Installing the Android SDK

This page describes how to install the Android SDK and set up your development environment. If you haven't downloaded the SDK, you can do so from the Download page.

If you encounter any problems during installation, see the Installation Notes at the bottom of this page.

Upgrading?

If you have already developed applications using an earlier version of the SDK, please skip this page and read the Upgrading the SDK document instead.

Preparing for Installation

Before you get started with the Android SDK, take a moment to confirm that your development machine meets the system requirements.

If you will be developing on Eclipse with the Android Development Tools (ADT) Plugin — the recommended path if you are new to Android — make sure that you have a suitable version of Eclipse installed on your computer. If you need to install Eclipse, you can download it from this location:

http://www.eclipse.org/downloads/

A Java or RCP version of Eclipse is recommended.

Installing the SDK

After downloading the SDK, unpack the .zip archive to a suitable location on your machine. By default, the SDK files are unpacked into a directory named android_sdk_<platform>_<release>_<build>. The directory contains a link to a local copy of the documentation and the subdirectories tools/, samples/, and others.

Make a note of the name and location of the unpacked SDK directory on your system — you will need to refer to the SDK directory later, when setting up the Android plugin or using SDK tools.

Optionally, you can add the path to the SDK tools directory to your path. As mentioned above, the tools/ directory is located in the SDK directory.

• On Linux, edit your ~/.bash_profile or ~/.bashrc file. Look for a line that sets the PATH environment variable and add the full path to the tools/ directory to it. If you don't see a line setting the path, you can add one:
export PATH=${PATH}:<your_sdk_dir>/tools
• On a Mac, look in your home directory for .bash_profile and proceed as for Linux. You can create the .bash_profile, if you haven't already set one up on your machine.
• On Windows, right click on My Computer, and select Properties. Under the Advanced tab, hit the Environment Variables button, and in the dialog that comes up, double-click on Path under System Variables. Add the full path to the tools/ directory to the path.

Adding tools to your path lets you run Android Debug Bridge (adb) and the other command line tools without needing to supply the full path to the tools directory. Note that, if you update your SDK, you should remember to update your PATH settings to point to the new location, if different.

If you will be using the Eclipse IDE as your environment for developing Android applications, continue reading the next section in order to install the Android Development Tools plugin and set up Eclipse. If you choose not to use Eclipse, you can develop Android applications using other tools — read the guide to developing in other IDEs.

Installing the ADT Plugin for Eclipse

Android offers a custom plugin for the Eclipse IDE, called Android Development Tools (ADT), that is designed to give you a powerful, integrated environment in which to build Android applications. It extends the capabilites of Eclipse to let you quickly set up new Android projects, create an application UI, add components based on the Android Framework API, and debug using the Android SDK tools.

If you are new to Android or want to develop using the Eclipse IDE, the ADT plugin will be an essential part of your development environment. In general, using Eclipse with ADT is a highly recommended approach and is the fastest way to get started. This section describes how to install ADT into your Eclipse environment.

If you prefer to work in a development environment other than Eclipse, you do not need to install Eclipse or the ADT Plugin. Instead, you can access the SDK tools directly to build and debug your application.

Once you have Eclipse installed, as described in Preparing for Installation, follow the steps below to download the ADT plugin and install it in your respective Eclipse environment.

Eclipse 3.3 (Europa)

Eclipse 3.4 (Ganymede)

Start Eclipse, then select Help > Software Updates > Find and Install.... In the dialog that appears, select Search for new features to install and click Next. Click New Remote Site. In the resulting dialog box, enter a name for the remote site (e.g. Android Plugin) and enter this as its URL: https://dl-ssl.google.com/android/eclipse/ Alternatively, you can use http in the Location URL, if you are having trouble with https (https is preferred for security reasons). http://dl-ssl.google.com/android/eclipse/ Click OK. You should now see the new site added to the search list (and checked). Click Finish. In the subsequent Search Results dialog box, select the checkbox for Android Plugin > Developer Tools. This will check both features: "Android Developer Tools", and "Android Editors". The Android Editors feature is optional, but recommended. If you choose to install it, you need the WST plugin mentioned earlier in this page. Click Next. Read the license agreement and then select Accept terms of the license agreement. Click Next. Click Finish. The ADT plugin is not signed; you can accept the installation anyway by clicking Install All. Restart Eclipse.

