Android offers a custom plugin for the Eclipse IDE, called Android Development Tools (ADT). This plugin provides a powerful, integrated environment in which to develop Android apps. It extends the capabilities of Eclipse to let you quickly set up new Android projects, build an app UI, debug your app, and export signed (or unsigned) app packages (APKs) for distribution.

Note: You should install the ADT plugin only if you already have an Eclipse installation that you want to continue using. If you do not have Eclipse installed, you should instead install the complete Android SDK, which includes the latest IDE for Android developers.

Your existing Eclipse installation must meet these requirements:

• Eclipse 3.7.2 (Indigo) or greater

  Note: Eclipse 3.6 (Helios) is no longer supported with the latest version of ADT.

• Eclipse JDT plugin (included in most Eclipse IDE packages)
• JDK 6        (JRE alone is not sufficient)
• Not compatible with GNU Compiler for Java (gcj)

Download the ADT Plugin

To add the ADT plugin to Eclipse:

1. Start Eclipse, then select Help > Install New Software.
2. Click Add, in the top-right corner.
3. In the Add Repository dialog that appears, enter "ADT Plugin" for the Name and the following URL for the Location:      

   https://dl-ssl.google.com/android/eclipse/

   Note: The Android Developer Tools update site requires      a secure connection. Make sure the update site URL you enter starts with HTTPS.

4. Click OK.
5. In the Available Software dialog, select the checkbox next to Developer Tools and click Next.
6. In the next window, you‘ll see a list of the tools to be downloaded. Click Next.
7. Read and accept the license agreements, then click Finish.      

   If you get a security warning saying that the authenticity or validity of the software can‘t be established, click OK.

8. When the installation completes, restart Eclipse.

Configure the ADT Plugin

Once Eclipse restarts, you  must specify the location of your Android SDK directory:

1. In the "Welcome to Android Development" window that appears, select Use existing SDKs.
2. Browse and select the location of the Android SDK directory you recently downloaded and unpacked.
3. Click Next.

Your Eclipse IDE is now set up to develop Android apps, but you need to add the latest SDK platform tools and an Android platform to your environment. To get these packages for your SDK, continue to Adding Platforms and Packages.

Troubleshooting ADT Installation

If you are having trouble downloading the ADT plugin after following the steps above and you are behind a firewall (such as a corporate firewall), make sure that you have properly configured your proxy settings in Eclipse. In Eclipse, you can configure proxy information from the main Eclipse menu in Window (on Mac OS X, Eclipse) > Preferences > General > Network Connections.

If you are still unable to use Eclipse to download the ADT plugin as a remote update site, you can download the ADT zip file to your local machine and manually install it:

1. Download the ADT Plugin zip file (do not unpack it):  

   Package	Size	MD5 Checksum
   ADT-23.0.3.zip	103321934 bytes	ab2f5e2fbbdddeeb7dfd02cd4046538a

2. Start Eclipse, then select Help > Install New Software.
3. Click Add, in the top-right corner.
4. In the Add Repository dialog, click Archive.
5. Select the downloaded ADT-23.0.3.zip file and click OK.
6. Enter "ADT Plugin" for the name and click OK.  
7. In the Available Software dialog, select the checkbox next to Developer Tools and click Next.
8. In the next window, you‘ll see a list of the tools to be downloaded. Click Next.
9. Read and accept the license agreements, then click Finish.    

   If you get a security warning saying that the authenticity or validity of the software can‘t be established, click OK.

10. When the installation completes, restart Eclipse.

To update your plugin once you‘ve installed using the zip file, you will have to follow these steps again instead of the default update instructions.

Other install errors

Note that there are features of ADT that require some optional Eclipse packages (for example, WST). If you encounter an error when installing ADT, your Eclipse installion might not include these packages. For information about how to quickly add the necessary packages to your Eclipse installation, see the troubleshooting topic ADT Installation Error: "requires plug-in org.eclipse.wst.sse.ui".

For Linux users

If you encounter this error when installing the ADT Plugin for Eclipse:

An error occurred during provisioning. Cannot connect to keystore. JKS

...then your development machine lacks a suitable Java VM. Installing Sun Java 6 will resolve this issue and you can then reinstall the ADT Plugin.