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Appium Espresso Driver

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Appium's Espresso Driver is a test automation server for Android that uses Espresso as the underlying test technology. The Espresso Driver is a part of the Appium framework. The driver operates in scope of W3C WebDriver protocol with several custom extensions to cover operating-system specific scenarios.

The Espresso package consists of two main parts:

  • The driver part (written in Node.js) ensures the communication between the Espresso server and Appium. Also includes several handlers that directly use ADB and/or other system tools without a need to talk to the server.
  • The server part (written in Kotlin with some parts of Java), which is running on the device under test and transforms REST API calls into low-level Espresso commands.

Note

Since version 2.0.0 Espresso driver has dropped the support of Appium 1, and is only compatible to Appium 2. Use the appium driver install espresso command to add it to your Appium 2 dist.

Comparison with UiAutomator2

The key difference between UiAutomator2 Driver and Espresso Driver is that UiAutomator2 is a black-box testing framework, and Espresso is a "grey-box" testing framework. The Espresso Driver itself is black-box (no internals of the code are exposed to the tester), but the Espresso framework itself has access to the internals of Android applications. This distinction has a few notable benefits. It can find elements that aren't rendered on the screen, it can identify elements by the Android View Tag, and it makes use of IdlingResource which blocks the framework from running commands until the UI thread is free. There is a limited support of out-of-app areas automation via the mobile: uiautomator command.

Requirements

On top of standard Appium requirements Espresso driver also expects the following prerequisites:

  • Windows, Linux and macOS are supported as hosts
  • Android SDK Platform tools must be installed. Android Studio IDE also provides a convenient UI to install and manage the tools.
  • ANDROID_HOME or ANDROID_SDK_ROOT environment variable must be set
  • Java JDK must be installed and JAVA_HOME environment variable must be set. Java major version must be 11 or newer.
  • Emulator platform image must be installed if you plan to run your tests on it. Android Studio IDE also provides a convenient UI to install and manage emulators.
  • Real Android devices must have USB debugging enabled and should be visible as online in adb devices -l output.
  • The minimum version of Android API must be 5.0 (API level 21) (6.0 is recommended as version 5 has some known compatibility issues).
  • Gradle must be installed in order to build Espresso server.
  • Both the server package and the application under test must be signed with the same digital signature. Appium does sign them automatically upon session creation, so this could only be an issue if one wants to test an application, which is already installed on the device (using noReset=true capability).
  • The package under test must not have mangled class names (e.g. Proguard must not be enabled for it)

Doctor

Since driver version 2.31.0 you can automate the validation for the most of the above requirements as well as various optional ones needed by driver extensions by running the appium driver doctor espresso server command.

Scripts

  • appium driver run espresso print-espresso-path prints the path to the Appium Espresso server root. You can modify the gradle file directly if Espresso Build Config was not sufficient.
  • appium driver run espresso build-espresso builds the espresso server since driver version 2.18.0. It helps building the espresso server outside of the Appium process. Available environment variables are below:
    • SHOW_GRADLE_LOG configures if the command shows the gradle task logs. true or 1 sets it as enabled, but others set it as disabled. Defaults to disabled.
    • TEST_APP_PACKAGE configures the target application to build the espresso server for.
    • ESPRESSO_BUILD_CONFIG is an absolute path to the Espresso Build Config as JSON format file.
      • e.g. SHOW_GRADLE_LOG=true TEST_APP_PACKAGE=your.test.pkg ESPRESSO_BUILD_CONFIG=/path/to/the/config.json appium driver run build-espresso

Capabilities

General

Capability Name Description
platformName Could be set to android. Appium itself is not strict about this capability value if automationName is provided, so feel free to assign it to any supported platform name if this is needed, for example, to make Selenium Grid working.
appium:automationName Must always be set to espresso. Values of automationName are compared case-insensitively.
appium:deviceName The name of the device under test (actually, it is not used to select a device under test). Consider setting udid for real devices and avd for emulators instead
appium:platformVersion The platform version of an emulator or a real device. This capability is used for device autodetection if udid is not provided
appium:udid UDID of the device to be tested. Could ve retrieved from adb devices -l output. If unset then the driver will try to use the first connected device. Always set this capability if you run parallel tests.
appium:noReset Prevents the device to be reset before the session startup if set to true. This means that the application under test is not going to be terminated neither its data cleaned. false by default
appium:fullReset Being set to true always enforces the application under test to be fully uninstalled before starting a new session. false by default
appium:printPageSourceOnFindFailure Enforces the server to dump the actual XML page source into the log if any error happens. false by default.

Driver/Server

Capability Name Description
appium:systemPort The number of the port the Espresso server is listening on. By default the first free port from 8300..8399 range is selected. It is recommended to set this value if you are running parallel tests on the same machine.
appium:skipServerInstallation Skip the Espresso Server component installation on the device under test and all the related checks if set to true. This could help to speed up the session startup if you know for sure the correct server version is installed on the device. In case the server is not installed or an incorrect version of it is installed then you may get an unexpected error later. false by default
appium:espressoServerLaunchTimeout The maximum number of milliseconds to wait util Espresso server is listening on the device. 45000 ms by default
appium:forceEspressoRebuild Whether to always enforce Espresso server rebuild (true). By default Espresso caches the already built server apk and only rebuilds it when it is necessary, because rebuilding process needs extra time. false by default
appium:espressoBuildConfig Either the full path to build config JSON on the server file system or the JSON content itself serialized to a string. This config allows to customize several important properties of Espresso server. Refer to Espresso Build Config for more information on how to properly construct such config.
appium:showGradleLog Whether to include Gradle log to the regular server logs while building Espresso server. false by default.

App

Capability Name Description
appium:app Full path to the application to be tested (the app must be located on the same machine where the server is running). The .apk application extension is supported. Since driver version 2.1.0 .aab files are supported as well (they get converted to .apk format automatically if bundletool.jar could be found in your PATH). For older driver versions .aab files need to be converted manually to .apk format using bundletool first. Could also be an URL to a remote location. If neither of the app or appPackage capabilities are provided then the driver will fail to start a session. Also, if app capability is not provided it is expected that the app under test is already installed on the device under test and noReset is equal to true.
appium:appPackage Application package identifier to be started. If not provided then Espresso will try to detect it automatically from the package provided by the app capability. Read How To Troubleshoot Activities Startup for more details
appium:appActivity Main application activity identifier. If not provided then Espresso will try to detect it automatically from the package provided by the app capability. Read How To Troubleshoot Activities Startup for more details
appium:appWaitActivity Identifier of the first activity that the application invokes. If not provided then equals to appium:appActivity. Read How To Troubleshoot Activities Startup for more details
appium:appWaitPackage Identifier of the first package that is invoked first. If not provided then equals to appium:appPackage. Read How To Troubleshoot Activities Startup for more details
appium:appWaitDuration Maximum amount of milliseconds to wait until the application under test is started (e. g. an activity returns the control to the caller). 20000 ms by default. Read How To Troubleshoot Activities Startup for more details
appium:intentOptions The mapping of custom options for the intent that is going to be passed to the main app activity. Check Intent Options for more details.
appium:activityOptions The mapping of custom options for the main app activity that is going to be started. Check Activity Options for more details.
appium:androidInstallTimeout Maximum amount of milliseconds to wait until the application under test is installed. 90000 ms by default
appium:autoGrantPermissions Whether to grant all the requested application permissions automatically when a test starts(true). The targetSdkVersion in the application manifest must be greater or equal to 23 and the Android version on the device under test must be greater or equal to Android 6 (API level 23) to grant permissions. Applications whose targetSdkVersion is lower than or equal to 22 must be reisntalled to grant permissions, for example, by setting the appium:fullReset capability as true for Android 6+ devices. false by default
appium:otherApps Allows to set one or more comma-separated paths to Android packages that are going to be installed along with the main application under test. This might be useful if the tested app has dependencies
appium:uninstallOtherPackages Allows to set one or more comma-separated package identifiers to be uninstalled from the device before a test starts
appium:allowTestPackages If set to true then it would be possible to use packages built with the test flag for the automated testing (literally adds -t flag to the adb install command). false by default
appium:remoteAppsCacheLimit Sets the maximum amount of application packages to be cached on the device under test. This is needed for devices that don't support streamed installs (Android 7 and below), because ADB must push app packages to the device first in order to install them, which takes some time. Setting this capability to zero disables apps caching. 10 by default.
appium:enforceAppInstall If set to true then the application under test is always reinstalled even if a newer version of it already exists on the device under test. false by default

App Localization

Capability Name Description
appium:localeScript Canonical name of the locale to be set for the app under test, for example Hans in zh-Hans-CN. See https://developer.android.com/reference/java/util/Locale.html for more details.
appium:language Name of the language to extract application strings for. Strings are extracted for the current system language by default. Also sets the language for the app under test. See https://developer.android.com/reference/java/util/Locale.html for more details. Example: en, ja
appium:locale Sets the locale for the app under test. See https://developer.android.com/reference/java/util/Locale.html for more details. Example: EN, JA
appium:appLocale Sets the locale for the app under test. The main difference between this option and the above ones is that this option only changes the locale for the application under test and does not affect other parts of the system. Also, it only uses public APIs for its purpose. See https://github.com/libyal/libfwnt/wiki/Language-Code-identifiers to get the list of available language abbreviations. Example: {"language": "zh", "country": "CN", "variant": "Hans"}

