About This Catalog
A comprehensive catalog of every Android Emulator system image available from Google's official SDK repositories. All download links point directly to dl.google.com.
How It Works
Every month, an automated script fetches metadata from 16 Google SDK channels (33 XML manifest files). For each system image zip, it uses HTTP Range requests to extract build.prop and source.properties without downloading the full file — typically only ~70KB of bandwidth per 2GB zip.
What's Inside Each Image
Each system image zip contains the files needed to run an Android emulator:
- system.img — Main Android OS filesystem (typically 1-3 GB)
- vendor.img — Vendor partition (30-90 MB)
- kernel-ranchu — Emulator kernel
- ramdisk.img — Initial RAM disk
- userdata.img — Default user data partition
- build.prop — System build properties (fingerprint, version, security patch)
- source.properties — SDK Manager metadata
- encryptionkey.img — Encryption key image
Image Channels
Google publishes system images across 16 separate channels, each serving a different device/form factor:
| Channel | Description | API Range | Play Store |
|---|---|---|---|
google_apis_playstore | Google APIs + Play Store — the most commonly used images for app development and testing | 24–36.1 | Yes |
google_apis | Google APIs without Play Store — useful when you need Google services but not the store | 10–36.1 | No |
android | AOSP / vanilla Android — no Google services, pure open-source Android | 10–36 | No |
android-tv | Android TV emulator images | 21–36 | No |
google-tv | Google TV emulator images (includes Google TV launcher) | 30–36 | No |
google_xr | Google XR (extended reality) images + AI Glasses (Micro XR) | 34–36 | Varies |
android-desktop | Android Desktop form factor emulator images | 32–34 | No |
google_apis_tablet | Tablet-specific images with Google APIs | 34–35 | No |
aosp_tablet | Tablet AOSP images | 34 | No |
google_playstore_tablet | Tablet images with Google Play Store | 34–35 | Yes |
aosp_atd | AOSP Automated Test Device — lightweight images optimized for fast CI/CD testing | 30–36 | No |
google_atd | Google ATD — lightweight test images with Google APIs | 30–36 | No |
android-wear | Wear OS emulator images | 23–36 | No |
android-wear-cn | Wear OS China variant (no Google Play services) | 25–30 | No |
android-automotive | Android Automotive OS emulator images | 28–35 | Varies |
android-automotive-distantdisplay | Automotive with distant/multi-display support | 32–33 | No |
ABIs (CPU Architectures)
| ABI | Architecture | API Range | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
arm64-v8a | ARM 64-bit | 21–36.1 | Primary ABI from API 31+. Best for Apple Silicon Macs (M1/M2/M3/M4). |
x86_64 | Intel/AMD 64-bit | 21–36.1 | Best performance on Intel/AMD desktops with hardware acceleration (HAXM/KVM). |
x86 | Intel 32-bit | 10–34 | Legacy. Only Android TV images still use x86 after API 30. |
armeabi-v7a | ARM 32-bit | 10–25 | Deprecated. Last image at API 25. Very slow on x86 hosts (no hardware accel). |
mips | MIPS | 16–17 | Extremely rare. Only 2 images ever published. MIPS support removed long ago. |
API Levels & Android Versions
| API | Android | Codename | Year | EOL Status | Images Available |
|---|
Build Tags Explained
| Tag | Meaning | Count |
|---|---|---|
dev-keys | Signed with development keys. Used by newer emulator images (API 29+). Includes userdebug build type with root access and debugging enabled. | - |
test-keys | Signed with test keys. Used by older emulator images (API 10–28). Similar to dev-keys but from the earlier signing convention. | - |
release-keys | Signed with release keys. Extremely rare for emulator images — production device firmware uses these, but emulator images almost never do. | - |
Build Types Explained
| Type | Meaning |
|---|---|
userdebug | User build with debugging enabled. Root access available via adb root. Most common for emulator images. |
user | Production-like build. No root access. Closer to what ships on real devices. Used by Google Play Store images. |
eng | Engineering build. Full debugging, extra tools. Rare in published images. |
Missing API Levels
You may notice gaps in the API level sequence. These APIs never had emulator system images published:
| API | Android | Codename | Why No System Image |
|---|---|---|---|
| 11 | 3.0 | Honeycomb | Tablet-only OS, closed source at launch, never had public emulator images |
| 12 | 3.1 | Honeycomb MR1 | Same — Honeycomb source was never released for emulator use |
| 13 | 3.2 | Honeycomb MR2 | Same — merged back into AOSP at API 14 (ICS) |
| 20 | 4.4W | KitKat Wear | Wear-only API, no standalone emulator image (Wear images start at API 23) |
Unavailable Images (404)
The following 5 images were previously listed by third-party archives but have been permanently removed from Google's servers. They return HTTP 404 and cannot be downloaded:
| Channel | Filename | API | ABI |
|---|---|---|---|
android-wear-cn | armeabi-v7a-25_r04.zip | 25 | armeabi-v7a |
android-wear-cn | x86-25_r04.zip | 25 | x86 |
android-wear-cn | x86-26_r04.zip | 26 | x86 |
android-wear-cn | x86-28_r09.zip | 28 | x86 |
android-wear-cn | x86-30_r10.zip | 30 | x86 |
These were all Wear OS China (android-wear-cn) images. Newer versions for this channel are available at API 30 (arm64-v8a-30_r12.zip and x86-30_r12.zip).
End-of-Life (EOL) Data
Each system image includes end-of-life status based on data from the endoflife.date project (Atom feed).
Android does not have a documented support policy. Releases are considered end-of-life when they are no longer listed in Android Security Bulletins.
Since 2025, there have been two Android releases a year: a major release in Q2 with behavior changes, and a minor release in Q4 with new APIs and feature updates but no breaking changes.
Data Sources
All data comes from Google's official SDK repository manifests. The master index is:
https://dl.google.com/android/repository/addons_list-5.xml
This points to 16 per-channel manifests, each available in up to 3 formats:
sys-img.xml— Legacy v3 format (older images)sys-img2-1.xml— v2.1 formatsys-img2-3.xml— Latest v2.3 format (used by current Android Studio)
16KB Page Size Images
Starting with API 35, Google publishes separate 16KB page size variants (tagged ps16k or google_apis_ps16k). These are for testing app compatibility with 16KB memory pages — a change coming to future Android devices for better performance. If you're not specifically testing 16KB page size support, use the standard images.