How to Update an Android Emulator on Mac: What Stays and How to Roll Back

An Android emulator improves in small steps: performance, keyboard, sound. Updating it on a Mac does not mean uninstalling it or reinstalling everything: you replace the app, and everything else stays put. Here is how MACOS EMULATOR offers its updates, what they keep, and how to go back to the previous version if the new one gives you trouble.

The launcher tells you on its own

Every time it opens, the launcher compares its version with the latest one published. If a newer one exists, a banner appears at the top of the home screen: “A new version is available”. As long as the launcher stays open, it runs that check again every 30 minutes: a version published during your session shows up without restarting the app. All it needs is an internet connection.

The banner’s “Update” button opens your browser to download the new version. If macOS refuses to open the browser, the banner says so, copies the link for you and offers a “Copy the link” button: the guide to macOS versions for an emulator explains where that case came up.

Or from your customer area

The latest version is also waiting in your customer area. Sign in with your license key or email address, then click “Download the app”: the line just below shows how recent it is. A little further down, the “Patch notes” button sums up what it changes.

Installing the new version over the old one

1. 1Finish your match and switch off the device with the power button in the toolbar (“Power off the device”): the launcher only upgrades its engine while the device is off. Then quit the launcher.
2. 2Open the downloaded DMG file. As at installation, its window shows the app and a shortcut to the Applications folder: drag one onto the other.
3. 3macOS asks whether to replace the app that is already there: choose “Replace”, not “Keep Both”. Do not keep two copies of the app: the Accessibility permission only applies to one.
4. 4Open the app again. On first launch, the launcher upgrades its engine on its own: there is nothing to delete or reinstall.

The patch notes open on their own the first time each new version launches, with the version number, the build and the installation date under their title.

What the update keeps

The app you replace is only the launcher. What it has downloaded and created lives elsewhere, in your user folder, in ~/Library/Application Support, and an update does not touch any of it:

• your settings: memory, frame rate, quality, resolution;
• your keys, each one where you placed it;
• your license key, which the launcher only asks for again after a reinstall;
• the Android device, the installed games and, in Full mode, your Google account on the device: you do not have to sign in again.

So do not uninstall the emulator to update it, and do not delete its folder to “start clean”: that is exactly what would make you lose everything. The guide to uninstalling an Android emulator details what Uninstall removes.

The rare case: a device to rebuild

Occasionally, a new version ships a more recent Android system than the one on your device, and the device cannot be upgraded in place. The launcher then stops on a screen that says so before you click anything: what will be erased (the Google account on the device, the installed games and their data on the device) and what stays (your subscription, your keys, your quality and language settings). The button states what it does: “Rebuild the device (erases its data)”.

You need an internet connection, and the first startup that follows takes several minutes, only once. After that, in Full mode, the app installs the game from Google Play, with your own Google account: you sign in to it again inside the launcher, then reinstall your games.

The new version gives you trouble: going back to the previous one

At the bottom right of the launcher’s home screen, under the “Account · Support · Feedback” links, there is a more discreet link: “Switch to the previous version”. It downloads the previous version as a DMG, to install over the current one, the same way.

Before you click, send a report. Once you have gone back, whatever was wrong can no longer be measured, and that report is what makes it possible to fix the new version. During a match, take the performance report from the toolbar, copy your logs (Settings, then Logs, then Copy), and paste both with the “Send a report” button in your customer area. The guide to measuring FPS in an emulator explains how to take that report.

After going back, the update banner returns at the next launch: that is expected. The previous version is an emergency exit, not a version to stay on.

Which version do you have?

The “SYSTEM” card, at the bottom of the launcher’s home screen, shows it on its “Version” line: the number, the build in parentheses, and the date of the last update, after “Updated”. Note that build number when you write to support: it is often the first thing support asks you for, because several fixes only arrived through an update.

What about updating a game?

In Full mode, Google Play brings the game’s updates, without you having to deal with them. The emulator’s updates, for their part, are included in the monthly subscription and in the lifetime license alike: none of them is paid for separately.

Frequently asked questions