Skip to content

AVDManager — Advanced Usage

The AVDManager class provides programmatic access to the Android Virtual Device (AVD) management functionalities, wrapping the avdmanager CLI commands with Python.

It can be used directly to create, list, and delete AVDs without relying on the higher-level AndroidDevice abstraction.

📦 Import and Initialization

To use AVDManager, you need an initialized AndroidSDK (which automatically locates your SDK tools):

from android_device_manager.avd.manager import AVDManager
from android_device_manager.avd.config import AVDConfiguration
from android_device_manager.utils.android_sdk import AndroidSDK

# Initialize SDK and AVDManager
sdk = AndroidSDK()
avd_manager = AVDManager(sdk)

🆕 Creating an AVD

The create() method creates a new virtual device.
You need an AVDConfiguration specifying at least a name and a system image package.

avd_config = AVDConfiguration(
    name="advanced_avd",
    package="system-images;android-34;google_apis;x86_64"
)

try:
    avd_manager.create(avd_config, force=False)
    print("AVD created successfully.")
except Exception as e:
    print(f"Failed to create AVD: {e}")

Note

  • The AVD name must follow Android naming rules (letters, digits, _, -, starting with a letter).
  • If force=True is set, an existing AVD with the same name will be overwritten.

📜 Listing AVDs

You can retrieve the list of existing AVDs using the list() method.

avd_list = avd_manager.list()
print("Available AVDs:")
for avd in avd_list:
    print(f" - {avd}")

Example output:

Available AVDs:
 - Pixel_5_API_34
 - advanced_avd

🔍 Checking if an AVD Exists

You can check for the existence of a specific AVD:

if avd_manager.exist("advanced_avd"):
    print("The AVD exists.")
else:
    print("The AVD does not exist.")

🗑️ Deleting an AVD

The delete() method removes a specific AVD by name:

try:
    avd_manager.delete("advanced_avd")
    print("AVD deleted successfully.")
except Exception as e:
    print(f"Failed to delete AVD: {e}")

If the AVD does not exist, delete() will log a warning but will not raise an error.

🛠️ Under the Hood

Internally, AVDManager: - Uses avdmanager create avd and avdmanager delete avd CLI commands. - Validates AVD names with is_valid_avd_name(). - Checks if the system image package is installed through SDKManager.

Advanced users can directly call _run_avd_command() to execute raw avdmanager commands:

result = avd_manager._run_avd_command(["list", "avd"], timeout=30)
print(result.stdout)

⚠️ Common Pitfalls

  • System image not installed: Ensure your package (system-images;android-XX;google_apis;x86_64) is installed via sdkmanager.
  • Invalid names: Follow Android AVD naming rules (no spaces, must start with a letter).
  • Permissions: Ensure you have write access to the .android/avd directory.

👉 This advanced control over AVDs is useful when you want to script emulator environments, clean up AVDs, or prepare devices dynamically in CI pipelines.