Updating Software

Since Android is a rapidly evolving platform, it is important to maintain current software for Android Studio and plugin updates, and for the Android SDK (both Platforms and Tools). The AS platform will probably notify automatically of possible updates, but you can also check for them yourself:

• Check manually for Android Studio updates by selecting Help > Check for Update.


• Check manually for SDK updates by opening the SDK manager: Tools > Android > SDK Manager, and selecting the SDK Platforms and SDK Tools tabs. The entries for each will be marked as Installed, Not Installed, or Update available... If you wish to install an update (or install an entry marked Not Installed) select the box to the left of it, click OK, and agree to the license terms that are then presented.

On a related note, it is also good practice to keep abreast of the latest online Android documentation, since best practices evolve and some classes and methods in previously-written apps may be deprecated in favor of newer ones over time. Because of backward compatibility your app will likely still work, but there may be advantages to updating older apps to take advantage of newer capabilities of the SDK.

Last modified: June 9, 2016