In addition to receiving canary versions of Android Studio, you will also receive preview versions of other SDK tools, including the Android Emulator. Although these builds are subject to more bugs, they do get tested and we want to offer them so you can try new features and provide feedback. This channel is not recommended for production development. If you'd like to try one of the preview channels Canary, Dev, or Beta while still using the Stable build for your production Android projects, you can. The Android Studio Updates preferences. Update your tools with the SDK Manager The Android SDK Manager helps you download the SDK tools, platforms, and other components you need to develop your apps. Once downloaded, you can find each package in the directory indicated as the Android SDK Location, shown in figure 2. If you're not using Android Studio, you can download tools using the command-line tool. When an update is available for a package you already have, a dash appears in the check box next to the package. Pending updates are indicated in the left column with a download icon. Pending removals are indicated with a red cross. To update the selected packages, click Apply or OK, then agree to any license agreements. The Android SDK Manager. Recommended packages You should give special consideration to the following tools in the SDK Tools tab: Android SDK Build-Tools Required. Includes tools to build Android apps. Android SDK Platform-Tools Required. Includes various tools required by the Android platform, including the tool. Android SDK Tools Required. Includes essential tools such as ProGuard. A QEMU-based device-emulation tool that you can use to debug and test your applications in an actual Android runtime environment. Note: Most API libraries that were previously provided by the Support Repository packages such as the Android Support Library, Constraint Layout, Google Play services, and Firebase are now instead available from Google's Maven repository. Projects created with Android Studio 3. If you're using an older project, you must manually to your build. In the SDK Platforms tab, you must also install at least one version of the Android platform. Each version provides several different packages. To download only those that are required, click the check box next to the version name. To see all available packages for each Android platform, click Show Package Details at the bottom of the window. Within each platform version, you'll find the following packages: Android SDK Platform Required. At least one platform is required in your environment so you're able to compile your application. In order to provide the best user experience on the latest devices, use the latest platform version as your build target. You'll still be able to run your app on older versions, but you must build against the latest version in order to use new features when running on devices with the latest version of Android. Intel or ARM System Images Recommended. The system image is required in order to run the. Each platform version contains the supported system images. You can also download system images later when creating Android Virtual Devices AVDs in the. Select either Intel or ARM based on your development computer's processor. Note: If you plan to use APIs from including Firebase , you must use either the Google APIs system image or the Google Play system image the latter includes the Play Store app. The above list is not comprehensive and you can to download additional packages from third parties. In some cases, an SDK package may require a specific minimum revision of another tool. If so, the SDK Manager notifies you with a warning and adds the dependencies to your list of downloads. Tip: You can also customize the build. For more information see,. Edit or add SDK tool sites To manage which SDK sites Android Studio checks for Android tools and third party tool updates, click the SDK Update Sites tab. You can add other sites that host their own tools, then download the packages from those sites. For example, a mobile carrier or device manufacturer might offer additional API libraries that are supported by their own Android-powered devices. To develop using their libraries, you can install their Android SDK package by adding their SDK tools URL to the SDK Manager in the SDK Update Sites. Any SDK packages available from the site now appear in the SDK Platforms or SDK Tools tabs, as appropriate. Auto-download missing packages with Gradle When you run a build , Gradle can automatically download missing SDK packages that a project depends on, as long as the corresponding SDK license agreements have already been accepted using the SDK Manager. When you accept the license agreements using the SDK Manager, Android Studio creates a licenses directory inside the SDK home directory. This licenses directory is necessary for Gradle to auto-download missing packages. Note: Accepting the license agreements using the android command line tool does not create this licenses directory. You must first accept the agreements using the SDK Manager to be able to use this feature. If you have accepted the license agreements on one workstation, but wish to build your projects on a different one, you can export your licenses by copying over the accepted licenses directory. At the top of the window, note the Android SDK Location. When you return to the Android SDK home directory, you should now see the directory. Gradle will now be able to automatically download missing packages your project depends on. Note that this feature is automatically disabled for builds you run from Android Studio, as the SDK manager handles downloading missing packages for the IDE. You can also manually disable this feature by setting android.
