There are instructions for other platforms linked from the get the code page.
Are you a Google employee? See go/building-android-chrome instead.
Most development is done on Ubuntu. Other distros may or may not work; see the Linux instructions for some suggestions.
Building the Android client on Windows or Mac is not supported and doesn't work.
Clone the depot_tools repository:
git clone https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/tools/depot_tools.git
Add depot_tools to the end of your PATH (you will probably want to put this in your ~/.bashrc or ~/.zshrc). Assuming you cloned depot_tools to /path/to/depot_tools:
export PATH="$PATH:/path/to/depot_tools"
Create a chromium directory for the checkout and change to it (you can call this whatever you like and put it wherever you like, as long as the full path has no spaces):
mkdir ~/chromium && cd ~/chromium fetch --nohooks android
If you don't want the full repo history, you can save a lot of time by adding the --no-history flag to fetch.
Expect the command to take 30 minutes on even a fast connection, and many hours on slower ones.
If you've already installed the build dependencies on the machine (from another checkout, for example), you can omit the --nohooks flag and fetch will automatically execute gclient runhooks at the end.
When fetch completes, it will have created a hidden .gclient file and a directory called src in the working directory. The remaining instructions assume you have switched to the src directory:
cd src
If you have an existing Linux checkout, you can add Android support by appending target_os = ['android'] to your .gclient file (in the directory above src):
echo "target_os = [ 'android' ]" >> ../.gclient
Then run gclient sync to pull the new Android dependencies:
gclient sync
(This is the only difference between fetch android and fetch chromium.)
Once you have checked out the code, run
build/install-build-deps-android.sh
to get all of the dependencies you need to build on Linux, plus all of the Android-specific dependencies (you need some of the regular Linux dependencies because an Android build includes a bunch of the Linux tools and utilities).
Once you've run install-build-deps at least once, you can now run the Chromium-specific hooks, which will download additional binaries and other things you might need:
gclient runhooks
Optional: You can also install API keys if you want your build to talk to some Google services, but this is not necessary for most development and testing purposes.
Chromium uses Ninja as its main build tool along with a tool called GN to generate .ninja files. You can create any number of build directories with different configurations. To create a build directory which builds Chrome for Android, run gn args out/Default and edit the file to contain the following arguments:
target_os = "android" target_cpu = "arm64" # See "Figuring out target_cpu" below
Default with another name, but it should be a subdirectory of out.gn help on the command line or read the quick start guide.Also be aware that some scripts (e.g. tombstones.py, adb_gdb.py) require you to set CHROMIUM_OUTPUT_DIR=out/Default.
The value of target_cpu determines what instruction set to use for native code. Given a device (or emulator), you can determine the correct instruction set with adb shell getprop ro.product.cpu.abi:
getprop ro.product.cpu.abi output | target_cpu value |
|---|---|
arm64-v8a | arm64 |
armeabi-v7a | arm |
x86 | x86 |
x86_64 | x64 |
arm and x86 may optionally be used instead of arm64 and x64 for non-WebView targets. This is also allowed for Monochrome, but only when not set as the WebView provider.Build Chromium with Ninja using the command:
autoninja -C out/Default chrome_public_apk
(autoninja is a wrapper that automatically provides optimal values for the arguments passed to ninja.)
You can get a list of all of the other build targets from GN by running gn ls out/Default from the command line. To compile one, pass the GN label to Ninja with no preceding “//” (so, for //chrome/test:unit_tests use autoninja -C out/Default chrome/test:unit_tests).
The Google Play Store allows apps to send customized .apk or .aab files depending on the version of Android running on a device. Chrome uses this feature to target 4 different versions using 4 different ninja targets:
chrome_public_apk (ChromePublic.apk)chrome_modern_public_bundle (MonochromePublic.aab)minSdkVersion=21 (Lollipop).monochrome_public_bundle (MonochromePublic.aab)minSdkVersion=24 (Nougat).trichrome_chrome_bundle and trichrome_library_apk (TrichromeChrome.aab and TrichromeLibrary.apk)minSdkVersion=Q (Q).android_dlopen_ext to load native libraries with shared RELRO'sNote: These instructions use chrome_public_apk, but any of the other targets can be substituted.
