MEGA Android Client

A fully-featured client to access your Cloud Storage provided by MEGA.

This document will guide you to build the application on a Linux/MacOS machine with Android Studio.

1. Setup development environment

2. Build & Run the application

  1. Get the source code.
git clone --recursive https://github.com/meganz/android.git

3. NDK Configuration

3.1 Linux

Install in the system the Android NDK 27b (latest version tested: NDK r27b, version number: 27.1.12297006).

Export NDK_ROOT variable or create a symbolic link at ${HOME}/android-ndk to point to your Android NDK installation path.

export NDK_ROOT=/path/to/ndk

ln -s /path/to/ndk ${HOME}/android-ndk

3.2 MacOS

Install NDK r27b by Android Studio following these instructions (pay attention to the bottom-right Show Package Details checkbox to display the available versions. Latest version tested: NDK r27b, version number: 27.1.12297006)

Export NDK_ROOT variable or create a symbolic link at ${HOME}/android-ndk to point to your Android NDK installation path.

Default macOS path: export NDK_ROOT="/Users/${USER}/Library/Android/sdk/ndk/27.1.12297006"

ln -s /path/to/ndk ${HOME}/android-ndk

4. ANDROID_HOME Configuration

4.1 Linux

Export ANDROID_HOME variable or create a symbolic link at ${HOME}/android-sdk to point to your Android SDK installation path.

export ANDROID_HOME=/path/to/sdk

ln -s /path/to/sdk ${HOME}/android-sdk

4.2 MacOS

Export ANDROID_HOME variable or create a symbolic link at ${HOME}/android-sdk to point to your Android SDK installation path.

Default macOS path: export ANDROID_HOME="/Users/${USER}/Library/Android/sdk/")

ln -s /path/to/sdk ${HOME}/android-sdk

5. JAVA_HOME Configuration

5.1 Linux

Export JAVA_HOME variable or create a symbolic link at ${HOME}/android-java to point to your Java installation path.

You can use the path in Android Studio, which you can find in Preferences > Build, Execution, Deployment > Build Tools > Gradle > Gradle JDK (default)

export JAVA_HOME=/path/to/jdk

ln -s /path/to/jdk ${HOME}/android-java

5.2 MacOS

Export JAVA_HOME variable or create a symbolic link at ${HOME}/android-java to point to your Java installation path.

You can use the path in Android Studio, which you can find in Preferences > Build, Execution, Deployment > Build Tools > Gradle > Gradle JDK (default)

Default macOS path: export JAVA_HOME="/Applications/Android Studio.app/Contents/jre/Contents/Home")

ln -s /path/to/jdk ${HOME}/android-java

6. Download WEBRTC files

  1. Download the link https://mega.nz/file/N2k2XRaA#bS9iudrjiULmMaGbBKErsYosELbnU22b8Zj213Ti1nE, uncompress it and put the folder webrtc in the path sdk/src/main/jni/megachat/.Be mindful that the download link of webrtc may varies over time, please keep it in line with the one written in build.sh

7. Prerequisites of running the build script

7.1 Linux

Before running the SDK building script, install the required packages. For example for Ubuntu or other Debian-based distro:

sudo apt install build-essential swig automake libtool autoconf cmake ninja-build

ATTENTION: After upgrading ExoPlayer to 2.18.1, we need to use CMake version 3.22.1

Then install CMake version 3.22.1 in Android Studio > Tools > SDK Manager > SDK Tools > CMake.

After installation, add below line in ~/.bashrc

export PATH="/home/$USER/Android/Sdk/cmake/3.22.1/bin:$PATH"

You will need to source your ~/.bashrc or logout/login (or restart the terminal) for the changes to take effect. To source your ~/.bashrc, simply type:

source ~/.bashrc

7.2 MacOS

Before running the SDK building script, install the required dependencies via HomeBrew:

Except below tools, please do not use HomeBrew to install other tools, according to SysAdmin's advice.

brew install bash gnu-sed gnu-tar autoconf automake cmake coreutils libtool swig wget xz python3

Then reboot MacOS - to ensure newly installed latest bash (v5.x) overrides default v3.x in PATH

Then edit PATH env (Please make sure the gnu paths are setup in front of $PATH):

export PATH="/usr/local/opt/gnu-tar/libexec/gnubin:$PATH"
export PATH="/usr/local/opt/gnu-sed/libexec/gnubin:$PATH"

export PATH="/opt/homebrew/opt/gnu-tar/libexec/gnubin:$PATH"
export PATH="/opt/homebrew/opt/gnu-sed/libexec/gnubin:$PATH"

ln -s /opt/homebrew/bin/python3 /opt/homebrew/bin/python

ATTENTION: After upgrading ExoPlayer to 2.18.1, we need to use CMake version 3.22.1

Then install CMake version 3.22.1 in Android Studio > Tools > SDK Manager > SDK Tools > CMake.

