How to android sdk 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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How to Install Android SDK Tools

To Develop Android-based Apps, you will need to Install Android SDK. In this How to Install Android SDK Tools, we will learn what is Android SDK is and how to install the Android SDK using Android Studio. First, we will learn about the Android SDK Manager GUI to manage the SDK. We will find out how to find out the SDK location, various components of SDK like SDK Platforms, SDK Tools, Build Tools, Platform-tools, System Images, Emulators, etc. Finally, we will show you how to install the Android SDK.

Table of Contents

What is Android SDK

The Android Software Development Kit (SDK) is a set of development tools, which is needed to develop Android-based applications.

We can create Android Apps in many ways. You can make use of Java or Kotlin or use frameworks like Ionic, NativeScript or React Native. But whichever tools you use the Android SDK is a must.

The Android SDK comes with the required tools to build Android apps. Using the SDK you can install the app in the device and access the features provided by the OS. The SDK also comes with tools to debug the application. The Android emulator allows you to test apps in different types of devices, without needing to buy one.

The Android SDK comes in various versions. Each new release of Android OS is accompanied by a new SDK version or API Version. For Example, the latest Android Pie ( or Android 9 ) has a corresponding SDK API version of 28. You can refer to the SDK Platform release notes to find out the more details about each release

Android SDK Manager

The Android SDK Manager helps us download & manage the Android SDK. It makes it very easier to search for updates, install and remove the older unused SDK’s easily

The SDK Manager is part of the Android Studio and installed along with it. Hence, you need to install it first. Refer to our tutorial How to download & install the Android Studio tutorial.

You can open the SDK Manager by clicking on Menu Option Tools -> SDK Manager ( or Tools -> Android -> SDK Manager in older versions of Android Studio). You can also click on the icon in the tool bar as shown in image below

Locating the Android SDK Manager in Android Studio

The Following is the image of the Android SDK Manager

Android SDK Manager

In the lefthand side pane, you have to select Android SDK under Appearance & behavior -> System Settings

Android SDK Location

The Android SDK path is usually C:\Users\ \AppData\Local\Android\sdk as shown in the image above. But you can change it by clicking on the edit link.

The SDK Location is very important if you are using NativeScript or ionic, For NativeScript to pick up the SDK you need to define the ANDROID_HOME environment variable. While the ionic expects ANDROID_SDK_ROOT environment variable to point to the SDK path.

The SDK Manager contains three tabs. They are SDK Platforms SDK Tools & SDK Update Sites.

SDK Platforms

This tab contains the list of Android SDKs. The SDKs are a must if you want to develop apps targeting the Android Platform. Each new version of Android comes with its own SDK version ( API level and a revision).

Under each API, there are a few different types of files, which are displayed only if you select show package details option. They are shown in the image below.

Android SDK Platform:
This file is required to compile and run the Android Application. At least one SDK Platform must be installed. Always use the latest SDK version, when developing the App. You are still able to run the App on the older versions of Android.

Sources for Android package:
The source files for the platform, contain metadata about the SDK Platform and is helpful when debugging the android App. Always install the corresponding sources when installing the SDK Platform

System Image packages:
These are used by the Android Emulators to run the App in Emulator. Each SDK platform version contains a list of supported system images. You must select an image based on your computer Processor. You can also install them when you are creating the Android Virtual Devices (AVDs) using the AVD Manager.

SDK Tools

This tab contains the set of development and debugging tools for the Android SDK

Android SDK Build-Tools: Required
This contains the tools required to build Android Apps. You must install this package. See the Android SDK Build tools release notes.

Android SDK Platform-Tools: Required
This contains the tools required by the Android platform. The tools like ADB (Android Debug Bridge) are part of the Platform-tools. This package is required. See the Android SDK Platform Release notes

Android SDK Tools: Required
This tool includes essential tools such as ProGuard etc. See the SDK Tools Release Notes.

Android Emulator: Recommended
The Android Emulator was part of the Android SDK Tools up to version 25.2. Now they are available to install separately. You need an Emulator to debug and test your applications in an Emulated Android Runtime. See the Android Emulator release notes.

SDK Update Sites

This tab lists the Android & third party sites, where Android Studio looks for the update. You can add other sites to the list and download the packages from those sites as well.

SDK Update sites. List of sites where Android Looks for Updates.

If you are behind a proxy server, then remember to setup the proxy server from the HTTP Proxy option.

How to install the Android SDK

To Install a new SDK click the checkbox, Similarly to update an SDK. Whenever an update is available a dash appears in the checkbox next to the package. The status field shows the current installation status of the SDK.

To remove or uninstall a package, unselect the checkbox

Click on the Apply or OK button to begin the installation.

Next, you may be asked to accept the License Terms and then the installation begins. Installation takes some time to complete depending on the no of packages you have selected.

Once done, click on Finish. Now the Android SDK is successfully installed.

Summary

In this How to Install Android SDK Tutorial, we learned what is Android SDK is and how to install/update it using Android SDK, We also learned a few things about SDK Platform, SDK Tools, SDK Platform build tools, SDK Build Tools, System Images, etc.

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