ADB

Capability Name Description
appium:adbPort Number of the port where ADB is running. 5037 by default
appium:remoteAdbHost Address of the host where ADB is running (the value of -H ADB command line option). Unset by default
appium:adbExecTimeout Maximum number of milliseconds to wait until single ADB command is executed. 20000 ms by default
appium:clearDeviceLogsOnStart If set to true then Espresso deletes all the existing logs in the device buffer before starting a new test
appium:buildToolsVersion The version of Android build tools to use. By default Espresso driver uses the most recent version of build tools installed on the machine, but sometimes it might be necessary to give it a hint (let say if there is a known bug in the most recent tools version). Example: 28.0.3
appium:skipLogcatCapture Being set to true disables automatic logcat output collection during the test run. false by default
appium:suppressKillServer Being set to true prevents the driver from ever killing the ADB server explicitly. Could be useful if ADB is connected wirelessly. false by default
appium:ignoreHiddenApiPolicyError Being set to true ignores a failure while changing hidden API access policies. Could be useful on some devices, where access to these policies has been locked by its vendor. false by default.
pium:hideKeyboard Being set to true hides the on-screen keyboard while the session is running. Use it instead of the legacy appium:unicodeKeyboard one (which will be dropped in the future). This effect is achieved by assigning a custom "artificial" input method. Only use this feature for special/exploratory cases as it violates the way your application under test is normally interacted with by a human. Setting this capability explicitly to false enforces adb shell ime reset call on session startup, which resets the currently selected/enabled IMEs to the default ones as if the device is initially booted with the current locale. undefined by default.
appium:mockLocationApp Sets the package identifier of the app, which is used as a system mock location provider since Appium 1.18.0+. This capability has no effect on emulators. If the value is set to null or an empty string, then Appium will skip the mocked location provider setup procedure. Defaults to Appium Setting package identifier (io.appium.settings).
appium:logcatFormat The log print format, where format is one of: brief process tag thread raw time threadtime long. threadtime is the default value.
appium:logcatFilterSpecs Series of tag[:priority] where tag is a log component tag (or * for all) and priority is: V Verbose, D Debug, I Info, W Warn, E Error, F Fatal, S Silent (supress all output). '' means ':d' and tag by itself means tag:v. If not specified on the commandline, filterspec is set from ANDROID_LOG_TAGS. If no filterspec is found, filter defaults to '*:I'.
appium:allowDelayAdb Being set to false prevents emulator to use -delay-adb feature to detect its startup. See appium/appium#14773 for more details.

Emulator (Android Virtual Device)

Capability Name Description
appium:avd The name of Android emulator to run the test on. The names of currently installed emulators could be listed using avdmanager list avd command. If the emulator with the given name is not running then it is going to be started before a test
appium:avdLaunchTimeout Maximum number of milliseconds to wait until Android Emulator is started. 60000 ms by default
appium:avdReadyTimeout Maximum number of milliseconds to wait until Android Emulator is fully booted and is ready for usage. 60000 ms by default
appium:avdArgs Either a string or an array of emulator command line arguments.
appium:avdEnv Mapping of emulator environment variables.
appium:networkSpeed Sets the desired network speed limit for the emulator. It is only applied if the emulator is not running before the test starts. See emulator command line arguments description for more details.
appium:gpsEnabled Sets whether to enable (true) or disable (false) GPS service in the Emulator. Unset by default, which means to not change the current value
appium:isHeadless If set to true then emulator starts in headless mode (e.g. no UI is shown). It is only applied if the emulator is not running before the test starts. false by default.

App Signing

Capability Name Description
appium:useKeystore Whether to use a custom keystore to sign the app under test. false by default, which means apps are always signed with the default Appium debug certificate (unless canceled by noSign capability). This capability is used in combination with keystorePath, keystorePassword, keyAlias and keyPassword capabilities.
appium:keystorePath The full path to the keystore file on the server filesystem. This capability is used in combination with useKeystore, keystorePath, keystorePassword, keyAlias and keyPassword capabilities. Unset by default
appium:keystorePassword The password to the keystore file provided in keystorePath capability. This capability is used in combination with useKeystore, keystorePath, keystorePassword, keyAlias and keyPassword capabilities. Unset by default
appium:keyAlias The alias of the key in the keystore file provided in keystorePath capability. This capability is used in combination with useKeystore, keystorePath, keystorePassword, keyAlias and keyPassword capabilities. Unset by default
appium:keyPassword The password of the key in the keystore file provided in keystorePath capability. This capability is used in combination with useKeystore, keystorePath, keystorePassword, keyAlias and keyPassword capabilities. Unset by default
appium:noSign Set it to true in order to skip application signing. By default all apps are always signed with the default Appium debug signature. This capability cancels all the signing checks and makes the driver to use the application package as is. This capability does not affect .apks packages as these are expected to be already signed. Make sure that the server package is signed with the same signature as the application under test before disabling this capability.

Device Locking

Capability Name Description
appium:skipUnlock Whether to skip the check for lock screen presence (true). By default Espresso driver tries to detect if the device's screen is locked before starting the test and to unlock that (which sometimes might be unstable). Note, that this operation takes some time, so it is recommended to set this capability to false and disable screen locking on devices under test. Read the Unlock tutorial for more details.
appium:unlockType Set one of the possible types of Android lock screens to unlock. Read the Unlock tutorial for more details.
appium:unlockKey Allows to set an unlock key. Read the Unlock tutorial for more details.
appium:unlockSuccessTimeout Maximum number of milliseconds to wait until the device is unlocked. 2000 ms by default. Read the Unlock tutorial for more details.

Web Context

Capability Name Description
appium:autoWebview If set to true then Espresso driver will try to switch to the first available web view after the session is started. false by default.
appium:webviewDevtoolsPort The local port number to use for devtools communication. By default the first free port from 10900..11000 range is selected. Consider setting the custom value if you are running parallel tests.
appium:ensureWebviewsHavePages Whether to skip web views that have no pages from being shown in getContexts output. The driver uses devtools connection to retrieve the information about existing pages. true by default since Appium 1.19.0, false if lower than 1.19.0.
appium:enableWebviewDetailsCollection Whether to retrieve extended web views information using devtools protocol. Enabling this capability helps to detect the necessary chromedriver version more precisely. true by default since Appium 1.22.0, false if lower than 1.22.0.
appium:chromedriverPort The port number to use for Chromedriver communication. Any free port number is selected by default if unset.
appium:chromedriverPorts Array of possible port numbers to assign for Chromedriver communication. If none of the port in this array is free then an error is thrown.
appium:chromedriverArgs Array of chromedriver command line arguments. Note, that not all command line arguments that are available for the desktop browser are also available for the mobile one.
appium:chromedriverExecutable Full path to the chromedriver executable on the server file system.
appium:chromedriverExecutableDir Full path to the folder where chromedriver executables are located. This folder is used then to store the downloaded chromedriver executables if automatic download is enabled. Read Automatic Chromedriver Discovery article for more details.
appium:chromedriverChromeMappingFile Full path to the chromedrivers mapping file. This file is used to statically map webview/browser versions to the chromedriver versions that are capable of automating them. Read Automatic Chromedriver Discovery article for more details.
appium:chromedriverUseSystemExecutable Set it to true in order to enforce the usage of chromedriver, which gets downloaded by Appium automatically upon installation. This driver might not be compatible with the destination browser or a web view. false by default.
appium:chromedriverDisableBuildCheck Being set to true disables the compatibility validation between the current chromedriver and the destination browser/web view. Use it with care.
appium:autoWebviewTimeout Set the maximum number of milliseconds to wait until a web view is available if autoWebview capability is set to true. 2000 ms by default
appium:recreateChromeDriverSessions If this capability is set to true then chromedriver session is always going to be killed and then recreated instead of just suspending it on context switching. false by default
appium:nativeWebScreenshot Whether to use screenshoting endpoint provided by Espresso framework (true) rather than the one provided by chromedriver (false, the default value). Use it when you experience issues with the latter.
appium:extractChromeAndroidPackageFromContextName If set to true, tell chromedriver to attach to the android package we have associated with the context name, rather than the package of the application under test. false by default.
appium:showChromedriverLog If set to true then all the output from chromedriver binary will be forwarded to the Appium server log. false by default.
pageLoadStrategy One of the available page load strategies. See https://www.w3.org/TR/webdriver/#capabilities
appium:chromeOptions A mapping, that allows to customize chromedriver options. See https://chromedriver.chromium.org/capabilities for the list of available entries.

Other

Capability Name Description
appium:disableSuppressAccessibilityService Being set to true tells the instrumentation process to not suppress accessibility services during the automated test. This might be useful if your automated test needs these services. false by default
appium:disableWindowAnimation To avoid flakiness google recommends to disable the window animation of the Android device under test when running espresso test. true by default
appium:timeZone Overrides the current device's time zone since the driver version 2.38.0. This change is preserved until the next override. The time zone identifier must be a valid name from the list of available time zone identifiers, for example Europe/Kyiv

Settings API

Espresso driver supports Appium Settings API. Along with the common settings the following driver-specific settings are currently available:

Name Type Description
driver 'compose' or 'espresso' The name of the subdriver to use for elements interactions. The default value is espresso. Switching the value to compose enables interactions with Jetpack Compose-based application user interfaces. Read Jetpack Compose Support for more details.

Jetpack Compose Support

Jetpack Compose is Android’s modern toolkit for building native UI. Espresso driver supports basic interactions with Compose-based applications since version 1.46.0.

Appium UiAutomator2 driver allows to interact with Jetpack Compose elements via the accessibility layer by providing testTag modifier attribute or the displayed text, but this Espresso driver allows you to access Jetpack Compose elements directly.

Interaction With Compose Elements

Espresso driver has the concept of subdrivers. This works quite similarly to the concept of contexts, while contexts are used to switch between native and web, and subdrivers are still under the native one. Each subdriver operates its own elements cache, so it is not be possible to mix Espresso and Compose elements.

