Can't generate signed APK in Android Studio, because proguard-rules.txt is missing

Question

I have a problem with generating signed APK in Android Studio. After fixing all the warnings I am stuck on this one:

Error:Execution failed for task ':app:proguardRelease'. java.io.FileNotFoundException: /Users/franek/Documents/Android_Studio_Melange/app/proguard-rules.txt (No such file or directory)

I don't want to change minifyEnabled to false, because I want to keep Proguard working. How can I fix this error?

A fragment of build.gradle:

buildTypes {
        release {
            minifyEnabled true
            proguardFiles getDefaultProguardFile('proguard-android.txt'), 'proguard-rules.txt'
        }
    }

Answer 1

buildTypes {
    release {
        minifyEnabled true
        proguardFiles getDefaultProguardFile('proguard-android.txt')
    }
}

should work ok, as long as you don't need any special ProGuard configuration. If you do, use your original proguardFiles entry and create the file

/Users/franek/Documents/Android_Studio_Melange/app/proguard-rules.txt

Then put your custom rules in this file.