Finding Android SDK on Mac and adding to PATH

Question

I have installed Android Studio on my MacBook Air (OS Version 10.11 El Capitan) and have successfully written a small "hello, world" app and installed on device (Nexus 7) and ran on AVD. All I want to do now is be able to build the app and install it on device from the command line as opposed to Android Studio. I'm following the directions here:

http://developer.android.com/training/basics/firstapp/running-app.html

and the relevant line is:

Make sure the Android SDK platform-tools/ directory is included in your PATH environment variable, then execute:

The problem is I can't find the Android SDK on my machine! I assume it's there because otherwise the program wouldn't compile and run through Android Studio? Perhaps that's a bad assumption? I'm new to Macs (I'm used to Windows) so I don't know the best way to search for the Android SDK. So my questions:

1. How do I find Android SDK on my machine? Or prove to myself it's not there?
2. If it's not there how do I install it?
3. How do I change PATH to include Android SDK?

Rondi

try searching here /Library/Android/sdk/ – Standford

you need to export 2 paths -- #18143683 – Awhile

you can find the path in your sdk manager: Android Studio->Preferences->Appeareance & Behavior->System Settings->Android SDK-> here Android SDK Location – Garnish

Try /Users/<your_user>/Library/Android/sdk – Slay

Answer 1

1. How to find it

• Open Android studio, go to Android Studio > Preferences
• Search for sdk
• Something similar to this (this is a Windows box as you can see) will show

You can see the location there – most of the time it is:

/Users/<name>/Library/Android/sdk

2. How to install it, if not there

• Go to Android standalone SDK download page
• Download the zip file for macOS
• Extract it to a directory

3. How to add it to the path

Open your Terminal edit your ~/.bash_profile file in nano by typing:

nano ~/.bash_profile

If you use Zsh, edit ~/.zshrc instead.

Go to the end of the file and add the directory path to your $PATH:

export PATH="${HOME}/Library/Android/sdk/tools:${HOME}/Library/Android/sdk/platform-tools:${PATH}"

• Save it by pressing Ctrl+X
• Restart the Terminal
• To see if it is working or not, type in the name of any file or binary which are inside the directories that you've added (e.g. adb) and verify it is opened/executed

Carlycarlye

Thanks. I followed step 1 and saw the path was: /Users/user/Library/Android/sdk Curiously, using "Finder" and Go->Go To Folder, I couldn't get to it by drilling down from /Users/user/Library etc. The user directory did not show Library! Must be some strange Mac thing. I had to put the full path in Finder. – Rondi

For posterity, this link might be useful for adding to PATH: osxdaily.com/2014/08/14/add-new-path-to-path-command-line I had to manually type the path in for the export. Nowhere in "Finder" did I see a copy directory name like in Windows. Sigh... – Rondi

Restart the Terminal after you safed the /etc/paths file – Circumambulate

Recommend not edit /etc/path directly. use "export" in ~/.bash_profile instead. Ex. export PATH="/Users/<user_name>/Library/Android/sdk/platform-tools/":$PATH after add above to ~/.bash_profile just use source ~/.bash_profile if there is no error you can freely to use adb command – Harris

Thanks this worked perfectly for me. I had tried to export in ~/.back_profile but that did not work at all. – Ecospecies

Nice post! To me, these are all things that could happen automatically when installing the sdk though... 🤔 – Demonolatry

Thanks, only difference I had is, I had to use open .zprofile, and update the exports there since it is M1 chip (zsh) – Senary

Answer 2

If you don't want to open Android Studio just to modify your path...

They live here with a default installation:

${HOME}/Library/Android/sdk/tools
${HOME}/Library/Android/sdk/platform-tools

Here's what you want to add to your .bashwhatever

export PATH="${HOME}/Library/Android/sdk/tools:${HOME}/Library/Android/sdk/platform-tools:${PATH}"

Stat

it works for mac user, must try, thank you :) – Cresting

Answer 3

Find the Android SDK location

Android Studio 
  > Preferences
  > Appearance & Behaviour
  > System Settings 
  > Android SDK
  > Android SDK Location

Create a .bash_profile file for your environment variables

• Open the Terminal app
• Go to your home directory via cd ~
• Create the file with touch .bash_profile

Add the PATH variable to your .bash_profile

• Open the file via open .bash_profile

• Add export PATH=$PATH: [your SDK location] /platform-tools to the file and hit ⌘s to save it. By default it's:

  export PATH=$PATH:/Users/yourUserName/Library/Android/sdk/platform-tools

• Go back to your Terminal App and load the variable with source ~/.bash_profile

Monomania

Answer 4

1. How do I find Android SDK on my machine? Or prove to myself it's not there?

When you install Android studio, it allows you to choose if you want to download SDK or not

2. If it's not there how do I install it?

you can get SDK from here http://developer.android.com/sdk/index.html

3. How do I change PATH to include Android SDK?

in Android Studio click in File >> Settings

Misdeem

Answer 5

If Android Studio shows you the path /Users/<name>/Library/Android/sdk but you can not find it in your folder, just right-click and select "Show View Option". There you will be able to select "Show Library Folder"; select it and you can access the SDK.

Intoxicated

Answer 6

I found it here: /Users//Library/Android/sdk

and Platform-tools is available as well

Misunderstood

/Users/L... and not /Users//. ? – Acetal

Answer 7

The default path of Android SDK is /Users/<username>/Library/Android/sdk, you can refer to this post.

add this to your .bash_profile to add the environment variable

export PATH="/Users/<username>/Library/Android/sdk/tools:/Users/<username>/Library/Android/sdk/build-tools:${PATH}"

Then save the file.

load it

source ./.bash_profile 

Nickels

Answer 8

AndroidStudioFrontScreenI simply double clicked the Android dmg install file that I saved on the hard drive and when the initial screen came up I dragged the icon for Android Studio into the Applications folder, now I know where it is!!! Also when you run it, be sure to right click the Android Studio while on the Dock and select "Options" -> "Keep on Dock". Everything else works. Dr. Roger Webster

Moniquemonism

Answer 9

For Visual Studio for Mac users (e.g. who installed Android SDK together with VS):

• open Visual Studio for Mac
• select from menu: Tools -> SDK Manager -> Select 3rd tab: 'Localizations' in dialog

You can find JDK, Android NDK and Android SDK localizations there (if installed and selected). If no Android SDK path found, you may try to find it using Android Studio (if it is installed)

Schoolboy

Answer 10

In my case, I had to create local.properties file with sdk.dir=PATH_TO_ANDROID_SDK in my machine. It seems that, it's regarding the android sdk path setup. Hence, it could also be set in ANDROID_HOME env. variable too.

Aetolia