You can set environment variables for Android Studio and the command-line tools that specify things like where the SDK is installed and where user-specific data is stored. This page describes the most commonly used environment variables.
The following example shows how to use an environment variable to launch an emulator
when the SDK installation has been put in E:\Android\sdk\
instead of in
its default location of $USER_HOME
or $HOME
.
$ set ANDROID_SDK_ROOT=E:\Android\sdk\ $ emulator -avd Pixel_API_25
Variables reference
The following table describes commonly used environment variables for the Android SDK tools.
Table 1. Environment variables
Android SDK environment variables | |
---|---|
ANDROID_SDK_ROOT |
Sets the path to the SDK installation directory. Once set,
the value does not typically change, and can be shared by multiple users on the same machine.
ANDROID_HOME , which also points to the SDK installation directory,
is deprecated. If you continue to use it, the following rules apply:
|
REPO_OS_OVERRIDE
|
Set this variable to windows , macosx , or linux when
you use sdkmanager
to download packages for an operating system different from the current machine.
|
Android Studio configuration environment variables | |
The Android Studio configuration variables contain settings that customize the location of configuration files and the JDK. On start-up, Android Studio checks these variables for settings. For more information, see Configure Android Studio. | |
STUDIO_VM_OPTIONS
|
Sets the location of the studio.vmoptions file.
This file contains settings that affect the performance characteristics of the Java HotSpot
Virtual Machine. This file can also be accessed from within Android Studio. See
Customize your VM options.
|
STUDIO_PROPERTIES
|
Sets the location of the idea.properties
file. This file allows you to customize Android Studio IDE properties, such as the path to
user installed plugins, and the maximum file size supported by the IDE. See
Customize your IDE properties.
|
STUDIO_JDK
|
Sets the location of the JDK with which to run Studio. When you launch Android Studio,
it checks the STUDIO_JDK , JDK_HOME , and JAVA_HOME
environment variables in that order.
|
Emulator Environment Variables | |
By default, the emulator stores configuration files under
$HOME/.android/ and AVD data under $HOME/.android/avd/ . You can
override the defaults by setting the following environment variables.
The emulator -avd <avd_name> command searches the avd
directory in the order of the values in $ANDROID_AVD_HOME ,
$ANDROID_SDK_HOME/.android/avd/ , and $HOME/.android/avd/ .
For emulator environment variable help, type
|
|
ANDROID_EMULATOR_HOME
|
Sets the path to the user-specific emulator configuration
directory. The default location is $ANDROID_SDK_HOME/.android/ .
|
ANDROID_AVD_HOME
|
Sets the path to the directory that contains all AVD-specific
files, which mostly consist of very large disk images. The default location is
$ANDROID_EMULATOR_HOME/avd/ . You might want to specify a new location if
the default location is low on disk space.
|
The Android emulator queries the following environment variables when it starts. | |
ANDROID_LOG_TAGS
|
See ANDROID_LOG_TAGS .
|
HTTP_PROXY
|
Contains the HTTP/HTTPS proxy (host name and port)
setting for a global http proxy. Uses a colon (:) separator between the host and the port. For
example, set HTTP_PROXY=myserver:1981 .
|
ANDROID_VERBOSE
|
See ANDROID_VERBOSE .
|
ANDROID_EMULATOR_HOME
|
See ANDROID_EMULATOR_HOME .
|
ANDROID_SDK_ROOT
|
See ANDROID_SDK_ROOT .
|
ANDROID_EMULATOR_USE_SYSTEM_LIBS
|
Contains a value of 0 (default) or 1. A value of 1 means to use the system's
libstdc++.so file instead of the one that comes bundled with the emulator.
Set this enivronment variable only when the emulator does not start on your linux system
because of a system library problem. For example, some Linux Radeon GL driver libraries
require a more recent libstdc++.so file.
|
Quick emulator (QEMU) audio | |
QEMU_AUDIO_DRV
QEMU_AUDIO_OUT_DRV
QEMU_AUDIO_IN_DRV
|
On Linux, you can change the default audio
backend of the emulator by setting the QEMU_AUDIO_DRV environment variable
to one of the following values:
set QEMU_AUDIO_DRV=alsa
You can also use distinct backends for audio input and audio outputs by selecting one of the
QEMU values for the set QEMU_AUDIO_OUT=esd set QEMU_AUDIO_IN=oss
If you want to disable the audio support, use the
|
adb environment variables | |
ANDROID_SERIAL
|
Use this variable to provide an emulator serial number, such
as emulator-5555, to an adb command. If you set this variable, but use the -s
option to specify a serial number from the command line, the command-line input overrides
the value in ANDROID_SERIAL .
The following example sets set ANDROID_SERIAL=emulator-555 adb install helloWorld.apk |
adb logcat environment variables | |
ANDROID_LOG_TAGS
|
Use this environment variable to set a default filter
expression when you are running logcat from your development computer. For example:
set
See Filtering Log Output for more information and examples. |
ADB_TRACE
|
Contains a comma-separated list of the debug information to log.
Values can be the following: all , adb , sockets ,
packets , rwx , usb , sync , sysdeps ,
transport , and jdwp .
To display the adb logs for the adb clients and the adb server, set set ADB_TRACE=all adb logcat |
ANDROID_VERBOSE
|
Contains a comma-separated list of verbose output options
(debug tags) used by the emulator. The following example shows ANDROID_VERBOSE
defined with the debug-socket and debug-radio debug tags:
set ANDROID_VERBOSE=socket,radio
Unsupported debug tags are ignored. For more
information about debug tags, use |
How to set environment variables
The following examples show how to set environment variables in a terminal window and in a shell script for different operating systems. Variable settings in terminal windows last as long as the window is open. Variable settings in shell scripts persist across login sessions.
Windows: In a terminal window, type the following:
set HTTP_PROXY=myserver:1981
Alternately, add it to a shell script through the Windows UI. Check the documentation for your version of Windows to learn how.
Mac and Linux: In a terminal window, type the following:
export HTTP_PROXY=myserver:1981
Alternately, add it to your ~/.bash_profile
file and source the file as follows:
export HTTP_PROXY=myserver:1981
$ source ~/.bash_profile