Possible to change where Android Virtual Devices are saved?

I've set up the Android SDK and Eclipse on my machine running Windows XP and AVDs (Android Virtual Devices) are saved to "Documents and Settings\user\.android" by default. Is there any way to change this behavior? I have all of the other components saved in a directory on a separate partition and would like everything to be consolidated. Obviously not a huge deal but does anyone here know a workaround for this?

Solution 1:

Add a new user environment variable (Windows 7):

1. Start Menu > Control Panel > System > Advanced System Settings (on the left) > Environment Variables


2. Add a new user variable (at the top) that points your home user directory:

   Variable name: ANDROID_SDK_HOME
   Variable value: a path to a directory of your choice

AVD Manager will use this directory to save its .android directory into it.

For those who may be interested, I blogged about my first foray into Android development...
Android "Hello World": a Tale of Woe

Alternatively, you can use the Rapid Environment Editor to set the environment variables.

Solution 2:

Based on official documentation https://developer.android.com/studio/command-line/variables.html you should change ANDROID_AVD_HOME environment var:

Emulator Environment Variables

By default, the emulator stores configuration files under $HOME/.android/ and AVD data under $HOME/.android/avd/. You can override the defaults by setting the following environment variables. The emulator -avd command searches the avd directory in the order of the values in $ANDROID_AVD_HOME, $ANDROID_SDK_HOME/.android/avd/, and $HOME/.android/avd/. For emulator environment variable help, type emulator -help-environment at the command line. For information about emulator command-line options, see Control the Emulator from the Command Line.

• ANDROID_EMULATOR_HOME: Sets the path to the user-specific emulator configuration directory. The default location is
  $ANDROID_SDK_HOME/.android/.
• ANDROID_AVD_HOME: Sets the path to the directory that contains all AVD-specific files, which mostly consist of very large disk images. The default location is $ANDROID_EMULATOR_HOME/avd/. You might want to specify a new location if the default location is low on disk space.

After change or set ANDROID_AVD_HOME you will have to move all content inside ~user/.android/avd/ to your new location and change path into ini file of each emulator, just replace it with your new path

Solution 3:

Modify the file "virtual_android2.2.ini" in "C:\Documents and Settings{your windows login}.android\avd\":

target=android-8
path=E:\android_workspace\avd\virtual_android2.2.avd

And move the folder "virtual_android2.2.avd" from "C:\Documents and Settings{your windows login}.android\avd\" into "E:\android_workspace\avd\".