- The Android Emulator simulates Android devices on your computer so that you can test your application on a variety of devices and Android API levels without needing to have each physical device.
- The emulator provides almost all of the capabilities of a real Android device. You can simulate incoming phone calls and text messages, specify the location of the device, simulate different network speeds, simulate rotation and other hardware sensors, access the Google Play Store, and much more.
- Testing your app on the emulator is in some ways faster and easier than doing so on a physical device. For example, you can transfer data faster to the emulator than to a device connected over USB.
- The emulator comes with predefined configurations for various Android phone, tablet, Wear OS, and Android TV devices.
- Watch the following video for an overview of some emulator features.
Requirement and recommendations
The Android emulator takes additional requirements beyond the basic system requirement for Android Studio. These requirements are given below:
- SDK Tools 26.1.1 or higher
- 64-bit processor
- Windows: CPU with UG (unrestricted guest) support
- HAXM 6.2.1 or later (recommended HAXM 7.2.0 or later)
Install the Emulator
To install the Android Emulator, select the Android Emulator component in the SDK Tools tab of the SDK Manager
Run an app on the Android Emulator
You can run an app from an Android Studio project, or you can run an app that’s been installed on the Android Emulator as you would run any app on a device.
To start the Android Emulator and run an app in your project
- In the toolbar, select the AVD that you want to run your app from the target device drop-down menu.
- Click Run
button.