How to Install Android Sdk Build Tools on the Command Line

I am getting error cmdline-tools component is missing after installing Flutter and Android Studio... I added the Android SDK. How can I solve them?

The solution for me was opening Android Studio and going to SDK Manager, switch to the SDK Tools tab and check Android SDK Command-line Tools (latest).

Don't forget to add to your PATH the tools and platform-tools folder that are inside your SDK.

Failed to install the following Android SDK packages as some licences have not been accepted error

You need to accept the licences before building.

According to Android SDK docs you can use the following command depending on the sdkmanager location: Docs on --licenses option seems to be missing though.

yes | sdkmanager --licenses

GNU/Linux Distributions:

yes | ~/Android/Sdk/tools/bin/sdkmanager --licenses

macOS:

export JAVA_HOME=/Applications/Android\ Studio.app/Contents/jre/jdk/Contents/Home
yes | ~/Library/Android/sdk/tools/bin/sdkmanager --licenses

Windows:

%ANDROID_HOME%/tools/bin/sdkmanager --licenses

Flutter:

> flutter config --android-sdk 'path-of-android-sdk'(only for ubuntu user)
> flutter doctor --android-licenses

Android Command line tools sdkmanager always shows: Warning: Could not create settings

Instead of passing the argument --sdk_root for each single command execution, let's deep dive into the real cause.

Starting from Android SDK Command-line Tools 1.0.0 (6200805), in contrast to Android SDK 26.1.1 (4333796), the tools directory hierarchy has been changed.
Previously it was placed right inside ANDROID_HOME (which is deprecated, we will use the term ANDROID_SDK_ROOT for the rest of the paragraph), now it's still named as tools (the only thing you'll get after unpacking the downloaded commandlinetools zip file), but differently, you have to place it inside a directory called cmdline-tools on your own. The name cmdline-tools comes from its package name, where you can get from listing packages command sdkmanager --list, whose outputs include cmdline-tools;1.0 | 1.0 | Android SDK Command-line Tools.

Wrapping tools directory inside cmdline-tools directory would make it work, and help you get rid of the annoying --sdk_root argument. But what about the other parts?

Well, that's all you have to change. Let me explain more.

• The king - sdkmanager lives inside cmdline-tools/tools/bin, you'd better set in PATH environment variable
• cmdline-tools should not be set as ANDROID_SDK_ROOT. Because later, when updating Android SDK, or installing more packages, the other packages will be placed under ANDROID_SDK_ROOT, but not under cmdline-tools.
• The final, complete ANDROID_SDK_ROOT directory structure should look like below, consist of quite a few sub-directories: build-tools, cmdline-tools, emulator, licenses, patcher, platform-tools, platforms, system-images. You can easily point out that build-tools and cmdline-tools are siblings, all sit inside the parent ANDROID_SDK_ROOT.

Let me recap in a simple way:

• Set your preferred ANDROID_SDK_ROOT (just like before)
• Download and unpack the commandlinetools zip file into a directory called cmdline-tools, which is inside ANDROID_SDK_ROOT
• Append the directory $ANDROID_SDK_ROOT/cmdline-tools/tools/bin to environment variable PATH, so that the system knows where to find sdkmanager

!!UPDATE!!

The behavior has changed again since the build 6858069 (Android SDK Command-line Tools 3.0):

• After unzipping the package, the top-most directory you'll get is cmdline-tools.
• Rename the unpacked directory from cmdline-tools to tools, and place it under $ANDROID_SDK_ROOT/cmdline-tools, so now it should look like: $ANDROID_SDK_ROOT/cmdline-tools/tools. And inside it, you should have: NOTICE.txt bin lib source.properties. Actually according to the official Command-Line Tools doc, the tree structure should be android_sdk/cmdline-tools/version/bin/, but I've checked, using version or tools makes no difference here.
• For your environment variable PATH, I would recommend you to set like this: PATH=$PATH:$ANDROID_SDK_ROOT/cmdline-tools/latest/bin:$ANDROID_SDK_ROOT/cmdline-tools/tools/bin, because after update later, you'll get the latest sdkmanager placed under $ANDROID_SDK_ROOT/cmdline-tools/latest/bin, put it in front will make it higher priority.

