Android studio no emulator installed

How to install Android SDK and setup AVD Emulator without Android Studio

If you are trying to develop to Android, you probably will end up installing the Android Studio to get the Android SDK and the AVD Emulator working properly.

But if you are using another code editor, like Sublime Text or VSCode, installing the Android Studio will just mess up with your setup and consume your precious RAM for no good reason.

I had a hard time figuring out how to properly do this setup due the lack of documentation about it, so i hope this article helps you. 🙂

Recommended previous knowledge:

• SDK (Standard Development Kit); Read about on Wikipedia;
• AVD (Android Virtual Device); Read about on docs;
• CLI (Command Line Interface); Read about on Wikipedia;
• Android API levels; Read about on Vanderbilt University;
• How to open, navigate and execute files in your OS terminal;
• Know what are environmental variables;

Understanding the Android SDK

Basically, the Android SDK is a bunch of packages necessary to develop for Android.

These packages stays in subfolders of a folder called “sdk” (or “android-sdk” sometimes). You do not need to know how these packages really work, just what they do.

The picture below is my Android SDK folder, these are the basic packages you will need in order to get everything working properly.

Here is a brief explanation of each package:

• tools: This package is mainly used to manage the other packages and to create AVD’s;
• emulator: As the name suggest, this is the Android emulator;
• platform-tools: Some tools to communicate with Android devices when you plug then in your computer;
• patcher: This package is automatically downloaded by the SDK. I didn’t find what exactly this is for, so just leave it as it is;

The folders bellow contain sub-folders with the packages for each Android API level.

• platforms: The platform packages are required to compile your app for the specified API level.
• system-images: These are the android images used in the emulator.
• build-tools: These are necessary to build your Android apps

Installing the Android SDK

In order to install the SDK we will use the Command Line Tools. These are some quite simple CLI’s used to manage the Android SDK. You can read the documentation here for more details.

Step 1 — Download the tools package

First, you need to download the tools package. And with this package you can download the others.

1. First, go to the Android Studio download page: https://developer.android.com/studio;
2. Then click in “ Download Options”;
3. There you will find a table named “ Command line tools only”;
4. This table contain some zip files. Download the appropriate file for your system ( Windows, Mac or Linux);
5. Extract this zip and you will get a folder called tools: This is the tools package i explained earlier;

Create a folder anywhere you prefer to place your SDK. I recommend you to stick with one of these commonly used places:

• Globally: C:\Android\sdk or C:\android-sdk (this is not default, but i usually set my SDK here on Windows)
• One user only: C:\Users\ \AppData\Local\Android\sdk

• Globally: /Library/Android/sdk
• One user only: /Users/ /Library/Android/sdk

And move the tools folder to this new sdk folder. Make sure you have admin access to this folder and any sub-folders inside it, or the tools package will fail to download new packages.

Note: You can also download a pre-build package for your SO (like the one available on Ubuntu repository). But i do not recommend you do to so, because they probably will not be updated and will be harder to manage, since it was automatically installed.

Step 2— You need Java 8!

The Android SDK packages require Java 8. If you do not have it, you need to download. If you are using a newer version, you have to downgrade to Java 8 or you will eventually get some errors, because it is not compatible.

If you do not have the Java 8 SDK, here is how you can install it:

On Ubuntu run these commands:

• # sudo apt-get update
• # sudo apt-get install openjdk-8-jdk

Sorry for MacOS users, i don’t know how to install it on this OS.

Step 3 — Download the essential packages

Now, download the platform-tools and the emulator packages, because they contain some CLI binary files you will need later. I decided to download these packages first in order to set all the necessary environment variables at once and make the rest of the process easier.

Open a terminal window (you need to use a terminal, not the file explorer), go to your sdk folder and navigate to the /tools/bin directory.

This folder contain the SDKManager binary: this is a CLI used to list the available packages in the Google’s repository and download, update or remove them from your SDK folder.

The bellow command will list all packages installed (the first items on the list) and all packages available to download:

To download the packages, simply copy the package names and pass it as a parameter to the SDKManager CLI using the terminal:

# ./sdkmanager platform-tools emulator

If you open your sdk folder you should see these packages folders there.

Step 4 — Set your environmental variables

You need to set the below environmental variables containing the path to our SDK, so any running program can find it in your pc:

ANDROID_SDK_ROOT = Path to your SDK folder

ANDROID_HOME = The same as ANDROID_SDK_ROOT. This variable is now deprecated, but i recommend setting it because some programs still using it to locate your sdk.

