3-STEPS to Fix Android Studio’s “Your SDK location contains non-ASCII characters” Error

👩 Click here to read this in Korean

Problem

When installing Android Studio, many non-English users face a problem where they cannot move on to the next step because it says “Your SDK location contains non-ASCII characters”.

Why Does This Happen?

Well, this happens because Android Studio only allows English alphabets in SDK location. No á, à, â. So many Korean, Russian, Spanish.. users go through this problem. Oh, they also do not allow blank spaces(another error: “your path contains white space etc.”). God knows when they’re gonna let Unicode in our path😓

Here Are the Options

There are 4 solutions for this and here’s why you should use solution no.4.

1. To change your Windows username! “C:\Users\*Alphabet Username*”
   → It takes some time and it can mess with the path that was already installed.
2. To make new Windows user with English name
   → You’ll regret it when you have to type a password every time you log in to Windows.
3. To make a new English named folder under C:\
   → Sounds simple! However, it might work at first, some people reported a problem when later they are using an emulator or Kotlyn language.
4. To use mklink command and make a junction
   → This is the cleanest solution and… actually quite easy!

So here goes my 3-STEP guide.

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STEP 1. To make an original path

Let’s make that original location that SDK would’ve been installed if our path was OK(First image).

Go to “C:\Users\*Your Username*\AppData\Local\” Just type this and boom! you’re in Local folder. Make a folder named “Android” and then in the Android folder make another folder named “Sdk”.

STEP 2. To type an mklink command.

Type “cmd” in your Windows search bar and make sure you open it as an administrator. (Shortcuts: Windows+R – Type “cmd” – Ctrl+Shift+Enter)

Now type a command below.

mklink /D “C:\android-sdk” “C:\Users\*your username*\AppData\Local\Android\sdk”

All good? You just made a symbolic link, a.k.a. junction.

If it says “You do not have sufficient privilege to perform this operation.” then no worry, you just forgot to open cmd as an administrator.

3. To change the path to “C:\android-sdk”!

Done! That easy!

+ Oh, one more thing…

When you create a new project, make sure to change the “save location” to under “C:\android-sdk”. Just create a new folder named “AndroidStudioProjects”, so your new project can go to “C:\android-sdk\AndroidStudioProjects\app1″(as the image).