In order to change between subdrivers use the driver setting. Setting its value to compose modifies driver behavior in the way it interacts with Compose elements rather that with classic Android views. It is possible to switch between espresso and compose modes at any point of time. When compose mode is active the the following webdriver commands behave differently (as of driver version 1.50.0):

  • findElement(s): Element finding commands only support Compose-based locators. Read Compose Elements Location for more details.
  • getPageSource: The returned page source is retrieved from Compose and all elements there contain Compose-specific attributes.
  • click, isDisplayed, isEnabled, clear, getText, sendKeys, getElementRect, getValue, isSelected: These commands should properly support compose elements.
  • getAttribute: Accepts and returns Compose-specific element attributes. See Compose Element Attributes for the full list of supported Compose element attributes.
  • getElementScreenshot: Fetches a screenshot of the given Compose element. Available since driver version 2.14.0
  • mobile: swipe: Performs swipe gesture on the given element in the given direction. The swiper argument is not supported in Compose mode. Available since driver version 2.15.0

Calling other driver element-specific APIs not listed above would most likely throw an exception as Compose and Espresso elements are being stored in completely separated internal caches and must not be mixed.

You could also check end-to-end tests for more examples on how to setup test capabilities and on the Compose usage in general:

Espresso Build Config

Espresso server is in tight connection with the application under test. That is why it is important that the server uses the same versions of common dependencies and there are no conflicts. Espresso driver allows to configure several build options via espressoBuildConfig capability. The configuration JSON supports the following entries:

toolsVersions

This entry allows to explicitly set the versions of different server components. The following map entries are supported:

Name Description Example
gradle The Gradle version to use for Espresso server building. '6.3'
androidGradlePlugin The Gradle plugin version to use for Espresso server building. By default the version from the build.gradle.kts is used '4.1.1'
compileSdk Android SDK version to compile the server for. By default the version from the app build.gradle.kts is used 28
buildTools Target Android build tools version to compile the server with. By default the version from the app build.gradle.kts is used '28.0.3'
minSdk Minimum Android SDK version to compile the server for. By default the version from the app build.gradle.kts is used 18
targetSdk Target Android SDK version to compile the server for. By default the version from the app build.gradle.kts is used 28
kotlin Kotlin version to compile the server for. By default the version from the build.gradle.kts is used '1.3.72'
composeVersion The version for the Jetpack Compose dependencies to use for Espresso server building. By default the version from the build.gradle.kts is used '1.1.1'
espressoVersion The version for the Espresso dependencies to use for Espresso server building. By default the version from the build.gradle.kts is used '3.5.0'
sourceCompatibility The minimum version of JVM the project sources are compatible with. The default value is VERSION_1_8 VERSION_12
targetCompatibility The target version of JVM the project sources are compatible with. The default value is VERSION_1_8 VERSION_12
jvmTarget Target version of the generated JVM bytecode as a string. The default value is 1_8 1_10
annotationVersion The target version of androidx.annotation:annotation pakage. By default the version from the app build.gradle.kts is used '1.2.0'

additionalAppDependencies

The value of this entry must be a non empty array of dependent module names with their versions. The scripts adds all these items as implementation lines of dependencies category in the app build.gradle.kts script. Example: ["xerces.xercesImpl:2.8.0", "xerces.xmlParserAPIs:2.6.2"]

additionalAndroidTestDependencies

The value of this entry must be a non empty array of dependent module names with their versions. The scripts adds all these items as androidTestImplementation lines of dependencies category in the app build.gradle.kts script. Example: ["xerces.xercesImpl:2.8.0", "xerces.xmlParserAPIs:2.6.2"]

Full JSON Example

{
  "toolsVersions": {
    "androidGradlePlugin": "4.0.0"
  },
  "additionalAndroidTestDependencies": ["xerces.xercesImpl:2.8.0", "xerces.xmlParserAPIs:2.6.2"]
}

Intent Options

By default Espresso creates the following intent to start the app activity:

{
  "action": "ACTION_MAIN",
  "flags": "ACTIVITY_NEW_TASK",
  "className": "<fullyQualifiedAppActivity>"
}

Although, it is possible to fully customize these options by providing the intentOptions capability. Read Intent documentation for more details on this topic. The value of this capability is expected to be a map with the following entries:

Name Type Description Example
action string An action name. Application-specific actions should be prefixed with the vendor's package name. ACTION_MAIN
data string Intent data URI content://contacts/people/1
type string Intent MIME type image/png
categories string One or more comma-separated Intent categories android.intent.category.APP_CONTACTS
component string Component name with package name prefix to create an explicit intent com.example.app/.ExampleActivity
intFlags string Single string value, which represents intent flags set encoded into an integer. Could also be provided in hexadecimal format. Check setFlags method documentation for more details. 0x0F
flags Comma-separated string of intent flag names 'FLAG_GRANT_READ_URI_PERMISSION, ACTIVITY_CLEAR_TASK' (the 'FLAG_' prefix could be omitted)
className The name of a class inside of the application package that will be used as the component for this Intent com.example.app.MainActivity
e or es Map<string, string> Intent string parameters {'foo': 'bar'}
esn Array<string> Intent null parameters ['foo', 'bar']
ez Map<string, boolean> Intent boolean parameters {'foo': true, 'bar': false}
ei Map<string, int> Intent integer parameters {'foo': 1, 'bar': 2}
el Map<string, long> Intent long integer parameters {'foo': 1L, 'bar': 2L}
ef Map<string, float> Intent float parameters {'foo': 1.ff, 'bar': 2.2f}
eu Map<string, string> Intent URI-data parameters {'foo': 'content://contacts/people/1'}
ecn Map<string, string> Intent component name parameters {'foo': 'com.example.app/.ExampleActivity'}
esa Map<string, List<string>> Intent string array parameters {'foo': ['bar1','bar2','bar3','bar4']}
eia Map<string, string> Intent integer array parameters {'foo': '1,2,3,4'}
ela Map<string, string> Intent long array parameters {'foo': '1L,2L,3L,4L'}
efa Map<string, string> Intent float array parameters {'foo': '1.1,2.2,3.2,4.4'}

Activity Options

Espresso driver allows to customize several activity startup options using activityOptions capability. The capability value is expected to be a map with the following entries:

Name Type Description Example
launchDisplayId string or int Display id which you want to assign to launch the main app activity on. This might be useful if the device under test supports multiple displays 1

Espresso Element Attributes

Espresso driver supports the following element attributes in espresso subdriver:

Name Description Example
checkable Whether the element is checkable or not 'true'
checked Whether the element is checked. Always false if the element is not checkable 'false'
class The full name of the element's class. Could be null for some elements 'android.view.View'
clickable Whether the element could be clicked 'false'
content-desc The content-description attribute of the accessible element 'foo'
enabled Whether the element could be clicked 'true'
focusable Whether the element could be focused 'true'
focused Whether the element could is focused. Always false if the element is not focusable 'false'
long-clickable Whether the element accepts long clicks 'false'
package Identifier of the package the element belongs to 'com.mycompany'
password Whether the element is a password input field 'true'
resource-id Element's resource identifier. Could be null 'com.mycompany:id/resId'
scrollable Whether the element is scrollable 'true'
selected Whether the element is selected 'false'
text The element's text. It never equals to null 'my text'
hint The element's hint. Could be null 'my hint text'
bounds The element's visible frame ([left, top][right, bottom]) [0,0][100,100]
no-multiline-buttons Whether the element's view hierarchy does not contain multiline buttons 'true'
no-overlaps Whether element's descendant objects assignable to TextView or ImageView do not overlap each other 'true'
no-ellipsized-text Whether the element's view hierarchy does not contain ellipsized or cut off text views 'false'
visible Whether the element is visible to the user 'true'
view-tag The tag value assigned to the element. Could be null 'my tag'

Compose Element Attributes

Espresso driver supports the following element attributes in compose subdriver:

Name Description Example
bounds The element's visible frame ([left, top][right, bottom]) [0,0][100,100]
checked Whether the element is checked. Always false if the element is not checkable 'false'
class The full name of the element's class. Could be ComposeNode for some elements 'ComposeNode'
clickable Whether the element could be clicked 'false'
content-desc The content-description attribute of the accessible element 'foo'
enabled Whether the element could be clicked 'true'
focused Whether the element could is focused. Always false if the element is not focusable 'false'
index Element's index in the tree hierarchy 0
password Whether the element is a password input field 'true'
resource-id Element's resource identifier. Could be null 'com.mycompany:id/resId'
scrollable Whether the element is scrollable 'true'
selected Whether the element is selected 'false'
text The element's text 'my text'
view-tag The testTag element's value. Could be null 'my tag'

Espresso Elements Location

Espresso driver supports the following location strategies in espresso subdriver:

Name Description Speed Ranking Example
id This strategy is mapped to the native Espresso withId matcher (exact match of element's resource id). Package identifier prefix is added automatically if unset and is equal to the identifier of the current application under test. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 'com.mycompany:id/resourceId'
accessibility id This strategy is mapped to the native Espresso withContentDescription matcher (exact match of element's content description). ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 'my description'
class name This strategy is mapped to the native Espresso withClassName matcher (exact match of element's class name). ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 'android.view.View'
text This strategy is mapped to the native Espresso withText matcher (exact match of element's text). ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 'my text'
-android viewtag or tag name This strategy is mapped to the native Espresso withTagValue matcher (exact match of element's tag value). ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 'my tag'
-android datamatcher This strategy allows to create Espresso data interaction selectors which can quickly and reliably scroll to the necessary elements. Read Espresso DataMatcher Selector to know more on how to construct these locators. Also check the Unlocking New Testing Capabilities with Espresso Driver by Daniel Graham presentation video from Appium Conf 2019. ⭐⭐⭐⭐ {"name": "hasEntry", "args": ["title", "WebView3"]}
-android viewmatcher This strategy allows constructing of Espresso view matchers based on the given JSON representation of them. The representation is expected to contain the following fields: name: mandatory matcher function name; args: optional matcher function arguments, each argument could also be a function; class: optional full qualified class name of the corresponding matcher (if not provided then org.hamcrest.Matchers one is used), scope (since Espresso driver 2.11.0): optional JSON representation of a RootMatchers method. Check unit tests for more examples. ⭐⭐⭐⭐ {"name": "withText", "args": [{"name": "containsString", "args": "getExternalStoragePublicDirectory", "class": "org.hamcrest.Matchers"}], "class": "androidx.test.espresso.matcher.ViewMatchers"}
xpath For elements lookup Xpath strategy the driver uses the same XML tree that is generated by page source API. Only Xpath 1.0 is supported. ⭐⭐⭐ By.xpath("//android.view.View[@text="Regular" and @checkable="true"]")