And add these folders to the PATH variable, making their binary files accessible from everywhere:

To add the environment variables on WIndows, just follow these steps:

1. Open the “Control Panel”;
2. Go to “ System and Security” option in the side menu;
3. In the window “ System Properties” open the tab “ Advanced”;
4. Click in the button “ Environment Variables” in the bottom of the page;
5. In the “ Environment Variables” window you will see two tables: “User Variables” and ” System Variables”.
6. If you created your sdk folder for one user only, set the variables in the “ User Variables” table;
7. But, if you create your sdk folder globally, set the variables in the “ System Variables” table instead;

On Linux, you can set your environment variables in many places. So i choose the ones I found the most appropriate:

If you created your sdk folder for one user only, set your environment variables in the file

/.bashrc;

If you created your sdk folder globally, set your environment variables in the /etc/environment file. But, be very careful! if you do something wrong with the path variable in this file you will broke your system (yes, i did this). This file is not a script, so you can’t use variables like $HOME, you need to write the full path to the folders. Variables declared in this file just will take effect after you logout .

Here is how i set these variables in my Ubuntu, using the file /etc/environment:

And sorry again, no MacOS instructions for this task.

You can find more about these environmental variables in the oficial docs here.

Now your SDK is ready! If you do not need to run the emulator there’s no need to follow the next steps.

Step 5 — Download the platform specific packages you want

You need more three packages: The platform, the system-image and the build-tools. You can download these packages for any Android version you prefer. In this article, i will download the packages for the API Level 28.

Use the “ sdkmanager — list” command to find these packages and download them using the command “ sdkmanager

Here’s an example:

Step 5 — Create a AVD device

Creating a AVD device is a simple task: run the AVDManager command (this is a binary file located in the tools/bin folder of your sdk) with the create avd option, a name for the new AVD and the image you want to use.

Here is a example:

# avdmanager create avd — name android28 — package “system-images;android-28;default;x86”

You will be asked if you want to alter some configurations. You can also modify these configurations later in the file config.ini, located in the avd folder (this folder usually is created in your user folder, under the android directory). The currently active configurations can be find in the file hardware-qemu.ini (this file just will be created after the emulator runs for the first time).

Step 6 — Run the Android Emulator

Now you just need to run the emulator command (remember that we added this package to the environmental variables?):

The emulator take some time to init for the first time. But if you done everything correctly you should see this screen:

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Create and manage virtual devices

An Android Virtual Device (AVD) is a configuration that defines the characteristics of an Android phone, tablet, Wear OS, Android TV, or Automotive OS device that you want to simulate in the Android Emulator. The AVD Manager is an interface you can launch from Android Studio that helps you create and manage AVDs.

To open the AVD Manager, do one of the following:

• Select Tools > AVD Manager.
• Click AVD Manager in the toolbar.

About AVDs

An AVD contains a hardware profile, system image, storage area, skin, and other properties.

We recommend that you create an AVD for each system image that your app could potentially support based on the setting in your manifest.

Hardware profile

The hardware profile defines the characteristics of a device as shipped from the factory. The AVD Manager comes preloaded with certain hardware profiles, such as Pixel devices, and you can define or customize the hardware profiles as needed.

Notice that only some hardware profiles are indicated to include Play Store. This indicates that these profiles are fully CTS compliant and may use system images that include the Play Store app.

System images

A system image labeled with Google APIs includes access to Google Play services. A system image labeled with the Google Play logo in the Play Store column includes the Google Play Store app and access to Google Play services, including a Google Play tab in the Extended controls dialog that provides a convenient button for updating Google Play services on the device.

To ensure app security and a consistent experience with physical devices, system images with the Google Play Store included are signed with a release key, which means that you cannot get elevated privileges (root) with these images. If you require elevated privileges (root) to aid with your app troubleshooting, you can use the Android Open Source Project (AOSP) system images that do not include Google apps or services.

Storage area

The AVD has a dedicated storage area on your development machine. It stores the device user data, such as installed apps and settings, as well as an emulated SD card. If needed, you can use the AVD Manager to wipe user data, so the device has the same data as if it were new.

An emulator skin specifies the appearance of a device. The AVD Manager provides some predefined skins. You can also define your own, or use skins provided by third parties.

AVD and app features

Be sure your AVD definition includes the device features your app depends on. See Hardware Profile Properties and AVD Properties for lists of features you can define in your AVDs.

