How to change location of AVD (Android Virtual Devices) files to external SSD?

Question

I have limited SSD on my Mac.

I have an external SSD.

I would like to store multiple virtual devices, far beyond the capacity of the Mac internal storage.

How to configure location of AVD?

Attempt 1

I tried using: https://stackoverflow.com/a/30614524/775359

ln -s /Volumes/1TB/.android .android

The files are stored on SSD but when I try to launch, it keep bouncing in the dock 😢

Attempt 2

https://developer.android.com/studio/command-line/variables.html

ANDROID_AVD_HOME: Sets the path to the directory that contains all AVD-specific files, which mostly consist of very large disk images. The default location is $ANDROID_EMULATOR_HOME/avd/. You might want to specify a new location if the default location is low on disk space.

This should be exactly what I need, trying this solution again:

export ANDROID_SDK_ROOT="/Volumes/1TB/Android/"
export ANDROID_EMULATOR_HOME="/Volumes/1TB/emulator/"
export ANDROID_AVD_HOME="/Volumes/1TB/emulator/avd/"

23 seconds video: https://youtu.be/8bPv85RnzP4 😢

Attempt 3

Formatted and partitioned the external SSD.

It doesn't start, see the split-second popup 😢

---

Handy answer to go nuclear: https://stackoverflow.com/a/45669617/775359

rm -Rf /Applications/Android\ Studio.app
rm -Rf ~/Library/Preferences/AndroidStudio*
rm ~/Library/Preferences/com.google.android.studio.plist
rm -Rf ~/Library/Application\ Support/AndroidStudio*
rm -Rf ~/Library/Logs/AndroidStudio*
rm -Rf ~/Library/Caches/AndroidStudio*
rm -Rf ~/AndroidStudioProjects
rm -Rf ~/.gradle
rm -Rf ~/.android
rm -Rf ~/Library/Android*

Answer 1

1) There is a solution here: Move Android Studio Virtual Devices to Another Hard Drive on a Mac . I will outline it later.

2.A) I am using Linux but my emulator is found under the Android SDK folder:/mnt/DATA/Android/Sdk/emulator (ON MY NVME M.2 BOOTABLE SSD) and my AVDs are located in /mnt/DATA1/.android/avd (on my 2ND SSD) and are accessible to Android Studio and the AVD Manager through the Symbolic Link to /mnt/DATA1/.android/avd stored in my ~/.android folder (ALSO ON MY NVME M.2 BOOTABLE SSD).

2.B) I copied the avd Folder from ~/.android to my Prefered Location, renamed he UNWANTED avd Folder avd.OLD (just in case), created a symbolic link to the desired avd folder, and copied the symbolic link to the ~/.android directory with the name avd.

2.C) I also ensured the Paths in the ini files point to the Physical location of the AVDs. for example: path=/mnt/DATA1/.android/avd/3.2_HVGA_slider_ADP1_API_29.avd