Start Eclipse, then select Help > Software Updates.... In the dialog that appears, click the Available Software tab. Click Add Site... Enter this as the Location: https://dl-ssl.google.com/android/eclipse/ Alternatively, you can use http in the Location URL, if you are having trouble with https (https is preferred for security reasons). http://dl-ssl.google.com/android/eclipse/ Click OK. Back in the Available Software view, you should see the plugin. Select the checkbox next to Developer Tools and click Install... On the subsequent Install window, "Android Developer Tools", and "Android Editors" should both be checked. The Android Editors feature is optional, but recommended. If you choose to install it, you need the WST plugin mentioned earlier in this page. Click Next. Accept the license agreement and click Finish. Restart Eclipse.

Now, you just need to modify your Eclipse preferences to point to the Android SDK directory:

1. Select Window > Preferences... to open the Preferences panel. (Mac OS X: Eclipse > Preferences)
2. Select Android from the left panel.
3. For the SDK Location in the main panel, click Browse... and locate the SDK directory.
4. Click Apply, then OK.

Done! If you haven't encountered any problems, then you're ready to begin developing Android applications. See the After Installation: Next Steps section for suggestions on how to start.

Troubleshooting ADT Installation

If you are having trouble downloading the ADT plugin after following the steps above, here are some suggestions:

• If Eclipse can not find the remote update site containing the ADT plugin, try changing the remote site URL to use http, rather than https. That is, set the Location for the remote site to:

  http://dl-ssl.google.com/android/eclipse/

• If you are behind a firewall (such as a corporate firewall), make sure that you have properly configured your proxy settings in Eclipse. In Eclipse 3.3/3.4, you can configure proxy information from the main Eclipse menu in Window (on Mac, Eclipse) > Preferences > General > Network Connections.

If you are still unable to use Eclipse to download the ADT plugin as a remote update site, you can download the ADT files to your local machine using a browser and the install the files in Eclipse from there:

1. Download the ADT zip file (do not unpack it).
2. Follow steps 1 and 2 in the default install instructions (above).
3. In Eclipse 3.3, click New Archive Site....
   In Eclipse 3.4, click Add Site..., then Archive...
4. Browse and select the downloaded the zip file.
5. Follow the remaining procedures, above, starting from steps 5.

Note that to update your plugin, you will have to follow these steps again instead of the default update instructions.

Note that the "Android Editors" feature of ADT requires several optional Eclipse components (for example, WST). If you encounter an error when installing ADT, your Eclipse installion might not include those components. For information about how to quickly add the necessary components to your Eclipse installation, see the troubleshooting topic ADT Installation Error: "requires plug-in org.eclipse.wst.sse.ui".

For Linux users

If you encounter this error when installing the ADT Plugin for Eclipse:

An error occurred during provisioning.
Cannot connect to keystore.
JKS

...then your development machine lacks a suitable Java VM. Installing Sun Java 6 will resolve this issue and you can then reinstall the ADT Plugin.

After Installation: Next Steps

Once you have installed the SDK and the ADT Plugin, you are ready to begin developing applications. Here are a few ways you can get started:

Learn about Android

• Take a look at the Dev Guide and the types of information it provides
• Read an introduction to Android as a platform in What is Android?
• Learn about the Android framework and how applications run on it in Application Fundamentals
• Take a look at the Android framework API specification in the Reference tab

Explore the SDK

• Get an overview of the development tools that are available to you
• Read the overviews of how to develop in Eclipse/ADT or in other IDEs

Explore some code

• Set up a Hello World application
• Follow the Notepad Tutorial to build a full Android application
• Create a new project for one of the other sample applications included in <sdk>/samples, then compile and run it in your development environment

Visit the Android developer groups

• Take a look at the Community tab to see a list of Android developers groups. In particular, you might want to look at the Android Developers group to get a sense for what the Android developer community is like.

Installation Notes

Ubuntu Linux Notes

• If you need help installing and configuring Java on your development machine, you might find these resources helpful:
  • https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Java
  • https://help.ubuntu.com/community/JavaInstallation
• Here are the steps to install Java and Eclipse, prior to installing the Android SDK and ADT Plugin.
  1. If you are running a 64-bit distribution on your development machine, you need to install the ia32-libs package using apt-get::

     apt-get install ia32-libs

  2. Next, install Java:

     apt-get install sun-java6-bin

  3. The Ubuntu package manager does not currently offer an Eclipse 3.3 version for download, so we recommend that you download Eclipse from eclipse.org (http://www.eclipse.org/ downloads/). A Java or RCP version of Eclipse is recommended.
  4. Follow the steps given in previous sections to install the SDK and the ADT plugin.

Other Linux Notes

• If JDK is already installed on your development computer, please take a moment to make sure that it meets the version requirements listed in the System Requirements. In particular, note that some Linux distributions may include JDK 1.4 or Gnu Compiler for Java, both of which are not supported for Android development.