BUENOVAMobile Development
The British University in EgyptFaculty ofInformatics &
Computer Science

Step 04 of 07

Configure the Android SDK & environment

Install Android Studio for the SDK and emulator, then point your environment at it.

30–45 minTool: Android Studio & Emulator →

Requirements

  • 15 GB+ free disk space
  • 8 GB RAM minimum (16 GB recommended)
  • Hardware virtualisation enabled in BIOS

Download

Download Android Studio from developer.android.com/studio.

Installation

Run the installer and choose the Standard setup. It installs the SDK, platform-tools and an emulator image.

Configuration

Add the SDK to your environment variables.

Important

Open a new terminal after changing environment variables.

Windows

  1. Search “Edit the system environment variables” → Environment Variables.
  2. Add a user variable ANDROID_HOME = %LOCALAPPDATA%\Android\Sdk
  3. Edit Path and add %LOCALAPPDATA%\Android\Sdk\platform-tools
[Environment]::GetEnvironmentVariable("ANDROID_HOME", "User")

macOS

Add to ~/.zshrc:

export ANDROID_HOME=$HOME/Library/Android/sdk
export PATH=$PATH:$ANDROID_HOME/emulator:$ANDROID_HOME/platform-tools

Linux

Add to ~/.bashrc:

export ANDROID_HOME=$HOME/Android/Sdk
export PATH=$PATH:$ANDROID_HOME/emulator:$ANDROID_HOME/platform-tools

Verification

Run each command in a new terminal window.

adb --version

→ expect Android Debug Bridge version 1.0.x

echo $ANDROID_HOME

→ expect Path to your Android SDK folder

Common errors

SDK location not found
Cause

ANDROID_HOME is not set or points to the wrong folder.

Fix

Copy the exact path from Android Studio → Settings → Languages & Frameworks → Android SDK.