following line to the vmoptions file:

-Djava.net.preferIPv6Addresses=true

If the file already contains -Djava.net.preferIPv4Stack=true or -Djava.net.preferIPv4Addresses=true, remove that line so it does not override the IPv6 preference.

The easiest way to open the right file is from inside the IDE: Help → Edit Custom VM Options. This creates the file in the correct location for your platform and opens it for editing. If you would rather edit it directly, the default locations are below.

For IntelliJ IDEA the file is named idea.vmoptions; for Android Studio it is studio.vmoptions. Replace <version> with the version you have installed.

Linux#

IntelliJ IDEA:

~/.config/JetBrains/IntelliJIdea<version>/idea.vmoptions

Android Studio:

~/.config/Google/AndroidStudio<version>/studio.vmoptions

macOS#

IntelliJ IDEA:

~/Library/Application Support/JetBrains/IntelliJIdea<version>/idea.vmoptions

Android Studio:

~/Library/Application Support/Google/AndroidStudio<version>/studio.vmoptions

Windows#

IntelliJ IDEA:

%APPDATA%\JetBrains\IntelliJIdea<version>\idea.vmoptions

Android Studio:

%APPDATA%\Google\AndroidStudio<version>\studio.vmoptions

Resolving the version automatically#

If you have several versions installed — or just don’t want to look up the version number — replace <version> with a * wildcard and let the shell find the file for you. The one-liners below append the option to the most recently used version’s vmoptions file.

⚠️ These commands append the line without checking, so running one twice adds the option twice. Run it once, or open the file afterwards to confirm there is only a single preferIPv6Addresses line.

IntelliJ IDEA#

Linux:

echo "-Djava.net.preferIPv6Addresses=true" >> "$(ls -dt ~/.config/JetBrains/IntelliJIdea*/ | head -1)idea.vmoptions"

macOS:

echo "-Djava.net.preferIPv6Addresses=true" >> "$(ls -dt ~/Library/Application\ Support/JetBrains/IntelliJIdea*/ | head -1)idea.vmoptions"

Windows (PowerShell):

Add-Content (Get-ChildItem "$env:APPDATA\JetBrains\IntelliJIdea*\idea.vmoptions" | Sort-Object LastWriteTime | Select-Object -Last 1).FullName "-Djava.net.preferIPv6Addresses=true"

Android Studio#

Linux:

echo "-Djava.net.preferIPv6Addresses=true" >> "$(ls -dt ~/.config/Google/AndroidStudio*/ | head -1)studio.vmoptions"

macOS:

echo "-Djava.net.preferIPv6Addresses=true" >> "$(ls -dt ~/Library/Application\ Support/Google/AndroidStudio*/ | head -1)studio.vmoptions"

Windows (PowerShell):

Add-Content (Get-ChildItem "$env:APPDATA\Google\AndroidStudio*\studio.vmoptions" | Sort-Object LastWriteTime | Select-Object -Last 1).FullName "-Djava.net.preferIPv6Addresses=true"

After saving the file, stop any running Gradle daemon with ./gradlew --stop and restart the IDE so the new option is picked up.

Command-line Gradle#

If you run Gradle outside an IDE there is no vmoptions file. Set the same property through org.gradle.jvmargs in your gradle.properties instead:

org.gradle.jvmargs=-Djava.net.preferIPv6Addresses=true

Or export it globally so every Gradle invocation gets it:

export GRADLE_OPTS="-Djava.net.preferIPv6Addresses=true"

That’s it — Gradle will now prefer IPv6 when resolving and downloading dependencies. If you also need plain Java and Maven to do the same, see Enabling IPv6 on Java and Maven. 😊