AndroidDevTools: A Curated Download Index for Android SDK and Tooling

What AndroidDevTools actually is: a directory, not a toolkit

The repository describes itself as collecting and organizing the Android SDK, the tools used during Android development, Android tutorials, Android design specifications and free design assets. That sentence is the whole product. There is no binary in the tree that you run, no CLI, no daemon. The top-level entries are .github/, .gitignore, README.md, scripts/, static/ and tests/, so the repository is a README plus supporting files rather than an application.

The audience is narrow and specific. It is for developers working in a Chinese network environment who need an Android SDK Tools installer, a platform-tools archive or a build-tools package without depending on a download path that may be slow or blocked. The README's own note for Android Studio tells readers to download from the project homepage or from the Android Studio archive page, which shows the intended role: the site is a pointer, and the vendor remains the source of truth.

If you are looking for a tool that installs or manages the SDK for you, this is the wrong repository. The README does not describe a package manager, a resolver or an installer script. The scripts/ directory exists but the README does not document what it contains or how to invoke it.

How the catalog is organized, and how the mirror links work

The README is a table of contents followed by tables. The Android Tools section splits into Android Studio, SDK Tools, SDK Platform-Tools, Build-Tools, and then a long tail that includes SDK, SDK System images, GoogleMap APIs SDK, Google Glass SDK, Google TV Addon, Android SDK Extras, Support Library, SDK Samples, NDK, Android L Preview System Image, JDK, ADT Bundle, ADT Plugin and Gradle.

The SDK Tools table is the clearest example of the data model. Each row is a version number, and the columns are Windows, Mac OSX, Linux, an SHA-1 checksum column and a screenshot of the official checksum. For version 24.4.1 the Windows column links to a Baidu Pan share for installer_r24.4.1-windows.exe and android-sdk_r24.4.1-windows.zip, while the checksum column lists values such as f9b59d72413649d31e633207e31f456443e7ea0b and 66b6a6433053c152b22bf8cab19c0f3fef4eba49 for Windows, 85a9cccb0b1f9e6f1f616335c5f07107553840cd for Mac and 725bb360f0f7d04eaccff5a2d57abdd49061326d for Linux.

That structure is the useful part and also the fragile part. The checksums let you verify a download after the fact, which matters when the link points at a third-party file host. But the tables carry no column for when a link was last checked or which mirror it resolves to today, and the README does not state a verification policy. Treat every checksum as a claim to test, not a guarantee.

The Platform-Tools section is the one place with real instructions. It explains that the package contains adb and fastboot, that you should place the extracted platform-tools folder in the Android SDK root directory, and that you should add the directory containing adb to your system PATH so the commands are reachable from a shell.

Setting up platform-tools from the index

There is nothing to install from the repository itself. The README gives no pip, npm, cargo or apt command, no release artifact and no version number for the repository. What you install is the SDK tooling that the index points at. The README's Platform-Tools section is the only part that describes a setup procedure, and it is manual.

Download the platform-tools archive for your platform from the table, then extract it so that the platform-tools folder sits at the root of your Android SDK installation. The README states this placement directly: put the extracted platform-tools folder in the android sdk root directory. The table for this section lists platform-tools-r22 and platform-tools-r21 with Windows, Mac OSX and Linux archives.

After extraction, the README says to add the directory containing adb to your system PATH. On a Unix-like system that means editing your shell profile; the README does not name a specific file, so use whichever profile your shell reads. With that in place, adb and fastboot become reachable from any shell rather than by absolute path.

For SDK Tools, the flow is different because the README points at installers rather than archives. On Windows the table offers installer_r24.4.1-windows.exe alongside android-sdk_r24.4.1-windows.zip; on Mac and Linux it offers android-sdk_r24.4.1-macosx.zip and android-sdk_r24.4.1-linux.tgz. Download the one matching your platform, then compare its SHA-1 against the published value before running it.

The value you see for the Mac 24.4.1 archive should match 85a9cccb0b1f9e6f1f616335c5f07107553840cd, the checksum listed in that row. If it does not match, do not run the installer. The README provides the checksum for exactly this purpose, and it also links a screenshot of the official checksum so you can compare against the vendor's own value.

