Adding external packages to your app can make things easier for you and allows you to focus on the mission-critical feature of your app. But sometimes when you add the packages, you may face an issue that asks you to increase the Android minSdkVersion. This happens because the plugin requires a higher android sdk version for projects that were created before and after Flutter 2.8 update. So in this tutorial, we’ll see how to change Android minSdkVersion in Flutter.
Here’s what we’ll cover:
Ways to Change Android minSdkVersion in Flutter
There are two ways you can change Android minSdkVersion. The first one is for the projects that are created before Flutter 2.8 update and the second one is for the projects created after the Flutter 2.8 update.
For the Project Created Before Flutter 2.8 Update
To change minSdkVersion in Flutter for the project created before 2.8 update, you directly make changes inside the build.gradle file.
Steps
Step 1: Locate the build.gradle
file under the project_folder/android/app/build.gradle
Step 2: Find the defaultConfig
section update the minSdkVersion
to the new version.
Step 3: Inside the terminal, run the flutter clean
command.
Step 4: Re-run your app.
Code Example
defaultConfig { applicationId "com.example.common_project" minSdkVersion 21 // <-- SEE HERE targetSdkVersion 30 versionCode flutterVersionCode.toInteger() versionName flutterVersionName }
Screenshot

For the Projects Created After Flutter 2.8 Update
To change Android minSdkVersion in Flutter for the project created after the 2.8 update, you have to make changes in the local.properties file and then reference the new variable from the local.properties file inside the build.gradle file.
Steps
Step 1: Locate the local.properties
file under the project_folder/android/local.properties
Step 2: Inside the local.properties file, add the line as flutter.minSdkVersion=21
Step 3: Now, open the build.gradle
file under the project_folder/android/app/build.gradle
Step 4: Find the defaultConfig
section update the minSdkVersion
to the localProperties.getProperty(‘flutter.minSdkVersion’).toInteger()
.
Step 5: Inside the terminal, run the flutter clean
command.
Step 6: Re-run your app.
Code Example
Under local.properties file sdk.dir=/Users/pinkeshdarji/Library/Android/sdk flutter.sdk=/Users/pinkeshdarji/Data/Development/flutter flutter.buildMode=debug flutter.versionName=1.0.0 flutter.versionCode=1 flutter.minSdkVersion=20 #new ----------------------------- Under build.gradle file defaultConfig { // TODO: Specify your own unique Application ID (https://developer.android.com/studio/build/application-id.html). applicationId "com.example.sample_project" minSdkVersion localProperties.getProperty('flutter.minSdkVersion').toInteger() targetSdkVersion flutter.targetSdkVersion versionCode flutterVersionCode.toInteger() versionName flutterVersionName }
Screenshot

Conclusion
In this tutorial, we saw how to change Android minSdkVersion in Flutter with practical examples. We explored both ways to change the SDK version in Android for the projects created before and after Flutter 2.8 update.
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