Android SDK Build Tool Multiple Versions

Question

I need to know, Do we need to install every Android SDK Build Tool, or only the latest one will be sufficient?.

See this image for reference,

Answer 1

Quote from official android website:

Build Tools is a component of the Android SDK required for building Android application code. The latest version of these tools is included in the SDK starter package and installed in the /build-tools/ directory.

You should always keep your Build Tools component updated by downloading the latest version using the Android SDK Manager. By default, the Android SDK uses the most recent downloaded version of the Build Tools. If your projects depend on older versions of the Build Tools, the SDK Manager allows you to download and maintain separate versions of the tools for use with those projects.

To make it short,if your project is using an OLDER version of apis (like 2.2 etc), it might make sense to use the build tools that were supplied to it.

See this to know more about the build tools.

But, having said that, there is NO NEED TO INSTALL OLDER VERSIONS of the build tools. You should always use the latest Android SDK build tools are used to debug, build, run and test an Android application,so the latest update will always have the most refined of features.

But of course, this is only for the final android app. If you want to use the version specific features of the build tools, you will need to download the respective build-tools.

Quoting The comment below for easier readability :

It's more if you created custom build scripts (Ant, Gradle, etc.) that assumed certain command-line switches for the build tools (dx, aapt, etc.), you can stick with a particular version of those build tools. Otherwise, developers tend to move to the most recent version of those tools, for better performance, bug fixes, and the like