Create an AVD

Tip: If you want to launch your app into an emulator, instead run your app from Android Studio and then in the Select Deployment Target dialog that appears, click Create New Virtual Device.

To create a new AVD:

1. Open the AVD Manager by clicking Tools > AVD Manager.
2. Click Create Virtual Device, at the bottom of the AVD Manager dialog.

The Select Hardware page appears.

Notice that only some hardware profiles are indicated to include Play Store. This indicates that these profiles are fully CTS compliant and may use system images that include the Play Store app.

Select a hardware profile, and then click Next.

If you don’t see the hardware profile you want, you can create or import a hardware profile.

The System Image page appears.

Select the system image for a particular API level, and then click Next.

The Recommended tab lists recommended system images. The other tabs include a more complete list. The right pane describes the selected system image. x86 images run the fastest in the emulator.

If you see Download next to the system image, you need to click it to download the system image. You must be connected to the internet to download it.

The API level of the target device is important, because your app won’t be able to run on a system image with an API level that’s less than that required by your app, as specified in the minSdkVersion attribute of the app manifest file. For more information about the relationship between system API level and minSdkVersion , see Versioning Your Apps.

If your app declares a element in the manifest file, the app requires a system image in which that external library is present. If you want to run your app on an emulator, create an AVD that includes the required library. To do so, you might need to use an add-on component for the AVD platform; for example, the Google APIs add-on contains the Google Maps library.

The Verify Configuration page appears.

Change AVD properties as needed, and then click Finish.

Click Show Advanced Settings to show more settings, such as the skin.

The new AVD appears in the Your Virtual Devices page or the Select Deployment Target dialog.

To create an AVD starting with a copy:

From the Your Virtual Devices page of the AVD Manager, right-click an AVD and select Duplicate.

Or click Menu and select Duplicate.

Click Change or Previous if you need to make changes on the System Image and Select Hardware pages.

Make your changes, and then click Finish.

The AVD appears in the Your Virtual Devices page.

Create a hardware profile

The AVD Manager provides predefined hardware profiles for common devices so you can easily add them to your AVD definitions. If you need to define a different device, you can create a new hardware profile. You can define a new hardware profile from the beginning, or copy a hardware profile as a start. The preloaded hardware profiles aren’t editable.

To create a new hardware profile from the beginning:

1. In the Select Hardware page, click New Hardware Profile.
2. In the Configure Hardware Profile page, change the hardware profile properties as needed.
3. Click Finish.

Your new hardware profile appears in the Select Hardware page. You can optionally create an AVD that uses the hardware profile by clicking Next. Or, click Cancel to return to the Your Virtual Devices page or Select Deployment Target dialog.

To create a hardware profile starting with a copy:

In the Select Hardware page, select a hardware profile and click Clone Device.

Or right-click a hardware profile and select Clone.

In the Configure Hardware Profile page, change the hardware profile properties as needed.

Click Finish.

Your new hardware profile appears in the Select Hardware page. You can optionally create an AVD that uses the hardware profile by clicking Next. Or, click Cancel to return to the Your Virtual Devices page or Select Deployment Target dialog.

Edit existing AVDs

From the Your Virtual Devices page, you can perform the following operations on an existing AVD:

• To edit an AVD, click Edit this AVD and make your changes.
• To delete an AVD, right-click an AVD and select Delete. Or click Menu and select Delete.
• To show the associated AVD .ini and .img files on disk, right-click an AVD and select Show on Disk. Or click Menu and select Show on Disk.
• To view AVD configuration details that you can include in any bug reports to the Android Studio team, right-click an AVD and select View Details. Or click Menu and select View Details.

Edit existing hardware profiles

From the Select Hardware page, you can perform the following operations on an existing hardware profile:

• To edit a hardware profile, select it and click Edit Device. Or right-click a hardware profile and select Edit. Next, make your changes.
• To delete a hardware profile, right-click it and select Delete.

You can’t edit or delete the predefined hardware profiles.

Run and stop an emulator, and clear data

From the Your Virtual Devices page, you can perform the following operations on an emulator:

• To run an emulator that uses an AVD, double-click the AVD. Or click Launch.
• To stop a running emulator, right-click an AVD and select Stop. Or click Menu and select Stop.
• To clear the data for an emulator, and return it to the same state as when it was first defined, right-click an AVD and select Wipe Data. Or click Menu and select Wipe Data.

