How to access an existing sqlite database in Android?

So far we have developed apps in android that create database on runtime. We like to know how can we access a pre-built or existing database/sqlite file in our android app? Please provide detail


Take a look at the documentation for android.database.sqlite.SQLiteDatabase.

In particular, there's an openDatabase() command that will access a database given a file path.

SQLiteDatabase db = SQLiteDatabase.openDatabase(path, null, 0);

Just specify the path to your database as the path variable, and it should work.


I have followed the same road and found two issues:

  1. Include the _id field on any table you create and make sure it is part of the columns to return when you query any table.
  2. You may run into an error like Failed to open the database. closing it.. This is because we are copying the database from an existing file instead of creating tables on top of a db created by the sqlite android API and the table android_metadata may not exist. For creating it just run the following query on your db:

    CREATE TABLE android_metadata (locale TEXT);

    And add the corresponding locale, for example en_US