The project is not a Gradle-based project. How do I open the project from the root directory?

Question

I've been having this issue for a while and have been racking my brain.

I googled this answer here

Which the response is "Make sure you open the project from its root directory. i.e. the directory which contains the top level build.gradle file."

My question is: How the do I do that if I cloned the project from bitbucket?

Here's a screenshot of my file tree:

Thank you for any insights

Edit: Gradle files

// Top-level build file where you can add configuration options common to all sub-projects/modules.

buildscript {
    repositories {
        jcenter()
    }
    dependencies {
        classpath 'com.android.tools.build:gradle:1.2.3'        
    }
}

allprojects {
    repositories {
        jcenter()
    }
}

app level:

buildscript {
    repositories {
        jcenter()
        mavenCentral()
    }
    dependencies {
        classpath 'com.android.tools.build:gradle:1.2.3'
        classpath 'com.neenbedankt.gradle.plugins:android-apt:1.4'
    }
}

apply plugin: 'com.android.application'
apply plugin: 'android-apt'
def AAVersion = '4.0.0'
def JacksonVersion = '2.6.0'
def GPSVersion = '6.5.87'

dependencies {
    compile 'com.android.support:appcompat-v7:23.0.0'
    compile 'com.android.support:design:23.0.0'
    compile 'com.android.support:recyclerview-v7:23.0.0'
    compile 'com.android.support:preference-v7:23.0.0'
}

repositories {
    maven {
        url 'https://repo.spring.io/libs-milestone'
    }
}

apt {
    arguments {
        androidManifestFile variant.outputs[0].processResources.manifestFile
        resourcePackageName "appname"
        logLevel 'TRACE'
        logAppenderConsole 'true'
    }
}

android {
    compileSdkVersion 23
    buildToolsVersion "22.0.1"

    defaultConfig {
        applicationId "appname"
        minSdkVersion 14
        targetSdkVersion 23
        versionCode 1
        versionName "1.0"
    }

    buildTypes {
        release {
            shrinkResources false
            minifyEnabled false
            proguardFiles getDefaultProguardFile('proguard-android.txt'), 'proguard-rules.pro'
        }
    }
    packagingOptions {
        exclude 'META-INF/notice.txt'
        exclude 'META-INF/license.txt'
        exclude 'META-INF/ASL2.0'
        exclude 'META-INF/LICENSE'
        exclude 'META-INF/NOTICE'
    }
}

allprojects {
    repositories {
        jcenter()
        mavenCentral()
    }
}

Answer 1

Your project is not Gradle based because settings.gradle and bulid.gradle are not in the IDE project directory, they are in that blacked-out subfolder under .idea and .gradle in your picture.

You must close this project. Open that other folder as an Android Studio Project, regardless of where you got that project from.

For library projects in Github, it would look like this. Anyone can clone this as-is and open as a project.

For apps, replace sample with app, and remove library

---

Most importantly, buildscript and allprojects section should not be in /app/build.gradle, only /build.gradle

Additionally, your Gradle build plugin is outdated