Develop

Installing Android Studio and the Android NDK

Updated: Apr 17, 2026

Install Android Studio and the Android NDK after installing Unreal Engine. These tools provide dependencies that Unreal Engine needs to build apps for Meta Horizon OS.

Follow the Setting Up Android SDK and NDK⁠ instructions in the Unreal Engine documentation.

Note: Your Unreal Engine version determines which Android Studio and NDK versions to install. Use the Unreal Engine documentation version selector to select the same major and minor version you installed in Installing Unreal Engine.

Screenshot of Version Selector dropdown in Unreal documentation

Meta XR Plugin requirements

The Meta XR Plugin enforces specific Android SDK and NDK versions. For Unreal Engine 5.5 and later, the required versions are:

NDK version: 25.1.8937393

Minimum Android API level: 32

Target Android API level: 34, required for Meta Quest Store submissions

The Meta XR Plugin’s Project Setup Tool validates these requirements automatically when you open your project.

Environment variables

Unreal Engine’s Turnkey setup configures most paths during Android Studio installation. If you encounter build errors, verify that the following environment variables are set:

ANDROID_HOME: Path to your Android SDK root directory

NDKROOT: Path to your NDK installation directory

JAVA_HOME: Path to your JDK root directory (Android Studio bundles a compatible JDK in its jbr directory)

The Meta XR Plugin’s Project Setup Tool flags missing or incorrect environment variables when you open your project. Run the tool from Edit > Project Settings > Plugins > Meta XR to check your configuration.