What happens if I delete older Android API levels and keep only latest one

Question

Since the new Android API level 18 came out for 4.3 Jelly Bean, what will happen if i remove the older API levels of 17 to level 8? I want to do this to save space as these files are of a decent size.

My question here is will I still be able to write an app that runs on devices with the lower API levels, having kept only the latest API level files in the SDK Manager?

BTW I have set the minSdkVersion in my manifest file as 8 and targetSdkVersion is set to 18

Or do I actually have to download all the files for each API level in between the minSdkVersion and targetSdkVersion in the SDK Manager?

Answer 1

what will happen if i remove the older API levels of 17 to level 8?

That depends on what you specifically intend to remove. If you look at your SDK Manager, there are several entries for each API level.

My question here is will I still be able to write an app that runs on devices with the lower API levels, having kept only the latest API level files in the SDK Manager?

Yes, though if you delete the emulator images, you will not be able to test on lower API levels, unless you happen to have hardware for those levels.