Get started testing for Android with Firebase Test Lab Stay organized with collections Save and categorize content based on your preferences.

Firebase Test Lab lets you test your app on a range of devices and configurations. This Get Started guide provides an implementation path for you to follow, as well as an introduction to Test Lab's Android offerings.

For information about Test Lab quotas and pricing plans, see Usage, Quotas, and Pricing.

Key concepts

When you run a test or a set of test cases against devices and configurations you've selected, Test Lab runs the test against your app in a batch, then displays the results as a test matrix.

Devices Test Executions = Test Matrix

Device

A physical or virtual device (Android only) you run a test on, such as a phone, tablet, or wearable device. Devices in a test matrix are identified by device model, OS version, screen orientation, and locale (also known as geography and language settings).

Test, test execution

A test (or a set of test cases) to be run on a device. You can run one test per device, or optionally shard the test and run its test cases on different devices.

Test matrix

Contains the statuses and test results for your test executions. If any test execution in a matrix fails, the whole matrix fails.

Step 1: Prepare your test for uploading to Test Lab

Available test types

You can run the following tests with Test Lab. Note that all test types are limited to running 45 minutes on physical devices and 60 minutes on virtual devices. Any uncaught exception will cause a test failure.

• Instrumentation test or instrumented unit test: A test you've written using the Espresso or UI Automator frameworks. With this test, you can make explicit assertions about the state of your app to verify correct functionality using AndroidJUnitRunnerAPIs.

  • Visit Run an instrumentation test for instructions on how to prepare your test to run in Test Lab.

  • Refer to the Android Developers documentation for instructions on how to build an instrumentation test.

• Robo test: An automated test that analyzes your app's UI and then explores it methodically by simulating user activities, without requiring you to write any code. Visit About Robo tests for more information.

• Game Loop test: A test that uses a "demo mode" to simulate player actions in gaming apps. This is a fast and scalable way to verify that your game performs well for users. When you choose to run a Game Loop test, you can:

  • Write tests native to your game engine

  • Avoid writing the same code for different UIs or testing frameworks

  • Optionally create multiple loops to run in a single test execution (visit About Game Loop tests to learn more). You can also organize loops by using labels so you can keep track of them and re-run specific loops.

  See Run a Game Loop test for instructions on running this test with Test Lab.

Tools to run your test

You can choose the following tools to run your test with:

• Recommended for first-time users: The Firebase console lets you upload an app and initiate testing from your web browser. See Test with the Firebase console for instructions on running tests using this tool.

• Android Studio integration lets you test your app without leaving your development environment. See Test with Android Studio for instructions on running tests using this tool.

• The gcloud command line interface enables you to run tests from the command line interactively, and is also well suited for scripting as part of your automated build and testing process. See Test with the gcloud CLI for instructions on running tests using this tool.

You can also test your app at no cost with Test Lab when you upload and publish your app's APK files to the Play Store using either the alpha or beta channel. For more information, see Use pre-launch reports to identify issues and Robo tests.

Step 2: Choose your testing device

Test Lab supports testing on several makes and models of Android devices installed and running in a Google data center. Testing on devices in Test Lab help you detect issues that might not occur when testing your app using emulators in Android Studio. To learn more, see Available devices.

Step 3: Review test results

Regardless of how you initiate your tests, all your test results are managed by Test Lab and can be viewed online.

The test result summary is automatically stored and can be viewed in the Firebase console. It contains the most relevant data for your test, including test case-specific videos, screenshots, the number of tests that passed, failed, or got flaky results, and more.

The raw test results contain test logs and app failure details, and is automatically stored in a Google Cloud bucket. If you specify a bucket, you are responsible for the cost of the storage. If you don't specify a bucket, Test Lab creates one for you at no cost.

For more details, see Analyze Firebase Test Lab Results.

When you initiate a test from Android Studio, you can also review test results from inside your development environment.

Device cleanup

Google takes the security of your app data very seriously. We follow industry-standard best practices to remove app data and reset system settings for physical devices after every test run to ensure that they are ready to run new tests. For devices that we can flash with a custom recovery image, we go one step further by flashing these devices between test runs.

For the virtual devices used by Test Lab, device instances are deleted after they are used so that each test run uses a new virtual device instance.

Test Lab and Google Play services

Test Lab devices usually run on the latest version of the Google Play services SDK, but some may require a few days to update after a new version of the SDK is released. Note that you may encounter compatibility issues with some devices.

Allowing test devices to access private backend servers

Some mobile apps need to communicate with private backend services to function correctly during testing. If your backend servers are protected by firewall rules, you can allow access for Test Lab's physical and virtual devices by using the IP address blocks below to open routes through your firewall.

Mobile advertising

Test Lab provides a scalable infrastructure that automates app testing, and unfortunately, this capability can be misused by malicious apps designed to generate fraudulent ad revenue.

To mitigate this issue:

• If you use or work with third-party digital advertising providers (for example, ad networks or demand-side platforms), you're recommended to use test ads rather than real ads during app development and testing.

• If you must use real ads in your test, notify the digital advertising providers you work with to filter out revenues and all corresponding traffic generated from Test Lab by using the IP address blocks below. You don't need to notify Google-owned ad providers; Test Lab takes care of that for you.

IP addresses used by Test Lab devices

All network traffic generated by Test Lab devices originates from the following IP address blocks. You can also access this list by using the gcloud beta firebase test ip-blocks list command in the gcloud CLI. The list is updated on average once a year.