Where the index stops being useful

The catalog is a snapshot, and the snapshot ages. The SDK Tools table tops out at version 24.4.1, with 24.3.4 as the row below it. Modern Android Studio does not use the standalone SDK Tools installer at all; the README's own Android Studio entry avoids the problem by telling you to download from the project homepage or the Android Studio archive page instead of hosting a link.

The link targets are the second limitation. The SDK Tools downloads resolve to Baidu Pan share URLs, and the checksum screenshots resolve to Sina image hosts. Neither is a stable artifact registry. Share links can expire, require an account, or throttle; the README does not document rollback, a mirror rotation policy, or what to do when a link dies. The repository does not state that it re-checks these links, so a dead entry may sit in the table for a long time.

The third limitation is scope. The README covers Android development tooling and design resources, and the design half is large: Photoshop plugins, vector design tools, slice tools, annotation tools, prototyping tools, color tools, icon libraries, GIF recorders, and guides including a Chinese Material Design translation and a Designer's Guide To dpi. If you came looking for a modern Gradle dependency resolution strategy, none of this helps. The Gradle entries point at Gradle itself and an Android Gradle Plugin DSL documentation link, not at a dependency proxy.

There is also a language boundary. The README is in Chinese, including section names such as 反编译工具, 安全工具 and 静态代码分析工具. If you cannot read Chinese, you can still follow the tables, but the surrounding explanation is closed to you.

Alternatives and how they differ in approach

The obvious alternative is the vendor's own distribution. Google's Android Studio archive page, which the README itself links, serves the IDE, and the SDK is normally obtained through the SDK Manager inside Android Studio or through the command-line tools package. The difference is one of control: the vendor path gives you a signed, versioned, officially hosted artifact and an update mechanism, while AndroidDevTools gives you a human-readable map of which versions existed and where a mirror put them.

A second alternative is a package manager that wraps the SDK. Those tools resolve versions, fetch artifacts and pin them in a manifest, which is what you want in CI. AndroidDevTools has no manifest, no lockfile and no resolution step. It cannot tell you that a given build-tools version is compatible with a given Gradle plugin, because it does not model compatibility at all.

A third alternative is simply a search engine. The repository's advantage over searching is curation and the checksum column: someone assembled the version list and published hashes next to it. That advantage disappears the moment a link rots, because the search engine will still find the vendor page.

Maintenance, licensing and what the repository does not say

The repository is not archived, and its last push was on 2026-09-20. That is recent, but a push date says nothing about whether individual links were re-verified, and the README does not describe a review cadence. The presence of a tests/ directory and a scripts/ directory suggests some automation exists, but the README does not explain what either does, so you cannot infer that link checking is automated.

The licence field is unknown. The repository does not carry a licence identifier in the information available, and the README ends with a Disclaimer section rather than a licence statement. That matters more than it would for a normal library, because the repository redistributes links to third-party installers and assets. The licence status of the index itself does not settle the terms of the files it points at, and the README does not discuss those terms. If you intend to mirror or republish any part of the list, establish the terms of the original artifacts separately; this is a factual gap in the repository, not a legal question this article can answer.

Upgrade cost is the practical concern. Because there is no version constraint mechanism, upgrading means reading the table, picking a newer row, downloading it, and verifying the hash by hand. Every step is manual.

Editorial conclusion

Adopt AndroidDevTools when you need a single page that names the SDK Tools, Platform-Tools, Build-Tools, NDK, Gradle and decompiler categories and points at a mirror for each, and when you can verify the SHA-1 values it publishes before running an installer. Do not adopt it as a dependency source: there is no package index, no version resolver and no API, so CI pipelines have nothing to consume. Before relying on it, open every link you intend to use, confirm the file still resolves, and compare the published SHA-1 against the downloaded artifact, because the repository does not say when a mirror link was last checked.

Frequently asked questions

Official sources

1. inferjay/AndroidDevTools on GitHub
2. Issues
3. Project website
4. README