I recommend updating from Android Studio vs. Ensure each image SDK has the latest available. Get Google Play to Work in Your Emulators 1. That’s all you need to do to get both IDEs using the same SDK.

Then close and reopen Visual Studio for the changes to fully take effect.

Click OK to save the settings in Visual Studio.

Change the path value for the Android SDK Location so it matches the path listed in Android Studio:.

Note the existing path for the Android SDK Location (so you can delete or rename this later).

Start Visual Studio and click on Tools > Options > Xamarin > Android Settings.

Note the path listed in the “ Android SDK Location:” box:.

Once all the IDEs are installed, Start Android Studio and click on File > Settings > Appearance & Behavior > System Settings > Android SDK.

Install Visual Studio, being sure to select the Android SDKs too.

I have found that Android Studio typically has the most up to date images so do this from the Android Studio side.

Install Android Studio and the necessary SDKs you need, including the Emulator and Play store.

Then, I will explain how to get the Emulators to use the Google Play Store. In this article, I will explain how to get both IDEs to use the same SDK. Either way, it is easier to get the Google Play Store to work when you only have to deal with one set of Emulators. Or you just want to have one set of emulator images and Android SDK to manage and you want your emulators to support the Google Play Store but just can't get the GUI in the AVD Managers (whether in Visual Studio or Android Studio) to make it work. Perhaps you have limited disk space and do not want to 'waste' space by having two instances of the Android images installed for both Android Studio and Visual Studio.

This article will hopefully make this task a lot easier. Yet, actually getting it to be active inside the Emulator is illusive. Have you been pulling your hair out because you can't get Google Play to work on the Android Emulator? Have you been asking yourself, 'shouldn't it be easier to get such as simple thing to work so you can get back to writing code?' You see the options (for Google Play Store) in the GUI (at least on the Visual Studio side) and even some references to it in the AVD Manager.

Avd manager android studio