Compose Elements Location

Espresso driver supports the following location strategies in compose subdriver:

Name Description Speed Ranking Example
accessibility id This strategy is mapped to the native Espresso hasContentDescription matcher (exact match of element's content description). ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 'my description'
-android viewtag or tag name This strategy is mapped to the native Compose hasTestTag matcher (exact match of element's tag value). ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 'my tag'
text or link text This strategy is mapped to the native Compose hasText matcher (exact match of element's text). ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 'my text'
xpath For elements lookup Xpath strategy the driver uses the same XML tree that is generated by page source API. Only Xpath 1.0 is supported. ⭐⭐⭐ By.xpath("//ComposeNode[@text="Regular" and @selected="true"]")

Platform-Specific Extensions

Beside of standard W3C APIs the driver provides the below custom command extensions to execute platform specific scenarios. Use the following source code examples in order to invoke them from your client code:

// Java 11+
var result = driver.executeScript("mobile: <methodName>", Map.of(
    "arg1", "value1",
    "arg2", "value2"
    // you may add more pairs if needed or skip providing the map completely
    // if all arguments are defined as optional
));
// WebdriverIO
const result = await driver.executeScript('mobile: <methodName>', [{
    arg1: "value1",
    arg2: "value2",
}]);
# Python
result = driver.execute_script('mobile: <methodName>', {
    'arg1': 'value1',
    'arg2': 'value2',
})
# Ruby
result = @driver.execute_script 'mobile: <methodName>', {
    arg1: 'value1',
    arg2: 'value2',
}
// Dotnet
object result = driver.ExecuteScript("mobile: <methodName>", new Dictionary<string, object>() {
    {"arg1", "value1"},
    {"arg2", "value2"}
});

mobile: shell

Executes the given shell command on the device under test via ADB connection. This extension exposes a potential security risk and thus is only enabled when explicitly activated by the adb_shell server command line feature specifier

Arguments

Name Type Required Description Example
command string yes Shell command name to execute, for example echo or rm echo
args Array<string> no Array of command arguments ['-f', '/sdcard/myfile.txt']
timeout number no Command timeout in milliseconds. If the command blocks for longer than this timeout then an exception is going to be thrown. The default timeout is 20000 ms 100000
includeStderr boolean no Whether to include stderr stream into the returned result. false by default true

Returns

Depending on the includeStderr value this API could either return a string, which is equal to the stdout stream content of the given command or a dictionary whose elements are stdout and stderr and values are contents of the corresponding outgoing streams. If the command exits with a non-zero return code then an exception is going to be thrown. The exception message will be equal to the command stderr.

mobile: execEmuConsoleCommand

Executes a command through emulator telnet console interface and returns its output. The emulator_console server feature must be enabled in order to use this method.

Arguments

Name Type Required Description Example
command string yes The actual command to execute. See Android Emulator Console Guide for more details on available commands help-verbose
execTimeout number no Timeout used to wait for a server reply to the given command in milliseconds. 60000 ms by default 100000
connTimeout boolean no Console connection timeout in milliseconds. 5000 ms by default 10000
initTimeout boolean no Telnet console initialization timeout in milliseconds (the time between the connection happens and the command prompt). 5000 ms by default 10000

Returns

The actual command output. An error is thrown if command execution fails.

mobile: performEditorAction

Performs IME action on the currently focused edit element.

Very often Android developers use onEditorAction callback with actionId argument to implement actions handling, for example, when Search or Done button is pressed on the on-screen keyboard. This mobile extension is supposed to emulate the invokation of such callback on the focused element.

Arguments

Name Type Required Description Example
action string yes The name or an integer code of the editor action to be executed. The following action names are supported: normal, unspecified, none, go, search, send, next, done, previous. Read EditorInfo for more details on this topic. search

Examples

// Java
driver.executeScript("mobile: performEditorAction", ImmutableMap.of("action", "Go"));
# Python
driver.execute_script('mobile: performEditorAction', {'action': 'previous'})

mobile: changePermissions

Changes package permissions in runtime.

Arguments

Name Type Required Description Example
permissions string or Array<string> yes The full name of the permission to be changed or a list of permissions. Mandatory argument. ['android.permission.ACCESS_FINE_LOCATION', 'android.permission.BROADCAST_SMS']
appPackage string no The application package to set change permissions on. Defaults to the package name under test com.mycompany.myapp
action string no Either grant (the default action) or revoke grant

mobile: getPermissions

Gets runtime permissions list for the given application package.

Arguments

Name Type Required Description Example
type string no One of possible permission types to get. Can be one of: denied, granted or requested (the default value). granted
appPackage string no The application package to get permissions from. Defaults to the package name under test com.mycompany.myapp

Returns

Array of strings, where each string is a permission name. the array could be empty.

mobile: startScreenStreaming

Starts device screen broadcast by creating MJPEG server. Multiple calls to this method have no effect unless the previous streaming session is stopped. This method only works if the adb_screen_streaming feature is enabled on the server side. It is also required that GStreamer with gst-plugins-base, gst-plugins-good and gst-plugins-bad packages is installed and available in PATH on the server machine.

Arguments

Name Type Required Description Example
width number no The scaled width of the device's screen. If unset then the script will assign it to the actual screen width measured in pixels. 768
height number no The scaled height of the device's screen. If unset then the script will assign it to the actual screen height measured in pixels. 1024
bitRate number no The video bit rate for the video, in bits per second. The default value is 4000000 (4 Mb/s). You can increase the bit rate to improve video quality, but doing so results in larger movie files. 1024000
host string no The IP address/host name to start the MJPEG server on. You can set it to 0.0.0.0 to trigger the broadcast on all available network interfaces. 127.0.0.1 by default 0.0.0.0
pathname string no The HTTP request path the MJPEG server should be available on. If unset then any pathname on the given host/port combination will work. Note that the value should always start with a single slash: / /myserver
tcpPort number no The port number to start the internal TCP MJPEG broadcast on. This type of broadcast always starts on the loopback interface (127.0.0.1). 8094 by default 5024
port number no The port number to start the MJPEG server on. 8093 by default 5023
quality number no The quality value for the streamed JPEG images. This number should be in range [1, 100], where 100 is the best quality. 70 by default 80
considerRotation boolean no If set to true then GStreamer pipeline will increase the dimensions of the resulting images to properly fit images in both landscape and portrait orientations. Set it to true if the device rotation is not going to be the same during the broadcasting session. false by default false
logPipelineDetails boolean no Whether to log GStreamer pipeline events into the standard log output. Might be useful for debugging purposes. false by default true

mobile: stopScreenStreaming

Stop the previously started screen streaming. If no screen streaming server has been started then nothing is done.

mobile: deviceInfo

Retrieves the information about the device under test, like the device model, serial number, network connectivity info, etc.

Returns

The extension returns a dictionary whose entries are the device properties. Check https://github.com/appium/appium-espresso-driver/blob/master/espresso-server/app/src/androidTest/java/io/appium/espressoserver/lib/handlers/GetDeviceInfo.kt to get the full list of returned keys and their corresponding values.

mobile: swipe

Perform swipe action. Invokes Espresso swipe action under the hood.

Arguments

Name Type Required Description Example
elementId (element before v2.29) string yes The UDID of the element to perform the swipe on. 123456-7890-3453-24234243
direction string no Swipe direction. Either this argument or swiper must be provided, but not both. The following values are supported: up, down, left, right down
swiper string no Swipe speed. Either this argument or direction must be provided, but not both. Either FAST (Swipes quickly between the co-ordinates) or SLOW (Swipes deliberately slowly between the co-ordinates, to aid in visual debugging) SLOW
startCoordinates string no The starting coordinates for the action. The following values are supported: TOP_LEFT, TOP_CENTER, TOP_RIGHT, CENTER_LEFT, CENTER, CENTER_RIGHT, BOTTOM_LEFT, BOTTOM_CENTER (the default value), BOTTOM_RIGHT, VISIBLE_CENTER CENTER_LEFT
endCoordinates string no The ending coordinates for the action. The following values are supported: TOP_LEFT, TOP_CENTER (the default value), TOP_RIGHT, CENTER_LEFT, CENTER, CENTER_RIGHT, BOTTOM_LEFT, BOTTOM_CENTER, BOTTOM_RIGHT, VISIBLE_CENTER TOP_LEFT
precisionDescriber string no Defines the actual swipe precision. The following values are supported: PINPOINT (1px), FINGER (average width of the index finger is 16 – 20 mm), THUMB (average width of an adult thumb is 25 mm or 1 inch, the default value) FINGER

mobile: isToastVisible

Checks whether a toast notification with the given text is currently visible.

Arguments

Name Type Required Description Example
text string yes The actual toast test or a part of it 'toast text'
isRegexp boolean no Whether the text value should be parsed as a regular expression (true) or as a raw text (false, the default value) false

Returns

Either true or false

mobile: openDrawer

Opens the DrawerLayout drawer with the gravity. This method blocks until the drawer is fully open. No operation if the drawer is already open.

Arguments

Name Type Required Description Example
elementId (element before v2.29) string yes UDID of the element to perform the action on. 123456-7890-3453-24234243
gravity int no See GravityCompat and Gravity classes documentation 0x00800000 <bitwise_or> 0x00000003

mobile: closeDrawer

Closes the DrawerLayout drawer with the gravity. This method blocks until the drawer is fully closed. No operation if the drawer is already closed.