Note: These targets are actually the open-source equivalents to the closed-source targets that get shipped to the Play Store.
Note: For more in-depth differences, see android_native_libraries.md.
To update an existing checkout, you can run
$ git rebase-update $ gclient sync
The first command updates the primary Chromium source repository and rebases any of your local branches on top of tip-of-tree (aka the Git branch origin/master). If you don't want to use this script, you can also just use git pull or other common Git commands to update the repo.
The second command syncs dependencies to the appropriate versions and re-runs hooks as needed.
Make sure your Android device is plugged in via USB, and USB Debugging is enabled.
To enable USB Debugging:
You may also be prompted to allow access to your PC once your device is plugged in.
You can check if the device is connected by running:
third_party/android_sdk/public/platform-tools/adb devices
Which prints a list of connected devices. If not connected, try unplugging and reattaching your device.
Allow Android to run APKs that haven't been signed through the Play Store:
In case that setting isn't present, it may be possible to configure it via adb shell instead:
third_party/android_sdk/public/platform-tools/adb shell settings put global verifier_verify_adb_installs 0
autoninja -C out/Default chrome_public_apk
And deploy it to your Android device:
out/Default/bin/chrome_public_apk install
The app will appear on the device as “Chromium”.
Wraps the content module (but not the /chrome embedder). See https://www.chromium.org/developers/content-module for details on the content module and content shell.
autoninja -C out/Default content_shell_apk out/Default/bin/content_shell_apk install
this will build and install an Android apk under out/Default/apks/ContentShell.apk.
Android WebView is a system framework component. Since Android KitKat, it is implemented using Chromium code (based off the content module).
If you want to build the complete Android WebView framework component and test the effect of your chromium changes in Android apps using WebView, you should follow the Android AOSP + chromium WebView instructions
For Content shell:
out/Default/bin/content_shell_apk launch [--args='--foo --bar'] http://example.com
For Chrome public:
out/Default/bin/chrome_public_apk launch [--args='--foo --bar'] http://example.com
Logging is often the easiest way to understand code flow. In C++ you can print log statements using the LOG macro. In Java, refer to android_logging.md.
You can see these log via adb logcat, or:
out/Default/bin/chrome_public_apk logcat
To debug C++ code, use one of the following commands:
out/Default/bin/content_shell_apk gdb out/Default/bin/chrome_public_apk gdb
See Android Debugging Instructions for more on debugging, including how to debug Java code.
For information on running tests, see Android Test Instructions.
Args that affect build speed:
is_component_build = true (default=is_debug).so files instead of just one (faster links)is_java_debug = true (default=is_debug)treat_warnings_as_errors = false (default=true)use_errorprone_java_compiler = false (default=true)disable_android_lint = true (default=false)Incremental Install uses reflection and sideloading to speed up the edit & deploy cycle (normally < 10 seconds). The initial launch of the apk will be a lot slower on older Android versions (pre-N) where the OS needs to pre-optimize the side-loaded files, but then be only marginally slower after the first launch.
To enable Incremental Install, add the gn args:
incremental_install = true
Some APKs (e.g. WebView) do not work with incremental install, and are blacklisted from being built as such (via never_incremental = true), so are build as normal APKs even when incremental_install = true.
Running on an emulator is the same as on a device. Refer to android_emulator.md for setting up emulators.
These instructions are only necessary for Chrome 51 and earlier.
In the case where you want to modify the native code for an existing release of Chrome for Android (v25+) you can do the following steps. Note that in order to get your changes into the official release, you'll need to send your change for a codereview using the regular process for committing code to chromium.