You have to tick checkbox 'Show Package Details' to display this specific version. After installation, add below line in ~/.zshrc

export PATH="/Users/${USER}/Library/Android/sdk/cmake/3.22.1/bin:$PATH"

8. Running the Build Script

Build SDK by running ./build.sh all at sdk/src/main/jni/. You could also run ./build.sh clean to clean the previous configuration.

IMPORTANT: check that the build process finished successfully, it should finish with the Task finished OK message. Otherwise, modify LOG_FILE variable in build.sh from /dev/null to a certain text file and run ./build.sh all again for viewing the build errors.

In case of an error (seen in the log file mentioned) due to licenses not accepted, you can read and accept the licenses with the sdkmanager command-line tool (if you downloaded them)

/path-to-cmdline-tools/bin/sdkmanager --sdk_root=$ANDROID_HOME --licenses

9. Download Required Files

Download the link https://mega.nz/#!1tcl3CrL!i23zkmx7ibnYy34HQdsOOFAPOqQuTo1-2iZ5qFlU7-k, uncompress it and put the folders debug and release in the path app/src/.

10. Disable pre-built SDK

Open buildSrc/src/main/kotlin/mega/privacy/android/build/Util.kt, change method shouldUsePrebuiltSdk() to below.

fun shouldUsePrebuiltSdk(): Boolean = false
//        System.getenv("USE_PREBUILT_SDK")?.let { it != "false" } ?: true

Open settings.gradle.kts, change method shouldUsePrebuiltSdk() to below:

fun shouldUsePrebuiltSdk(): Boolean = false
//        System.getenv("USE_PREBUILT_SDK")?.let { it != "false" } ?: true

11. Build mobile analytics library locally

Note: You need to occasionally redo this section to make sure latest analytics library is used.

  1. Download and build Mobile Analytics source code.

    git clone --recursive https://github.com/meganz/mobile-analytics.git
cd mobile-analytics
git checkout main
./gradlew --no-daemon assembleRelease

  2. Copy below generated libraries to root of MEGA code

    • shared/build/outputs/aar/shared-release.aar
    • analytics-core/build/outputs/aar/analytics-core-release.aar
    • analytics-annotations/build/outputs/aar/analytics-annotations-release.aar

  3. Modify MEGA code to depend on local AAR files

    1. Search implementation(lib.mega.analytics) in whole project, and replace all occurrences with below code. Note you may need to add a .. to the path if the build.gradle.kts is in a subproject. 
      //    implementation(lib.mega.analytics)
    implementation(files("../shared-release.aar"))
    implementation(files("../analytics-core-release.aar"))
    implementation(files("../analytics-annotations-release.aar"))

12. Disable library dependencies

  1. in root build.gradle.kts, comment out below codes. 
    id("mega.android.release")
  2. in settings.gradle.kts, comment out below code 
     maven {
     url =
         uri("${System.getenv("ARTIFACTORY_BASE_URL")}/artifactory/mega-gradle/megagradle")
 }
    and 
    resolutionStrategy {
    eachPlugin {
        if (requested.id.id == "mega.android.release") {
            useModule("mega.privacy:megagradle:${requested.version}")
        }
    }
}

13. Run the project

Open the project with Android Studio, let it build the project and hit Run.

If the build script fails to detect cmake when building ffmpeg extension on a mac
  1. In Android studio, open the SDK manager (Or through Settings>Appearance & Behaviour>System Settings>Android SDK)
  2. Go to the SDK Tools tab
  3. Check the "Show package details" box
  4. Expand the CMake section in the list
  5. Select 3.22.1
  6. Click "OK"
  7. Add the following to your PATH: export PATH="/Users/{USERNAME}/Library/Android/sdk/cmake/3.22.1/bin:$PATH"
  8. Retry the build

Notice

To use the geolocation feature you need a Google Maps API key:

  1. To get one, follow the directions here: https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/android/signup.

  2. Once you have your key, replace the "google_maps_key" string in these files: app/src/debug/res/values/google_maps_api.xml and app/src/release/res/values/google_maps_api.xml.