Class no longer obfuscated after upgrading to Android Gradle plugin 3.4.0

Question

After upgrading to Android Gradle plugin 3.4.0, a basic class no longer gets obfuscated.

The following basic steps can reproduce the problem:

1. In Androi

Answer 1

Try to set useProguard false to let the plugin use R8 instead of ProGuard to shrink and obfuscate your app’s code and resources. E.g.

android {
    ...
    buildTypes {
        debug {
            minifyEnabled true
            useProguard false
        }
        release {
            minifyEnabled true
            useProguard false 
        }
    }
}

Or alternatively, if you want to stick to ProGuard, you should disable R8 from gradle.properties like below:

# Disables R8 for Android Library modules only.
android.enableR8.libraries = false
# Disables R8 for all modules.
android.enableR8 = false

And remember to set useProguard true.

---

Edit #1

Check here for how to migrate Proguard to R8: Android/java: Transition / Migration from ProGuard to R8?