How to downgrade my SDK Version?

Anyway, for those who want to downgrade Android SDK Tools to a previous version, it can be possible following these steps:

  1. Find your Android SDK folder
  2. Locate the "tools" subfolder and rename it to "tools1" (just to keep a backup copy of the original tools folder)
  3. Likewise, rename platform-tools to platform-tools1
  4. Download from google repository the SDK Tool version you want to downgrade to (for instance: http://dl-ssl.google.com/android/repository/tools_r22.6.2-macosx.zip) and unpack it.
  5. The ZIP file you downloaded contains a tools folder that has to be moved to your Android SDK folder.
  6. Likewise, download the platform tools (for instance: http://dl-ssl.google.com/android/repository/platform-tools_r19.0.1-macosx.zip), and extract it in your SDK folder.

That's it.


I want to follow up on the great answer provided by Ariel Iriarte, step 3 (Download from google repository the SDK Tool version you want to downgrade to).

To find the old tools, you need to determine the SDK version number that you want to revert to. On the Google Android SDK webpage, you will find a Revisions list that shows all the SDK numbers, e.g.

  • SDK Tools, Revision 22.6.2 (March 2014)
  • SDK Tools, Revision 22.3 (October 2013)
  • etc.

Make a note of the exact revision number, like "22.3".

Now download the tools by using the following pattern:

  • http://dl-ssl.google.com/android/repository/tools_rXXX-windows.zip
  • http://dl-ssl.google.com/android/repository/tools_rXXX-linux.zip
  • http://dl-ssl.google.com/android/repository/tools_rXXX-macosx.zip

where you must replace XXX with the exact revision number noted above. For example, to download revision 22.0.5 for Mac OS X, download the file:

http://dl-ssl.google.com/android/repository/tools_r22.0.5-macosx.zip

Once you download the file and unzip it, you will find a single folder called 'tools'. Now follow the answer by Ariel Iriarte and replace your android-sdk/tools folder with this new one. This is the folder that contains stuff like:

  • NOTICE.txt
  • adb_has_moved.txt
  • android
  • ant
  • apps
  • ddms
  • dmtracedump
  • etc.

Some of you probably found this thread due to the unstable versions of Android-Tools pushed (exclusively) since the stable 22.3 version. This causes a 'hang' in the emulator on the "Android Animation / Splash Screen" in Intel API's pre Version 19, and a "floating point exception" for Intel API-19. The ARM versions still work, though more slowly on Intel machines using acceleration.

To answer the questions of "how to find the older versions not listed in the GUI" - or present in the current xml which feeds it (https://dl-ssl.google.com/android/repository/repository-8.xml), in the comments above, I have no idea how they can be located (please enlighten me).

Fortunately, someone reporting the bug did post a direct link to the Linux and Windows versions of the stable 22.3 version in this thread:

https://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=66786 ... which are:

http://dl.google.com/android/android-sdk_r22.3-linux.tgz

http://dl.google.com/android/android-sdk_r22.3-windows.zip

These also exist in unofficial locations on the web, should those get pulled down, along with the now-gone references to them.

After extracting that archive, you will have the "Tools" folder you need to replace the broken one, as per Ariel Iriarte's instructions above (though I renamed the existing 'Tools' folder something involving the letter 'f' - days into this problem).

In order to prevent this problem from re-occuring, do NOT count on the built-in method in Eclipse / Android-SDK to revert to a previous installation, nor for the older-versions of any file provided by Google to be available At All, Ever, in the future. Backup your entire 'android-sdks' tree prior to installing anything.