Arguments

Name Type Required Description Example
elementId (element before v2.29) string yes UDID of the element to perform the action on. 123456-7890-3453-24234243
gravity int no See GravityCompat and Gravity classes documentation 0x00800000 <bitwise_or> 0x00000005

mobile: scrollToPage

Perform scrolling to the given page. Invokes one of the ViewPagerActions under the hood. Which action is invoked depends on the given arguments.

Arguments

Name Type Required Description Example
elementId (element before v2.29) string yes UDID of the element to perform the action on. 123456-7890-3453-24234243
scrollTo string no if scrollToPage is provided Shifts ViewPager to the given page. Supported values are: first, last, left, right last
scrollToPage int no if scrollTo is provided Moves ViewPager to a specific page number (numbering starts from zero). 1
smoothScroll boolean no Whether to perform smooth (but slower) scrolling (true). The default value is false true

mobile: navigateTo

Invokes navigateTo action under the hood.

Arguments

Name Type Required Description Example
elementId (element before v2.29) string yes UDID of the element to perform the action on. View constraints: View must be a child of a DrawerLayout; View must be of type NavigationView; View must be visible on screen; View must be displayed on screen 123456-7890-3453-24234243
menuItemId int yes The resource id of the destination menu item 123

mobile: clickAction

Perform general click action.

Arguments

Name Type Required Description Example
elementId (element before v2.29) string yes The UDID of the element to perform the click on. 123456-7890-3453-24234243
tapper string no Tapper type. Supported types are: SINGLE (the default value), LONG, DOUBLE LONG
coordinatesProvider string no The coordinates for the action. The following values are supported: TOP_LEFT, TOP_CENTER, TOP_RIGHT, CENTER_LEFT, CENTER, CENTER_RIGHT, BOTTOM_LEFT, BOTTOM_CENTER, BOTTOM_RIGHT, VISIBLE_CENTER (the default value) CENTER_LEFT
precisionDescriber string no Defines the actual click precision. The following values are supported: PINPOINT (1px), FINGER (average width of the index finger is 16 – 20 mm, the default value), THUMB (average width of an adult thumb is 25 mm or 1 inch) PINPOINT
inputDevice int no Input device identifier, 0 by default 1
buttonState int no Button state id, 0 by default 1

mobile: getContexts

Retrieves a WebViews mapping based on CDP endpoints

Arguments

Name Type Required Description Example
waitForWebviewMs number no Tells Espresso driver for how long (in milliseconds) to wait for web view(s) to appear since Espresso driver v2.30.0. If a Chrome process running on the device under test fails to create a connection to the devtools socket, then the chromedriver will rise an error similar to failed to connect to socket 'localabstract:chrome_devtools_remote' in Espresso driver. It could cause no WebViews found result, although a couple of retrials may fix it. This argument helps to keep trying to get WebView(s) up to the given time milliseconds as one command call. This issue tends to occur Chrome v115 and over so far. issues#19251 contains more details. If set to 0ms (the default value), then Espresso driver only checks the WebView(s) availability once. 10000

Returns

The following json demonstrates the example of WebviewsMapping object. Note that description in page can be an empty string most likely when it comes to Mobile Chrome)

 {
   "proc": "@webview_devtools_remote_22138",
   "webview": "WEBVIEW_22138",
   "info": {
     "Android-Package": "io.appium.settings",
     "Browser": "Chrome/74.0.3729.185",
     "Protocol-Version": "1.3",
     "User-Agent": "Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; Android 10; Android SDK built for x86 Build/QSR1.190920.001; wv) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Chrome/74.0.3729.185 Mobile Safari/537.36",
     "V8-Version": "7.4.288.28",
     "WebKit-Version": "537.36 (@22955682f94ce09336197bfb8dffea991fa32f0d)",
     "webSocketDebuggerUrl": "ws://127.0.0.1:10900/devtools/browser"
   },
   "pages": [
     {
       "description": "{\"attached\":true,\"empty\":false,\"height\":1458,\"screenX\":0,\"screenY\":336,\"visible\":true,\"width\":1080}",
       "devtoolsFrontendUrl": "http://chrome-devtools-frontend.appspot.com/serve_rev/@22955682f94ce09336197bfb8dffea991fa32f0d/inspector.html?ws=127.0.0.1:10900/devtools/page/27325CC50B600D31B233F45E09487B1F",
       "id": "27325CC50B600D31B233F45E09487B1F",
       "title": "Releases · appium/appium · GitHub",
       "type": "page",
       "url": "https://github.com/appium/appium/releases",
       "webSocketDebuggerUrl": "ws://127.0.0.1:10900/devtools/page/27325CC50B600D31B233F45E09487B1F"
     }
   ],
   "webviewName": "WEBVIEW_com.io.appium.setting"
 }

mobile: getNotifications

Retrieves Android notifications via Appium Settings helper. Appium Settings app itself must be manually granted to access notifications under device Settings in order to make this feature working. Appium Settings helper keeps all the active notifications plus notifications that appeared while it was running in the internal buffer, but no more than 100 items altogether. Newly appeared notifications are always added to the head of the notifications array. The isRemoved flag is set to true for notifications that have been removed. See https://developer.android.com/reference/android/service/notification/StatusBarNotification and https://developer.android.com/reference/android/app/Notification.html for more information on available notification properties and their values.

Returns

The example output is:

{
   "statusBarNotifications":[
     {
       "isGroup":false,
       "packageName":"io.appium.settings",
       "isClearable":false,
       "isOngoing":true,
       "id":1,
       "tag":null,
       "notification":{
         "title":null,
         "bigTitle":"Appium Settings",
         "text":null,
         "bigText":"Keep this service running, so Appium for Android can properly interact with several system APIs",
         "tickerText":null,
         "subText":null,
         "infoText":null,
         "template":"android.app.Notification$BigTextStyle"
       },
       "userHandle":0,
       "groupKey":"0|io.appium.settings|1|null|10133",
       "overrideGroupKey":null,
       "postTime":1576853518850,
       "key":"0|io.appium.settings|1|null|10133",
       "isRemoved":false
     }
   ]
}

mobile: listSms

Retrieves the list of the most recent SMS properties list via Appium Settings helper. Messages are sorted by date in descending order.

Arguments

Name Type Required Description Example
max number no The maximum count of recent messages to retrieve. 100 by default 10

Returns

The example output is:

 {
   "items":[
     {
       "id":"2",
       "address":"+123456789",
       "person":null,
       "date":"1581936422203",
       "read":"0",
       "status":"-1",
       "type":"1",
       "subject":null,
       "body":"\"text message2\"",
       "serviceCenter":null
     },
     {
       "id":"1",
       "address":"+123456789",
       "person":null,
       "date":"1581936382740",
       "read":"0",
       "status":"-1",
       "type":"1",
       "subject":null,
       "body":"\"text message\"",
       "serviceCenter":null
     }
   ],
   "total":2
 }

mobile: sensorSet

Emulate changing of sensor values on the connected emulator. This extension does not work on real devices.

Arguments

Name Type Required Description Example
sensorType string yes The set of all supported sensor types could be found in adb-emu-commands.js (look for SENSORS object values). Check the output of sensor status command in the emulator console to see more details on the available sensor types light
value string yes Check the output of sensor get <sensorType> command in the emulator console to see the acceptable value format for the given sensor type 50

mobile: refreshGpsCache

Sends a request to refresh the GPS cache on the device under test. By default the location tracking is configured for low battery consumption, so you might need to call this extension periodically to get the updated geo location if the actual (or mocked) device location is changed too frequently. The feature only works if the device under test has Google Play Services installed. In case the vanilla LocationManager is used the device API level must be at version 30 (Android R) or higher.

Arguments

Name Type Required Description Example
timeoutMs number no The maximum number of milliseconds to block until GPS cache is refreshed. If the API call does not receive a confirmation about successful cache refresh within this timeout then an error is thrown. Providing zero or a negative value to it skips waiting completely and does not check for any errors. 20000 ms by default. 60000

mobile: pullFile

Pulls a remote file from the device.

Arguments

Name Type Required Description Example
remotePath string yes The full path to the remote file or a specially formatted path, which points to an item inside an app bundle, for example @my.app.id/my/path. It is mandatory for the app bundle to have debugging enabled in order to use the latter remotePath format. If the file with the given name does not exist then an exception will be thrown. /sdcard/foo.bar

Returned Result

Base64-encoded string, which represents the content of the remote file.

mobile: pushFile

Pushes a local file to the device.

Arguments

Name Type Required Description Example
remotePath string yes The path on the device to where the payload should be written. The value format is similar to the one used in pullFile extension. If the file with the same name already exists then it will be silently overridden. /sdcard/foo.bar
payload string yes Base64-encoded content of the file to be pushed. QXBwaXVt

mobile: pullFolder

Pulls a remote folder from the device.

Arguments

Name Type Required Description Example
remotePath string yes Same as for pullFile extension, but should be pointing to a remote folder /sdcard/yolo/

Returned Result

Base64-encoded string, which represents the zipped content of the remote folder.

mobile: deleteFile

Deletes a file on the remote device.

Arguments

Name Type Required Description Example
remotePath string yes The full path to the remote file or a file inside an application bundle /sdcard/myfile.txt or @my.app.id/path/in/bundle

mobile: isAppInstalled

Verify whether an application is installed on the device under test.

Arguments

Name Type Required Description Example
appId string yes The identifier of the application package to be checked my.app.id

Returned Result

True or false

mobile: queryAppState

Queries the current state of the app.

