Android: How to programmatically access the device serial number shown in the AVD manager (API Version 8)
This is the hardware serial number. To access it on
Android Q (>= SDK 29)
android.Manifest.permission.READ_PRIVILEGED_PHONE_STATE
is required. Only system apps can require this permission. If the calling package is the device or profile owner then theREAD_PHONE_STATE
permission suffices.Android 8 and later (>= SDK 26) use
android.os.Build.getSerial()
which requires the dangerous permission READ_PHONE_STATE. Usingandroid.os.Build.SERIAL
returns android.os.Build.UNKNOWN.Android 7.1 and earlier (<= SDK 25) and earlier
android.os.Build.SERIAL
does return a valid serial.
It's unique for any device. If you are looking for possibilities on how to get/use a unique device id you should read here.
For a solution involving reflection without requiring a permission see this answer.
Up to Android 7.1 (SDK 25)
Until Android 7.1 you will get it with:
Build.SERIAL
From Android 8 (SDK 26)
On Android 8 (SDK 26) and above, this field will return UNKNOWN
and must be accessed with:
Build.getSerial()
which requires the dangerous permission
android.permission.READ_PHONE_STATE
.
From Android Q (SDK 29)
Since Android Q using Build.getSerial()
gets a bit more complicated by requiring:
android.Manifest.permission.READ_PRIVILEGED_PHONE_STATE
(which can only be acquired by system apps), or for the calling package to be the device or profile owner and have the READ_PHONE_STATE
permission. This means most apps won't be able to uses this feature. See the Android Q announcement from Google.
See Android SDK reference
Best Practice for Unique Device Identifier
If you just require a unique identifier, it's best to avoid using hardware identifiers as Google continuously tries to make it harder to access them for privacy reasons. You could just generate a UUID.randomUUID().toString();
and save it the first time it needs to be accessed in e.g. shared preferences. Alternatively you could use ANDROID_ID
which is a 8 byte long hex string unique to the device, user and (only Android 8+) app installation. For more info on that topic, see Best practices for unique identifiers.
Build.SERIAL
can be empty or sometimes return a different value (proof 1, proof 2) than what you can see in your device's settings.
If you want a more complete and robust solution, I've compiled every possible solution I could found in a single gist. Here's a simplified version of it :
public static String getSerialNumber() {
String serialNumber;
try {
Class<?> c = Class.forName("android.os.SystemProperties");
Method get = c.getMethod("get", String.class);
serialNumber = (String) get.invoke(c, "gsm.sn1");
if (serialNumber.equals(""))
serialNumber = (String) get.invoke(c, "ril.serialnumber");
if (serialNumber.equals(""))
serialNumber = (String) get.invoke(c, "ro.serialno");
if (serialNumber.equals(""))
serialNumber = (String) get.invoke(c, "sys.serialnumber");
if (serialNumber.equals(""))
serialNumber = Build.SERIAL;
// If none of the methods above worked
if (serialNumber.equals(""))
serialNumber = null;
} catch (Exception e) {
e.printStackTrace();
serialNumber = null;
}
return serialNumber;
}
I try to update the gist regularly whenever I can test on a new device or Android version. Contributions are welcome too.