How to get the device's IMEI/ESN programmatically in android?

To identify each devices uniquely I would like to use the IMEI (or ESN number for CDMA devices). How to access this programmatically?

You want to call android.telephony.TelephonyManager.getDeviceId().

This will return whatever string uniquely identifies the device (IMEI on GSM, MEID for CDMA).

You'll need the following permission in your AndroidManifest.xml:

<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.READ_PHONE_STATE" />

in order to do this.

That being said, be careful about doing this. Not only will users wonder why your application is accessing their telephony stack, it might be difficult to migrate data over if the user gets a new device.

Update: As mentioned in the comments below, this is not a secure way to authenticate users, and raises privacy concerns. It is not recommended. Instead, look at the Google+ Login API if you want to implement a frictionless login system.

The Android Backup API is also available if you just want a lightweight way to persist a bundle of strings for when a user resets their phone (or buys a new device).

In addition to the answer of Trevor Johns, you can use this as follows:

TelephonyManager telephonyManager = (TelephonyManager)getSystemService(Context.TELEPHONY_SERVICE);
telephonyManager.getDeviceId();

And you should add the following permission into your Manifest.xml file:

<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.READ_PHONE_STATE"/>

In emulator, you'll probably get a like a "00000..." value. getDeviceId() returns NULL if device ID is not available.

I use the following code to get the IMEI or use Secure.ANDROID_ID as an alternative, when the device doesn't have phone capabilities:

/**
 * Returns the unique identifier for the device
 *
 * @return unique identifier for the device
 */
public String getDeviceIMEI() {
    String deviceUniqueIdentifier = null;
    TelephonyManager tm = (TelephonyManager) this.getSystemService(Context.TELEPHONY_SERVICE);
    if (null != tm) {
        deviceUniqueIdentifier = tm.getDeviceId();
    }
    if (null == deviceUniqueIdentifier || 0 == deviceUniqueIdentifier.length()) {
        deviceUniqueIdentifier = Settings.Secure.getString(this.getContentResolver(), Settings.Secure.ANDROID_ID);
    }
    return deviceUniqueIdentifier;
}

Or you can use the ANDROID_ID setting from Android.Provider.Settings.System (as described here strazerre.com).

This has the advantage that it doesn't require special permissions but can change if another application has write access and changes it (which is apparently unusual but not impossible).

Just for reference here is the code from the blog:

import android.provider.Settings;
import android.provider.Settings.System;   

String androidID = System.getString(this.getContentResolver(),Secure.ANDROID_ID);

Implementation note: if the ID is critical to the system architecture you need to be aware that in practice some of the very low end Android phones & tablets have been found reusing the same ANDROID_ID (9774d56d682e549c was the value showing up in our logs)