Arguments

Name Type Required Description Example
appId string yes The identifier of the application package to be checked my.app.id

Returned Result

The following numbers could returned:

  • The app is not installed: 0
  • The app is installed and is not running: 1
  • The app is running in background: 3
  • The app is running in foreground: 4

mobile: activateApp

Activates the given application or launches it if necessary. The action literally simulates clicking the corresponding application icon on the dashboard.

Arguments

Name Type Required Description Example
appId string yes The identifier of the application package to be activated my.app.id

mobile: removeApp

Remove the corresponding application if is installed. The call is ignored if the app is not installed.

Arguments

Name Type Required Description Example
appId string yes The identifier of the application package to be removed my.app.id
timeout number no The count of milliseconds to wait until the app is terminated. 20000ms by default. 1500, 0
keepData boolean no Set to true in order to keep the application data and cache folders after uninstall. true

Returned Result

True is the app has been found on the device and successfully removed. Otherwise false.

mobile: terminateApp

Terminates the app and waits until the app is terminated up to the given timeout by checking the app state to ensure if the app process is actually stopped.

The app state check can be skipped if the given timeout is lower or equal to zero since Espresso driver 2.13.0. The skip helps when you want to terminate the app process but do not want to check the process existence because the app under test may, for example, restart it automatically.

Arguments

Name Type Required Description Example
appId string yes The identifier of the application package to be terminated my.app.id
timeout number no The count of milliseconds to wait until the app is terminated. 500ms by default. 1500, 0

Returned Result

True if the app has been successfully terminated.

mobile: installApp

Installs the given application package to the device under test. It might raise the INSTALL_FAILED_VERSION_DOWNGRADE error if the installation was a version downgrade.

Arguments

Name Type Required Description Example
appPath string yes The local .apk(s) path on the server filesystem or a remote url. /app/path.apk
timeout number no The count of milliseconds to wait until the app is installed.. 6000ms by default. 120000
allowTestPackages boolean no Set to true in order to allow test packages installation. false by default true
useSdcard boolean no Set to true to install the app on sdcard instead of the device memory. false by default true
grantPermissions boolean no Set to true in order to grant all the permissions requested in the application's manifest automatically after the installation is completed under Android 6+. The targetSdkVersion in the application manifest must be greater or equal to 23 and the Android version on the device under test must be greater or equal to Android 6 (API level 23) to grant permissions. Applications whose targetSdkVersion is lower than or equal to 22 must be reisntalled to grant permissions for Android 6+ devices. false by default true
replace boolean no Set it to false if you don't want the application to be upgraded/reinstalled if it is already present on the device, but throw an error instead. true by default false
checkVersion boolean no Set to true, in order to skip the application installation if the device under test has a greater or equal to the application version. It may help to avoid INSTALL_FAILED_VERSION_DOWNGRADE error and unnecessary installation. true

mobile: clearApp

Deletes all data associated with a package. Calls adb shell pm clear under the hood. The app should be accessible, should not be running, and should exist on the device under test for this extension to work properly.

Arguments

Name Type Required Description Example
appId string yes The identifier of the application package to be cleared my.app.id

Returned Result

Stdout of the corresponding adb command.

mobile: startActivity

Starts the given activity with intent options, activity options and locale. Activity could only be executed in scope of the current app package.

Arguments

Name Type Required Description Example
appActivity string yes Applicaiton acitivity identifier to start com.myapp.myacitivty
locale object no Sets the locale for the app under test. It only uses public APIs for its purpose. See https://github.com/libyal/libfwnt/wiki/Language-Code-identifiers to get the list of available language abbreviations. {"language": "zh", "country": "CN", "variant": "Hans"}
optionalIntentArguments object no The mapping of custom options for the intent that is going to be passed to the main app activity. Check Intent Options for more details. { 'flags': 'ACTIVITY_NEW_TASK', 'action': '<intent_action>', 'className': '<fullyQualifiedAppActivity>', 'es': {'foo': 'bar'} }
optionalActivityArguments object no The mapping of custom options for the main app activity that is going to be started. Check Activity Options for more details. { 'launchDisplayId': 1 }

mobile: startService

Starts the given service intent.

Arguments

Name Type Required Description Example
intent string yes The name of the service intent to start. Only services in the app's under test scope could be started. com.some.package.name/.YourServiceSubClassName
user number or string no The user ID for which the service is started. The current user id is used by default 1006
foreground boolean no Set it to true if your service must be started as foreground service. false

mobile: stopService

Stops the given service intent.

Arguments

Name Type Required Description Example
intent string yes The name of the service intent to stop. Only services in the app's under test scope could be stopped. com.some.package.name/.YourServiceSubClassName
user number or string no The user ID for which the service is started. The current user id is used by default 1006

mobile: broadcast

Send a broadcast Intent. Invokes am broadcast command under the hood.

Arguments

Name Type Required Description Example
intent string no The full name of the intent to broadcast com.some.package.name/.YourIntentClassName
user number or string no Specify which user to send to; if not specified then send to all users. Possible values are all/current/<numeric user id> current
receiverPermission string no Require receiver to hold the given permission android.permission.READ_PROFILE
allowBackgroundActivityStarts boolean no The receiver may start activities even if in the background if set to true false
action string no Action name. The actual value for the Activity Manager's -a argument. android.intent.action.MAIN
uri string no Unified resource identifier. The actual value for the Activity Manager's -d argument. https://appium.io
mimeType string no Mime type. The actual value for the Activity Manager's -t argument. application/json
identifier string no Optional identifier. The actual value for the Activity Manager's -i argument. my_identifier
categories string or Array<string> no One or more category names. The actual value(s) for the Activity Manager's -c argument. android.intent.category.LAUNCHER
component string no Component name. The actual value for the Activity Manager's -n argument. com.myapp/com.myapp.SplashActivity
package string no Package name. The actual value for the Activity Manager's -p argument. com.myapp
extras Array<Array<string>> no Optional intent arguments. Must be represented as an array of arrays, where each subarray item contains two (only in case it no value is required for the given type) or three string items: value type, key (variable name) and the value itself. Supported value types are: s: string. Value must be a valid string; sn: null. Value is ignored for this type; z: boolean. Value must be either true or false; i: integer. Value must be a valid 4-byte integer number; l: long. Value must be a valid 8-byte long number; f: float: Value must be a valid float number; u: uri. Value must be a valid uniform resource identifier string; cn: component name. Value must be a valid component name string; ia: Integer[]. Value must be a string of comma-separated integers; ial: List<Integer>. Value must be a string of comma-separated integers; la: Long[]. Value must be a string of comma-separated long numbers; lal: List<Long>. Value must be a string of comma-separated long numbers; fa: Float[]. Value must be a string of comma-separated float numbers; fal: List<Float>. Value must be a string of comma-separated float numbers; sa: String[]. Value must be comma-separated strings. To embed a comma into a string escape it using ","; sal: List<String>. Value must be comma-separated strings. To embed a comma into a string, escape it using "," [['s', 'varName1', 'My String1'], ['s', 'varName2', 'My String2'], ['ia', 'arrName', '1,2,3,4']]
flags string no Intent startup-specific flags as a hexadecimal string. Check Intent documentation for the list of available flag values (constants starting with FLAG_ACTIVITY_). Flag values could be merged using the logical 'or' operation. 0x10200000 is the combination of two flags: 0x10000000 FLAG_ACTIVITY_NEW_TASK `

Returned Result

The actual stdout of the downstream am command.

mobile: getDeviceTime

Retrieves the current device's timestamp.

Arguments

Name Type Required Description Example
format string no The set of format specifiers. Read https://momentjs.com/docs/ to get the full list of supported datetime format specifiers. The default format is YYYY-MM-DDTHH:mm:ssZ, which complies to ISO-8601 YYYY-MM-DDTHH:mm:ssZ

Returns

The device timestamp string formatted according to the given specifiers

mobile: setDate

Set the given date for a picker control. Invokes https://developer.android.com/reference/androidx/test/espresso/contrib/PickerActions#setdate under the hood.

Arguments

Name Type Required Description Example
year int yes The year to set 2020
monthOfYear int yes The number of the month to set 3
dayOfMonth int yes The number of the day to set 20

mobile: setTime

Set the given time for a picker control. Invokes https://developer.android.com/reference/androidx/test/espresso/contrib/PickerActions#settime under the hood.

Arguments

Name Type Required Description Example
hours int yes Hour to set in range 0..23 14
minutes int yes Minute to set in range 0..59 15

mobile: flashElement

Highlights the given element in the UI by adding flashing to it

Arguments

Name Type Required Description Example
elementId (element before v2.29) string yes UDID of the element to perform the action on. 123456-7890-3453-24234243
durationMillis int no Duration of single flashing sequence, 30 ms by default 50
repeatCount int no Count of repeats, 15 times by default 10

mobile: dismissAutofill

Dismisses autofill picker if it is visible on the screen.

mobile: backdoor

Gives a possibility to invoke methods from your application under test.

Arguments

Name Type Required Description Example
elementId string yes if target is set to element UDID of the element to perform the action on. 123456-7890-3453-24234243
target string yes Select a target for the backdoor mathod execution: activity, application, element activity
methods Array<Map> yes Methods chain to execute See Backdoor Extension Usage

Returns

The result of the last method in the chain

mobile: uiautomator

Allows to execute a limited set of UiAutomator commands to allow out-of-app interactions with accessibility elements.

