Android emulator
A virtual Android device created and managed on this machine, device type, Android version, lifecycle.
An Android emulator profile provisions a virtual Android device on this
machine. The app creates it, boots it, and connects it, you never touch
avdmanager.
Create it
- Add device → Android emulator.
- Fill in the fields:
- Device type: hardware profile: screen size, resolution (select, default
Pixel 9) - System image: the Android version the device runs (select, default
Android 34 · Google APIs) - Lifecycle: what Start and Stop do, see below (select, default
Persistent) - Headless: boot without an emulator window (toggle, default off)
- Device type: hardware profile: screen size, resolution (select, default
- Add device.
Lifecycle decides how long the device lives:
| Lifecycle | On Start | On Stop |
|---|---|---|
| Persistent | Reuses the existing device | Shuts the emulator down, keeps the device |
| Ephemeral | Creates a factory-fresh device | Deletes the device |
| Always-on | Reuses the existing device | Leaves the emulator running |
Persistent is the everyday choice. Ephemeral gives every session reproducible preconditions at the cost of a cold boot. Always-on skips even the shutdown, fastest turnaround, state carries over.
Run it
- Start on the profile card boots the emulator and connects it.
- Pick the profile in the test's Run on dropdown and press Run.
The card shows each state while Start works:
| State on the card | What's happening | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Set up phases: Downloading command-line tools… / Unpacking JDK… / Accepting licenses… / Installing emulator… / Downloading system image… | One-time tooling bootstrap, only when no Android SDK exists, runs after your consent click | Minutes, once per machine |
| Creating… | Building the virtual device | First Start only, and every Start with an Ephemeral lifecycle |
| Booting… (· 42s) | The emulator is cold-booting; the counter shows elapsed time | First boot takes several minutes, later boots are faster. If the emulator crashes on the machine's GPU, Start retries once with software graphics |
| Ready | Boot completed, device connected, green dot | An emulator that was already running skips straight here, never rebooted |
A Start that hangs in Booting… past ~8 minutes times out with an error, the emulator may still come up; Start again reconnects to it.
Testing on a physical phone instead? See Android phone (real device), discovered via USB and added as a profile with one click.