Import and export hardware profiles

From the Select Hardware page, you can import and export hardware profiles:

To import a hardware profile, click Import Hardware Profiles and select the XML file containing the definition on your computer.

To export a hardware profile, right-click it and select Export. Specify the location where you want to store the XML file containing the definition.

Hardware profile properties

You can specify the following properties of hardware profiles in the Configure Hardware Profile page. AVD configuration properties override hardware profile properties, and emulator properties that you set while the emulator is running override them both.

The predefined hardware profiles included with the AVD Manager aren’t editable. However, you can copy them and edit the copies.

Select one of the following:

• None — No hardware controls. Navigation is through the software.
• D-pad — Directional Pad support.
• Trackball
• Wheel

These options are for actual hardware controls on the device itself. However, the events sent to the device by an external controller are the same.

Select one or both options:

• Portrait — Oriented taller than wide.
• Landscape — Oriented wider than tall.

If you select both, you can switch between orientations in the emulator. You must select at least one option to continue.

To enable the camera, select one or both options:

• Back-Facing Camera — The lens faces away from the user.
• Front-Facing Camera — The lens faces toward the user.

Later, you can use a webcam or a photo provided by the emulator to simulate taking a photo with the camera.

Hardware Profile Property	Description
Device Name	Name of the hardware profile. The name can contain uppercase or lowercase letters, numbers from 0 to 9, periods (.), underscores (_), parentheses ( () ), and spaces. The name of the file storing the hardware profile is derived from the hardware profile name.
Device Type	Select one of the following: Phone/Tablet Wear OS Android TV Chrome OS Device Android Automotive
Screen Size	The physical size of the screen, in inches, measured at the diagonal. If the size is larger than your computer screen, it’s reduced in size at launch.
Screen Resolution	Type a width and height in pixels to specify the total number of pixels on the simulated screen.
Round	Select this option if the device has a round screen, such as some Wear OS devices.
Memory: RAM	Type a RAM size for the device and select the units, one of B (byte), KB (kilobyte), MB (megabyte), GB (gigabyte), or TB (terabyte).
Input: Has Hardware Buttons (Back/Home/Menu)	Select this option if your device has hardware navigation buttons. Deselect it if these buttons are implemented in software only. If you select this option, the buttons won’t appear on the screen. You can use the emulator side panel to «press» the buttons, in either case.
Input: Has Hardware Keyboard	Select this option if your device has a hardware keyboard. Deselect it if it doesn’t. If you select this option, a keyboard won’t appear on the screen. You can use your computer keyboard to send keystrokes to the emulator, in either case.
Navigation Style
Sensors: Accelerometer	Select if the device has hardware that helps the device determine its orientation.
Sensors: Gyroscope	Select if the device has hardware that detects rotation or twist. In combination with an accelerometer, it can provide smoother orientation detection and support a six-axis orientation system.
Sensors: GPS	Select if the device has hardware that supports the Global Positioning System (GPS) satellite-based navigation system.
Sensors: Proximity Sensor	Select if the device has hardware that detects if the device is close to your face during a phone call to disable input from the screen.
Default Skin	Select a skin that controls what the device looks like when displayed in the emulator. Remember that specifying a screen size that’s too big for the resolution can mean that the screen is cut off, so you can’t see the whole screen. See Create an emulator skin for more information.

AVD properties

You can specify the following properties for AVD configurations in the Verify Configuration page. The AVD configuration specifies the interaction between the development computer and the emulator, as well as properties you want to override in the hardware profile.

AVD configuration properties override hardware profile properties. Emulator properties that you set while the emulator is running override them both.

Select one option for the initial emulator orientation:

• Portrait — Oriented taller than wide.
• Landscape — Oriented wider than tall.

An option is enabled only if it’s selected in the hardware profile. When running the AVD in the emulator, you can change the orientation if both portrait and landscape are supported in the hardware profile.

To enable a camera, select one or both options:

• Front — The lens faces away from the user.
• Back — The lens faces toward the user.

The Emulated setting produces a software-generated image, while the Webcam setting uses your development computer webcam to take a picture.

This option is available only if it’s selected in the hardware profile; it’s not available for Wear OS and Android TV.

Select a network protocol to determine the speed of data transfer:

• GSM — Global System for Mobile Communications
• HSCSD — High-Speed Circuit-Switched Data
• GPRS — Generic Packet Radio Service
• EDGE — Enhanced Data rates for GSM Evolution
• UMTS — Universal Mobile Telecommunications System
• HSDPA — High-Speed Downlink Packet Access
• LTE — Long-Term Evolution
• Full (default) — Transfer data as quickly as your computer allows.