Arguments

Name Type Required Description Example
strategy string yes UiAutomator element location strategy. The following strategies are supported: "clazz", "res", "text", "textContains", "textEndsWith", "textStartsWith", "desc", "descContains", "descEndsWith", "descStartsWith", "pkg" desc
locator string yes Valid UiObject2 locator value for the given strategy 'my description'
action string yes The action name to perform on the found element. The following actions are supported: "click", "longClick", "getText", "getContentDescription", "getClassName", "getResourceName", "getVisibleBounds", "getVisibleCenter", "getApplicationPackage", "getChildCount", "clear", "isCheckable", "isChecked", "isClickable", "isEnabled", "isFocusable", "isFocused", "isLongClickable", "isScrollable", "isSelected" isEnabled
index int no If the given locator matches multiple elements then only the element located by this index will be selected for the interaction, otherwise the method will be applied to all found elements. Indexing starts from zero 1

Returns

The result of the selected action applied to found elements. If index is provided then the array will only contain one item. If the index is greater than the count of found elements then an exception will be thrown.

mobile: uiautomatorPageSource

Allows to retrieve accessibility elements hierarchy tree with UiAutomator framework. The extension calls dumpWindowHierarchy under the hood.

Returns

The UI accessibility hierarchy represented as XML document.

mobile: webAtoms

Allows to run a chain of Espresso web atoms on a web view element.

Arguments

Name Type Required Description Example
webviewEl string yes The UDID of the destination web view element 123456-7890-3453-24234243
forceJavascriptEnabled boolean yes If webview disables javascript then webatoms won't work. Setting this argument to true enforces javascript to be enabled. true
methodChain Array<Map> yes Chain of atoms to execute. Each item in the chain must have the following properties: name (must be one of WebInteraction action names) and atom. atom is a map with two entries: name (must be one of DriverAtoms method names) and args (must be an array of the corresponding method values). [{"name": "methodName", "atom": {"name": "atomName", "args": ["arg1", "arg2", ...]}}, ...]

Returns

Chain items are executed sequentially and the next item is executed on the result of the previous item. The final result is returned to the caller.

mobile: registerIdlingResources

Registers one or more idling resources.

Arguments

Name Type Required Description Example
classNames string yes Comma-separated list of idling resources class names. Each name must be a full-qualified java class name. Each class in the app source must implement a singleton pattern and have a static getInstance() method returning the class instance, which implements androidx.test.espresso.IdlingResource interface. Read Integrate Espresso Idling Resources in your app to build flexible UI tests for more details on how to design and use idling resources concept in Espresso. io.appium.espressoserver.lib.MyIdlingResource

mobile: unregisterIdlingResources

Unregisters one or more idling resources.

Arguments

Name Type Required Description Example
classNames string yes Comma-separated list of idling resources class names. Each name must be a full-qualified java class name. Each class in the app source must implement a singleton pattern and have a static getInstance() method returning the class instance, which implements androidx.test.espresso.IdlingResource interface. Read Integrate Espresso Idling Resources in your app to build flexible UI tests for more details on how to design and use idling resources concept in Espresso. io.appium.espressoserver.lib.MyIdlingResource

mobile: listIdlingResources

Lists all the previously registered idling resources.

Returns

List of fully qualified class names of currently registered idling resources or an empty list if no resources have been registered yet.

mobile: waitForUIThread

  • Wait for the UI thread to become idle, in other words, wait for the APP to become idle.
  • Use case: On compose and native combination screens, it's possible for the Espresso API to block the UI thread, which can cause the app to freeze. To resolve this issue, it's recommended to explicitly call the mobile:waitForUIThread API, which can help to unfreeze the UI thread.

mobile: unlock

Unlocks the device if it is locked. Noop if the device's screen is not locked.

Arguments

Name Type Required Description Example
key string yes The unlock key. See the documentation on appium:unlockKey capability for more details 12345
type string yes The unlock type. See the documentation on appium:unlockType capability for more details password
timeoutMs number no Unlock timeout. See the documentation on appium:unlockSuccessTimeout capability for more details 5000

mobile: isLocked

Determine whether the device is locked.

Returned Result

Either true or false

mobile: lock

Lock the device (and optionally unlock it after a certain amount of time). Only simple (e.g. without a password) locks are supported.

Arguments

Name Type Required Description Example
seconds number string no The number of seconds after which to unlock the device. Set to 0 or leave it empty to require manual unlock (e.g. do not block and automatically unlock afterwards).

mobile: startMediaProjectionRecording

Starts a new recording of the device activity using Media Projection API. This API is available since Android 10 (API level 29) and allows to record device screen and audio in high quality. Video and audio encoding is done by Android itself. The recording is done by Appium Settings helper.

Arguments

Name Type Required Description Example
resolution string no The resolution of the resulting video, which usually equals to Full HD 1920x1080 on most phones, however you could change it to one of the following supported resolutions: "1920x1080", "1280x720", "720x480", "320x240", "176x144" 1280x720
maxDurationSec number no The maximum number of seconds allowed for the recording to run. 900 seconds by default (15 minutes) 300
priority string no Recording thread priority is set to maximum (high) by default. However if you face performance drops during testing with recording enabled, you could reduce the recording priority to normal or low. low
filename string no You can type recording video file name as you want, but recording currently supports only "mp4" format so your filename must end with ".mp4". An invalid file name will fail to start the recording. If not provided then the current timestamp will be used as file name. screen.mp4

Returned Result

true if a new recording has successfully started. false if another recording is currently running.

mobile: isMediaProjectionRecordingRunning

Check if a media projection recording is currently running

Returned Result

true if a recording is running.

mobile: stopMediaProjectionRecording

Stops a recording and retrieves the recently recorded media. If no recording has been started before then an error is thrown. If the recording has been already finished before this API has been called then the most recent recorded media is returned.

Arguments

Name Type Required Description Example
remotePath string no The path to the remote location, where the resulting video should be uploaded. The following protocols are supported: http/https, ftp. Null or empty string value (the default setting) means the content of resulting file should be encoded as Base64 and passed as the endpoont response value. An exception will be thrown if the generated media file is too big to fit into the available process memory. https://myserver.com/upload
user string no The name of the user for the remote authentication. admin
pass string no The password for the remote authentication. pa$$w0rd
method string no The http multipart upload method name. The 'PUT' one is used by default. POST
headers Map<string, string> no Additional headers mapping for multipart http(s) uploads {'Agent': '007'}
fileFieldName string no The name of the form field, where the file content BLOB should be stored for http(s) uploads. file by default blob
formFields Map<string, string> or Array<Pair> no Additional form fields for multipart http(s) uploads. {'name': 'yolo.mp4'}

Returned Result

Base64-encoded content of the recorded media file if remotePath argument is falsy or an empty string.

mobile: hideKeyboard

Tries to hide the on-screen keyboard. Throws an exception if the keyboard cannot be hidden. Does nothing if the keyboard is already hidden.

Returned Result

true if the keyboard was successfully hidden or false if it was already invisible.

mobile: isKeyboardShown

Checks if the system on-screen keyboard is visible.

Returned Result

true if the keyboard is visible

mobile: pressKey

Emulates single key press on the key with the given code. Available since driver version 2.23

Arguments

Name Type Required Description Example
keycode number yes A valid Android key code. See KeyEvent documentation for the list of available key codes 0x00000099 (which is KEYCODE_NUMPAD_9)
metastate number no An integer in which each bit set to 1 represents a pressed meta key. See KeyEvent documentation for more details. 0x00000010 (which is META_ALT_LEFT_ON)
flags number no Flags for the particular key event. See KeyEvent documentation for more details. 0x00000001 (which is FLAG_WOKE_HERE)
isLongPress boolean no Whether to emulate long key press. false by default. true

mobile: getConnectivity

Returns connectivity states for different services

Arguments

Name Type Required Description Example
services string or string[] no One or more services to get the connectivity for. Supported service names are: wifi, data, airplaneMode. If no service names are provided then all supported names are assumed by default. [wifi, data]

Returned Result

A map is returned containing the following possible items (depending on which values have been passed to services argument):

Name Type Description
wifi boolean True if wifi is enabled
data boolean True if mobile data connection is enabled
airplaneMode boolean True if Airplane Mode is enabled

mobile: setConnectivity

Set the connectivity state for different services. At least one valid service name must be provided in arguments. Missing values tell the driver to not change the corresponding service's state.

Note

Switching Wi-Fi and mobile data states reliably work on emulators for all Android versions. Real devices support proper state switching only since Android 11.

Note

Espresso REST server app is running on the device under test and might be terminated/disconnected by Android thus failing the driver session as a result of using this API. The only way to restore the session would be to quit it after the network state is changed and then reopen it with noReset capability being set to true when the connectivity is restored.

Arguments

Name Type Required Description Example
wifi booolean no Either to enable or disable Wi-Fi. false
data booolean no Either to enable or disable mobile data. false
airplaneMode booolean no Either to enable or disable Airplane Mode. false

mobile: getAppStrings

Retrieves string resources for the given app language. An error is thrown if strings cannot be fetched or no strings exist for the given language abbreviation. Available since driver version 2.23

Arguments

Name Type Required Description Example
language string no The language abbreviation to fetch app strings mapping for. If no language is provided then strings for the default language on the device under test would be returned fr

Returned Result

App strings map, where keys are resource identifiers.

mobile: backgroundApp

Puts the app to the background and waits the given number of seconds. Then restores the app if necessary. The call is blocking. Available since driver version 2.23

Arguments

Name Type Required Description Example
seconds number no The amount of seconds to wait between putting the app to background and restoring it. Any negative value means to not restore the app after putting it to background (the default behavior). 5

mobile: getCurrentActivity

Returns the name of the currently focused app activity. Available since driver version 2.23

Returned Result

The activity class name. Could be null

mobile: getCurrentPackage

Returns the name of the currently focused app package identifier. Available since driver version 2.23

Returned Result

The package class name. Could be null

mobile: getDisplayDensity

Returns the display density value measured in DPI. Available since driver version 2.23

Returned Result

The actual DPI value as integer number

mobile: getSystemBars

Returns properties of various system bars. Available since driver version 2.23

Returned Result

A dictionary whose entries are:

  • statusBar
  • navigationBar

Values are dictionaries with the following properties:

