How to change app name per Gradle build type

Question

If by "app name", you mean android:label on <application>, the simplest solution is to have that point at a string resource (e.g., android:label="@string/app_name"), then have a different version of that string resource in a src/debug/ sourceset.

You can see that in this sample project, where I have a replacement for app_name in src/debug/res/values/strings.xml, which will be applied for debug builds. release builds will use the version of app_name in src/main/.

You can use something like this

 buildTypes {
    debug {
        applicationIdSuffix '.debug'
        versionNameSuffix '-DEBUG'
        resValue "string", "app_name", "AppName debug"
    }
    release {
        minifyEnabled true
        shrinkResources true
        proguardFiles getDefaultProguardFile('proguard-android.txt'), 'proguard-rules.pro'
        signingConfig signingConfigs.release
        zipAlignEnabled true
        resValue "string", "app_name", "AppName"
    }
}

You can use @string/app_name in AndroidManifest.xml files.

Make sure you remove app_name from values/ folder (no entry by this name).

You can do this with gradle:

android {
    buildTypes {
        release {
            manifestPlaceholders = [appName: "My Standard App Name"]
        }
        debug {
            manifestPlaceholders = [appName: "Debug"]
        }
    }
}

Then in your AndroidManifest.xml put:

<application
    android:label="${appName}"/>
    <activity
        android:label="${appName}">
        <intent-filter>
            <action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN" />

            <category android:name="android.intent.category.LAUNCHER" />
        </intent-filter>
    </activity>
</application>

Note: it also works with productFlavors.

To support translations make this:

1. remove string "app_name"

2. add to gradle

 buildTypes {
    admin {
       resValue "string", "app_name", "@string/app_name_admin"
    }
    release {
        resValue "string", "app_name", "@string/app_name_release"
    }
    debug {
        resValue "string", "app_name", "@string/app_name_debug"
    }
}

3. Set app name in Manifest as "@string/app_name"

4. Add to strings.xml values

<string name="app_name_admin">App Admin</string>
<string name="app_name_release">App  release</string>
<string name="app_name_debug">App debug</string>

The app name is user-visible, and that's why Google encourages you to keep it in your strings.xml file. You can define a separate string resource file that contains strings that are specific to your buildTypes. It sounds like you might have a custom qa buildType. If that's not true, ignore the qa part below.

└── src
    ├── debug
    │   └── res
    │       └── buildtype_strings.xml
    ├── release
    │   └── res
    │       └── buildtype_strings.xml
    └── qa
        └── res
            └── buildtype_strings.xml

We need a solution to support app name with localization (for multi language). I have tested with @Nick Unuchek solution, but building is failed (not found @string/) . a little bit change to fix this bug: build.gradle file:

android {
    ext{
        APP_NAME = "@string/app_name_default"
        APP_NAME_DEV = "@string/app_name_dev"
    }

    productFlavors{

        prod{
            manifestPlaceholders = [ applicationLabel: APP_NAME]
        }

        dev{
            manifestPlaceholders = [ applicationLabel: APP_NAME_DEV ]
        }

    }

values\strings.xml:

<resources>
    <string name="app_name_default">AAA prod</string>
    <string name="app_name_dev">AAA dev</string>

</resources>

values-en\strings.xml:

<resources>
    <string name="app_name_default">AAA prod en</string>
    <string name="app_name_dev">AAA dev en</string>

</resources>

Manifest.xml:

<application
    android:label="${applicationLabel}" >
</application>