Once you install Android Studio, you can keep the Android Studio IDE
and Android SDK tools up to date with automatic updates
and the Android SDK Manager.
If you installed Android Studio using
JetBrains Toolbox
, then
Toolbox is responsible for handling updates to Android Studio. Toolbox lets you install canary,
beta, and stable versions of Android Studio in parallel. It also lets you roll back to earlier
versions of each, if required. When an update is available it displays in Toolbox, as
shown in figure 1.
Figure 1.
Jetbrains Toolbox showing available updates.
Update your IDE and change channels
If you installed Android Studio manually, Android Studio notifies you with a small bubble
dialog when an update is available for the IDE. To manually check for updates,
click
File
>
Settings
>
Appearance & Behavior
>
System Settings
>
Updates
(on macOS,
Android Studio
>
Check for Updates
). See figure 2.
Updates for Android Studio are available from the following
release channels:
- Canary channel:
these bleeding-edge
releases are updated roughly weekly and are available for download on the
Preview release
page.
In addition to receiving canary versions of Android Studio, you 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 are available so you can try new
features and provide feedback.
Note:
This channel is not recommended for
production development.
- Beta channel:
these are release candidates based on stable canary builds
and are available for download on the
Preview release
page.
They are released to get feedback before being integrated into the stable channel.
- Stable channel:
the official, stable release of
Android Studio
.
If you'd like to try one of the preview channels (canary or beta)
while still using the stable build for your production projects, you
can
install them side by side
.
Figure 2.
The Android Studio Updates
preferences.
Delete unused Android Studio directories
When you run a major version of Android Studio for the first time, it looks for directories
containing caches, settings, indices, and logs for versions of Android Studio for which a
corresponding installation can't be found. The
Delete Unused Android Studio
Directories
dialog then displays locations, sizes, and last-modified times of these unused
directories and provides an option to delete them.
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
,
as shown in figure 3.
To open the SDK Manager from Android Studio, click
Tools >
SDK Manager
or click
SDK Manager
in the toolbar. If you're not using Android Studio, you can download tools
using the
sdkmanager
command-line tool.
When an update is available for a package you already have, a dash
appears in the checkbox next to the package.
- To update an item or install a new one, select the checkbox.
- To uninstall a package, click to clear the checkbox.
Pending updates are indicated in the left column with a download icon
. Pending removals are
indicated with a red X:
.
To update the selected packages,
click
Apply
or
OK
and agree to any
license agreements.
Figure 3.
The Android SDK Manager.
Required packages
You can find the following tools in the
SDK Tools
tab:
- Android SDK Build Tools
- Includes tools to build Android apps.
For more information, see the
SDK Build Tools release notes
.
- Android SDK Platform Tools
- Includes various tools required by the
Android platform, including the
adb
tool.
- Android SDK Command-Line Tools
- Includes essential tools such as ProGuard. For more information, see
the
SDK Tools release notes
.
- Android SDK Platform
In the
SDK Platforms
tab, you must install at least one version of the Android
platform so you can compile your app. Use the latest platform version as your build target to
provide the best user experience on the latest devices. To download a version, select the checkbox next
to the version name.
You can still run your app on older versions; however, you must build against the latest
version to use new features when running on devices with the latest version of
Android.
- Google USB Driver
- Required for Windows. Includes tools to help you perform
adb
debugging with Google devices. To install, visit
Get the Google USB Driver
.
Recommended packages
The following tools are recommended for development:
- Android Emulator
- A QEMU-based device-emulation tool that you can use to debug
and test your applications in an actual Android runtime environment. For more details, see
the
Emulator release notes
.
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 available from Google's Maven repository.
Projects created with Android Studio 3.0 and higher automatically include this repository in the
build configuration. If you're using an older project, you must manually
add Google's Maven repository
to your
build.gradle
or
build.gradle.kts
file.
- Intel
or
ARM System Images
- The system image is required to run the
Android Emulator
. Each platform version
contains the supported system images. You can also download system images later
when creating Android Virtual Devices (AVDs) in the
AVD Manager
. Select either Intel
or ARM based on your development computer's processor.
- Google Play services
- Includes a set of libraries, Javadocs, and samples to help build your app. If you want to use
APIs from
Google Play services
, you must use either the Google APIs system
image or the Google play system image.
The preceding list is not comprehensive, and you can add other sites to download additional packages
from third parties, as described in the following section.
In some cases, an SDK package might 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.
Edit or add SDK tool sites
Under the
SDK Update Sites
tab, you can add and manage other sites that host their own tools,
and then download the packages from those sites. Android Studio checks for Android tools and
third-party tool updates from the SDK sites you add.
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
tab.
If a carrier or device manufacturer has hosted an SDK add-on repository file
on their website, follow these steps to add the site to the Android SDK
Manager:
- Click the
SDK Update Sites
tab.
- Click
Add
at the
top of the window.
- Enter the name and URL of the third-party site, then
click
OK
.
- Make sure the checkbox is selected in the
Enabled
column.
- Click
Apply
or
OK
.
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
from the
command line
or Android Studio, Gradle can automatically download
missing SDK packages that a project depends on, as long as the corresponding SDK license
agreements have already been accepted in 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.
If you have accepted the license agreements on one workstation but want to
build your projects on a different one, you can export your licenses by
copying over the accepted licenses directory.
To copy the licenses to another
machine, follow these steps:
- On a machine with Android Studio installed, click
Tools >
SDK Manager
. At the top of the window, note the
Android
SDK Location
.
Navigate to that directory and locate the
licenses/
directory
inside it.
If you don't see a
licenses/
directory, return to
Android Studio, update your SDK tools, and accept the license
agreements. When you return to the Android SDK home directory, you should
see the directory.
- Copy the entire
licenses/
directory and paste it into the
Android SDK home directory on the machine where you want to build your
projects.
Gradle can now 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. To manually disable this feature, set
android.builder.sdkDownload=false
in the
gradle.properties
file for your project.
Update your tools with the command line
On systems that don't have a graphical UI, such as CI servers, you can't use
the SDK Manager in Android Studio. Instead, use the
sdkmanager
command-line tool
to
install
and
update
SDK tools and platforms.
After installing SDK tools and platforms using
sdkmanager
, you might need to accept
any missing licenses. This can also be done using
sdkmanager
:
$ sdkmanager --licenses
This command scans all of the installed SDK tools and platforms and displays any licenses that have
not been accepted. You are prompted to accept each license.