How to install old version of Android build tools from command line?

Assuming you have downloaded the Android SDK for linux, you have two options to update from command line.

Download using android tool from the sdk

Instead of running the android sdk manager with a GUI, you also have an option to run in headless mode. You just need to specify -u (or --no-ui) flag.

To list packages available for installation or upgrade:

$ cd android-sdk-linux
$ ./tools/android list sdk --all
Refresh Sources:
  (...)
  Fetching URL: https://dl.google.com/android/repository/repository-11.xml
  (...)
Packages available for installation or update: 166
   1- Android SDK Tools, revision 24.4.1
   2- Android SDK Tools, revision 25.0.9 rc10
   3- Android SDK Platform-tools, revision 23.1
   4- Android SDK Platform-tools, revision 24 rc1
   5- Android SDK Build-tools, revision 24 rc1
   6- Android SDK Build-tools, revision 23.0.2
   7- Android SDK Build-tools, revision 23.0.1
   8- Android SDK Build-tools, revision 23 (Obsolete)
  (...)
 162- Google Play Billing Library, revision 5
 163- Google Play Licensing Library, revision 2
 164- Android Auto API Simulators, revision 1
 165- Google Web Driver, revision 2
 166- Intel x86 Emulator Accelerator (HAXM installer), revision 6.0.1
 

To download specific packages you need to specify the number of the item you want to install from the list in the following command:

$ ./tools/android update sdk -u -a -t [NO_OF_ITEM_TO_BE_INSTALLED]

Example: if I wanted to install Android SDK build tools revision 23.0.1, I would type in:

$ ./tools/android update sdk -u -a -t 7

Manual download

As not every package (especially the old ones) is listed when you do android sdk list, you can also download things manually. You can manually open the XML file that is shown when during android sdk list - https://dl.google.com/android/repository/repository-11.xml

You can find there links to various types of things to download, e.g:

• ADK
• http://dl.google.com/android/ADT-XX.0.0.zip
• SDK Tools
• http://dl.google.com/android/repository/tools_rXX-linux.zip
• http://dl.google.com/android/repository/tools_rXX-windows.zip
• http://dl.google.com/android/repository/tools_rXX-macosx.zip
• Platform Tools
• http://dl.google.com/android/repository/platform-tools_rXX-linux.zip
• http://dl.google.com/android/repository/platform-tools_rXX-windows.zip
• http://dl.google.com/android/repository/platform-tools_rXX-macosx.zip
• Build Tools
• http://dl.google.com/android/repository/build-tools_rXX-linux.zip
• http://dl.google.com/android/repository/build-tools_rXX-windows.zip
• http://dl.google.com/android/repository/build-tools_rXX-macosx.zip
• Platforms
• http://dl.google.com/android/repository/android-XX.zip

To manually download e.g. version 19.0.1 of build tools

$ cd android-sdk-linux/build-tools
$ wget http://dl.google.com/android/repository/build-tools_r19.0.1-linux.zip
$ unzip build-tools_r19.0.1-linux.zip
$ mv android-4.4.2 19.0.1
$ rm build-tools_r19.0.1-linux.zip

Side note (ubuntu):

If you're running debian/ubuntu 64-bit, to run aapt you will need to install additional packages:

sudo apt-get install lib32stdc++6
sudo apt-get install lib32z1

If you're running CentOs (RedHat), to run aapt you will need to install additional packages:

sudo yum install zlib.i686 libstd++.i686

While running aapt, if you get an error with GLIBC 2.14 and you dont wont to upgrade your locale GLIBC. Then u need to download the following packages for sdk (build-tool, platform-tool) :

build-tool : http://dl.google.com/android/repository/build-tools_r23.0.2-linux.zip

platform-tool : https://dl.google.com/android/repository/platform-tools_r23.0.1-linux.zip

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