How to install AVD separately and use it in Android Studio

Issue

I downloaded an AVD out of android studio, now I want to use it in it, how can I do that? the link I downloaded is:

https://https:/dl.google.com/android/repository/sys-img/google_apis/x86-26_r10.zip

Thank you

Solution

Okay the process of installing an externally downloaded system image is not super complex and @whack_panther had the idea right.

To make everything work with an external installation you do need to unzip the x86 folder from the downloaded system image to:

C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Local\Android\sdk\system-images\android-26\google_apis

In order to find this folder in Windows ensure that you have your hidden folders visible.

The download you provided is API-26 and the Release name is O, keep this in mind because this is where I ran into confusion at first as I already had many sys-images downloaded on my system for development purposes.

What I did:

I removed all of my downloaded system images and then placed only the new system image from link you provided in the directory listed above to ensure we were looking at the same data. When I did this, the only available system image that would not require an additional download when I attempted to create a new AVD from the AVD Manager GUI located under “Tools” in the Android Studio menu was:

Release Name: O | API Level: 26 | ABI: x86 | Target: Android 8 (Google APIs)

Which is the system image downloaded from the link you provided.

Then set everything up as usual with your externally downloaded system image using the prompts in the AVD Manager and you should be good to go. Also note that here I was required to create a New Hardware Profile to enable the option to use the newly downloaded system image, I would bet this is because there are settings in the download that do not apply to the built-in hardware profiles

One note: The folder you provided appears to have variations already available from Android Studio so I would suggest looking through the options in the AVD manager before you stick with the idea of downloading external images for these purposes, doing so is obviously supported but it may not be needed so there is no reason to make things more challenging for yourself unless it is completely necessary.

Answered By - ViaTech