Select how graphics are rendered in the emulator:

• Hardware — Use your computer graphics card for faster rendering.
• Software — Emulate the graphics in software, which is useful if you’re having a problem with rendering in your graphics card.
• Automatic — Let the emulator decide the best option based on your graphics card.

AVD Property	Description
AVD Name	Name of the AVD. The name can contain uppercase or lowercase letters, numbers from 0 to 9, periods (.), underscores (_), parentheses ( () ), dashes (-), and spaces. The name of the file storing the AVD configuration is derived from the AVD name.
AVD ID (Advanced)	The AVD filename is derived from the ID, and you can use the ID to refer to the AVD from the command line.
Hardware Profile	Click Change to select a different hardware profile in the Select Hardware page.
System Image	Click Change to select a different system image in the System Image page. An active internet connection is required to download a new image.
Startup Orientation
Network: Latency (Advanced)	Select a network protocol to set how much time (delay) it takes for the protocol to transfer a data packet from one point to another point.
Emulated Performance: Graphics
Emulated Performance: Boot option (Advanced)	Cold boot — Start the device each time by powering up from the device-off state. Quick boot — Start the device by loading the device state from a saved snapshot. For details, see Run the emulator with Quick Boot.
Emulated Performance: Multi-Core CPU (Advanced)	Select the number of processor cores on your computer that you’d like to use for the emulator. Using more processor cores speeds up the emulator.
Memory and Storage: RAM	The amount of RAM on the device. This value is set by the hardware manufacturer, but you can override it, if needed, such as for faster emulator operation. Increasing the size uses more resources on your computer. Type a RAM size and select the units, one of B (byte), KB (kilobyte), MB (megabyte), GB (gigabyte), or TB (terabyte).
Memory and Storage: VM Heap	The VM heap size. This value is set by the hardware manufacturer, but you can override it, if needed. Type a heap size and select the units, one of B (byte), KB (kilobyte), MB (megabyte), GB (gigabyte), or TB (terabyte). For more information on Android VMs, see Memory Management for Different Virtual Machines.
Memory and Storage: Internal Storage	The amount of nonremovable memory space available on the device. This value is set by the hardware manufacturer, but you can override it, if needed. Type a size and select the units, one of B (byte), KB (kilobyte), MB (megabyte), GB (gigabyte), or TB (terabyte).
Memory and Storage: SD Card	The amount of removable memory space available to store data on the device. To use a virtual SD card managed by Android Studio, select Studio-managed, type a size, and select the units, one of B (byte), KB (kilobyte), MB (megabyte), GB (gigabyte), or TB (terabyte). A minimum of 100 MB is recommended to use the camera. To manage the space in a file, select External file and click . to specify the file and location. For more information, see mksdcard and AVD data directory.
Device Frame: Enable Device Frame	Select to enable a frame around the emulator window that mimics the look of a real device.
Custom Skin Definition (Advanced)	Select a skin that controls what the device looks like when displayed in the emulator. Remember that specifying a screen size that’s too big for the skin can mean that the screen is cut off, so you can’t see the whole screen. See Create an emulator skin for more information.
Keyboard: Enable Keyboard Input (Advanced)	Select this option if you want to use your hardware keyboard to interact with the emulator. It’s disabled for Wear OS and Android TV.

Create an emulator skin

An Android emulator skin is a collection of files that define the visual and control elements of an emulator display. If the skin definitions available in the AVD settings don’t meet your requirements, you can create your own custom skin definition, and then apply it to your AVD.

Each emulator skin contains:

• A hardware.ini file
• Layout files for supported orientations (landscape, portrait) and physical configuration
• Image files for display elements, such as background, keys and buttons

To create and use a custom skin:

1. Create a new directory where you will save your skin configuration files.
2. Define the visual appearance of the skin in a text file named layout . This file defines many characteristics of the skin, such as the size and image assets for specific buttons. For example:

Add the bitmap files of the device images in the same directory.

Specify additional hardware-specific device configurations in a hardware.ini file for the device settings, such as hw.keyboard and hw.lcd.density .

Archive the files in the skin folder and select the archive file as a custom skin.

For more detailed information about creating emulator skins, see the Android Emulator Skin File Specification in the tools source code.

Content and code samples on this page are subject to the licenses described in the Content License. Java is a registered trademark of Oracle and/or its affiliates.

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