📝 Android Native Library ABIs

(Note last modified 2025-10-29 - View change history)

While Android apps are primarily written in Java and compiled to Dalvik bytecode, they may also contain libraries compiled to native code (usually referred to as “native libraries”). These typically offer better performance for intensive tasks, or portability for existing codebases. However while Dalvik bytecode is architecture-independent and runs on any Android device, native libraries are compiled for specific CPU architectures (referred to as “ABIs” in Android terminology).

In order to run an app with native libraries, the app must contain libraries compiled for an ABI supported by your device. If you install from Google Play you usually don’t have to worry about this, but when sideloading APKs you may run into errors about unsupported ABIs if trying to install an app.

Inspecting an APK for native libraries

Opening up an APK file like a zip archive reveals a lib/ directory. If the app you’re inspecting has this folder then it makes use of native libraries, otherwise it’s only written in Java and should run on any ABI. Inside the lib/ folder are subdirectories named after each ABI that the app supports, containing the respective compiled native libraries.

Some apps may be split into multiple APKs for each ABI, which may be especially apparent if you download the APK off a third-party site. If an APK only contains a single ABI folder under lib/, then there may be other versions that support different ABIs (or the app only supports arm64-v8a as the most common one, which I have seen sometimes in the wild).

Table of native library ABIs

This is a table of all Android native library ABIs that have ever existed, along with their more human-readable architecture names:

Also see the Android ABIs page in the official Android Developers documentation.

Checking Supported ABIs

While a given Android device may have a specific CPU architecture, it usually supports running native libraries compiled for multiple ABIs (for example, arm64-v8a devices may also be able to run armeabi-v7a and armeabi libraries).

To check which ABIs are supported by a connected Android device, you can use the following ADB command:

adb shell getprop ro.product.cpu.abilist

(If you don’t have a computer with ADB, you can run the same command in a terminal emulator app such as Termux, removing the adb shell part.)

Example output for an ARM 64-bit phone that can run 32-bit libraries:

arm64-v8a,armeabi-v7a,armeabi

You can also check which is the native/preferred ABI of the device with this command:

adb shell getprop ro.product.cpu.abi

ARM64-only devices

Some ARM Android devices released in recent years may only support ARM64 native libraries, dropping support for running 32-bit ARM code. This is something that has happened on the SOC-level and is not something you can simply work around with software. You may want to look for a slightly older Android device inbetween the couch cushions if you want to run a 32-bit only app in this case.