How to install Google Play app in Android Studio emulator?

Question

I am completely new to using Android Studio and I am trying to install the Google Play app on the emulator. I have installed the Google Repository and Google Play Services as well as a Google APIs x86 Atom System Image from the SDK manager and I am able to set up Google Play Services for my sample application.

I would now like to install the Google Play application on my emulator. How can this be done ? Any suggestions or a solution itself would be most appreciated. Also, thank you very much for your time.

Answer 1

Starting with Android Studio 3.0 Canary 1, you have now some options of devices that come with the Play Store app built-in(Nexus 5X and Nexus 5 on image below).

Answer 2

After a long while of testing, everything seems to be outdated. I can't find necessary APK's like GoogleLoginService.apk, etc.

I got it to work by installing two virtual devices.

1. My Device (a Samsung Galaxy Tab A with custom skin and sizes)
2. A device, which had the "Play Store Available" icon in your AVD-Manager on the site where you can create a new profile.

I installed the first device and the second device with the same Android version, and used one profile from Samsung (because my tablet is a Samsung).

After that step, I compared the config.ini file located in:

C:\Users\USER\.android\avd\DEVICE_ID 

On Ubuntu/Linux it'll be in

~/.android/avd/DEVICE_ID 

Change the following variables to:

PlayStore.enabled = true image.sysdir.1=system-images\android-27\google_apis_playstore\x86\ tag.display=Google Play tag.id=google_apis_playstore 

Here's an example diff of what fields will be changed:

After that you'll probably have to re-download the system image for the device, which you can do from Tools > AVD Manager.

Here's an example screenshot of what that'd look like:

Once done, restart the device, and Play store will be installed and ready to use.