  • visible: Whether the bar is visible (equals to false if the bar is not present in the system info output)
  • x: Bar x coordinate (might be zero if the bar is not present in the system info output)
  • y: Bar y coordinate (might be zero if the bar is not present in the system info output)
  • width: Bar width (might be zero if the bar is not present in the system info output)
  • height: Bar height (might be zero if the bar is not present in the system info output)

mobile: fingerprint

Emulate fingerprint on Android Emulator. Only works on API 23+. Available since driver version 2.23

Arguments

Name Type Required Description Example
fingerprintId number yes The value is the id for the finger that was "scanned". It is a unique integer that you assign for each virtual fingerprint. When the app is running you can run this same command each time the emulator prompts you for a fingerprint, you can run the adb command and pass it the fingerprintId to simulate the fingerprint scan. 1

mobile: sendSms

Emulate sending an SMS to the given phone number. Only works on emulators. Available since driver version 2.23

Arguments

Name Type Required Description Example
phoneNumber string yes The phone number to send SMS to 0123456789
message string yes The SMS message payload Hello

mobile: gsmCall

Emulate a GSM call to the given phone number. Only works on emulators. Available since driver version 2.23

Arguments

Name Type Required Description Example
phoneNumber string yes The phone number to call to 0123456789
action call or accept or cancel or hold yes One of possible actions to take accept

mobile: gsmSignal

Emulate GSM signal strength change event. Only works on emulators. Available since driver version 2.23

Arguments

Name Type Required Description Example
strength 0 or 1 or 2 or 3 or 4 yes One of possible signal strength values, where 4 is the best signal. 3

mobile: gsmVoice

Emulate GSM voice state change event. Only works on emulators. Available since driver version 2.23

Arguments

Name Type Required Description Example
state on or off or denied or searching or roaming or home or unregistered yes Voice state off

mobile: powerAC

Emulate AC power state change. Only works on emulators. Available since driver version 2.23

Arguments

Name Type Required Description Example
state on or off yes AC Power state off

mobile: powerCapacity

Emulate power capacity change. Only works on emulators. Available since driver version 2.23

Arguments

Name Type Required Description Example
percent 0 to 100 yes Percentage value in range [0, 100] 50

mobile: networkSpeed

Emulate different network connection speed modes. Only works on emulators. Available since driver version 2.23

Arguments

Name Type Required Description Example
speed gsm or scsd or gprs or edge or umts or hsdpa or lte or evdo or full yes Mobile network speed mode name edge

mobile: replaceElementValue

Sends a text to the given element by replacing its previous content. Available since driver version 2.23

Arguments

Name Type Required Description Example
elementId string yes Hexadecimal identifier of the destination text input 123456-3456-3435-3453453
text string yes The text to enter. It could also contain Unicode characters. If the text ends with \\n (the backslash must be escaped, so the char is NOT translated into 0x0A) then the Enter key press is going to be emulated after it is entered (the \\n substring itself will be cut off from the typed text). yolo

mobile: toggleGps

Switches GPS setting state. This API only works reliably since Android 12 (API 31). Available since driver version 2.23

mobile: isGpsEnabled

Returns true if GPS is enabled on the device under test. Available since driver version 2.23

mobile: getPerformanceDataTypes

Fetches the list of supported perfomance data types that could be used as dataType argument value to mobile: getPerformanceData extension. Available since driver version 2.23

Returned Result

List of strings, where each item is data type name.

mobile: getPerformanceData

Retrieves performance data about the given Android subsystem. The data is parsed from the output of the dumpsys utility. Available since driver version 2.23

Arguments

Name Type Required Description Example
packageName string yes The name of the package identifier to fetch the data for com.myapp
dataType string yes One of supported subsystem names. The full list of supported values is returned by mobile: getPerformanceDataTypes extension. batteryinfo or cpuinfo or memoryinfo or networkinfo

Returned Result

The output depends on the selected subsystem. It is organized into a table, where the first row represents column names and the following rows represent the sampled data for each column. Example output for different data types:

  • batteryinfo:
[
  [power],
  [23]
]
  • memoryinfo:
[
  [totalPrivateDirty, nativePrivateDirty, dalvikPrivateDirty, eglPrivateDirty, glPrivateDirty, totalPss, nativePss, dalvikPss, eglPss, glPss, nativeHeapAllocatedSize, nativeHeapSize],
  [18360, 8296, 6132, null, null, 42588, 8406, 7024, null, null, 26519, 10344]
]
  • networkinfo:
// emulator
[
  [bucketStart, activeTime, rxBytes, rxPackets, txBytes, txPackets, operations, bucketDuration],
  [1478091600000, null, 1099075, 610947, 928, 114362, 769, 0, 3600000],
  [1478095200000, null, 1306300, 405997, 509, 46359, 370, 0, 3600000]
]
// real devices
[
  [st, activeTime, rb, rp, tb, tp, op, bucketDuration],
  [1478088000, null, null, 32115296, 34291, 2956805, 25705, 0, 3600],
  [1478091600, null, null, 2714683, 11821, 1420564, 12650, 0, 3600],
  [1478095200, null, null, 10079213, 19962, 2487705, 20015, 0, 3600],
  [1478098800, null, null, 4444433, 10227, 1430356, 10493, 0, 3600]
]
  • cpuinfo:
[
  [user, kernel],
  [0.9, 1.3]
]

mobile: screenshots

Retrieves a screenshot of each display available to Android. This functionality is only supported since Android 10.

Arguments

Name Type Required Description Example
displayId number or string no Display identifier to take a screenshot for. If not provided then all display screenshots are going to be returned. If no matches were found then an error is thrown. Actual display identifiers could be retrived from the adb shell dumpsys SurfaceFlinger --display-id command output. 1

Returns

A dictionary where each key is the diplay identifier and the value has the following keys:

  • id: The same display identifier
  • name: Display name
  • isDefault: Whether this display is the default one
  • payload: The actual PNG screenshot data encoded to base64 string

mobile: statusBar

Performs commands on the system status bar. A thin wrapper over adb shell cmd statusbar CLI. Works on Android 8 (Oreo) and newer. Available since driver version 2.23

Arguments

Name Type Required Description Example
command string yes One of supported status bar commands. expandNotifications
component string no The name of the tile component. It is only required for (add|remove|click)Tile commands. com.package.name/.service.QuickSettingsTileComponent

Status Bar Commands

  • expandNotifications: Open the notifications panel.
  • expandSettings: Open the notifications panel and expand quick settings if present.
  • collapse: Collapse the notifications and settings panel.
  • addTile: Add a TileService of the specified component.
  • removeTile: Remove a TileService of the specified component.
  • clickTile: Click on a TileService of the specified component.
  • getStatusIcons: Returns the list of status bar icons and the order they appear in. Each list item is separated with a new line character.

Returned Result

The actual downstream command output. It depends on the selected command and might be empty.

mobile: setUiMode

Set the device UI appearance. A thin wrapper over adb shell cmd uimode CLI. Works on Android 10 and newer. Available since driver version 2.29

Arguments

Name Type Required Description Example
mode string yes One of the supported UI mode names: night or car. night
value string yes The actual mode value to set. Supported values for different UI modes are: night: yes,no,auto,custom_schedule,custom_bedtime, car: yes,no. For example, to switch the device UI to the dark mode you should set mode to night and value to yes, or to no in order to switch back to the light mode. yes

mobile: getUiMode

Gets the device UI appearance for the given mode. A thin wrapper over adb shell cmd uimode CLI. Works on Android 10 and newer. Available since driver version 2.29

Arguments

Name Type Required Description Example
mode string yes One of the supported UI mode names: night or car. night

mobile: startLogsBroadcast

Starts Android logcat broadcast websocket on the same host and port where Appium server is running at /ws/session/:sessionId:/appium/logcat endpoint. The method will return immediately if the web socket is already listening. Each connected webcoket listener will receive logcat log lines as soon as they are visible to Appium. Read Using Mobile Execution Commands to Continuously Stream Device Logs with Appium for more details.

mobile: stopLogsBroadcast

Stops the previously started logcat broadcasting websocket server. This method will return immediately if no server is running. Read Using Mobile Execution Commands to Continuously Stream Device Logs with Appium for more details.

Backdoor Extension Usage

Espresso driver allows to directly invoke a method from your application under test using mobile: backdoor extension. If target is set to application then methods will be invoked on the application class. If target is set to activity then methods will be invoked on the current application activity. If target is set to element then methods will be invoked on the selected view element. Only 'public' methods can be invoked ('open' modifier is necessary in Kotlin). The following primitive types are supported for method arguments: "int", "boolean", "byte", "short", "long", "float", "char". Object wrappers over primitive types with fully qualified names "java.lang.*" are also supported: "java.lang.CharSequence", "java.lang.String", "java.lang.Integer", "java.lang.Float", "java.lang.Double", "java.lang.Boolean", "java.lang.Long", "java.lang.Short", "java.lang.Character", etc.

For example, in the following arguments map

{
   "target": "activity",
   "methods":
   [
     {
       "name": "someMethod",
     },
     {
       "name": "anotherMethod",
       "args": [
         {"value": "foo", "type": "java.lang.CharSequence"},
         {"value": 1, "type": "int"}
       ]
     }
   ]
}

the anotherMethod will be called on the object returned by someMethod, which has no arguments and which was executed on the current activity instance. Also anotherMethod accepts to arguments of type java.lang.CharSequence and int. The result of anotherMethod will be serialized and returned to the client.

Parallel Tests

It is possible to execute tests in parallel using Espresso driver. Appium allows to do this on per-process (multiple server processes running on different ports managing single session) or per-request basis (single server process managing multiple sessions, more preferable, uses less resources and ensures better control over running sessions). Check Parallel Android Tests article for more details.

Note If you are not going to run your tests in parallel then consider enabling the --session-override Appium server argument. It forces the server to close all pending sessions before a new one could be opened, which allows you to avoid possible issues with such sessions silently running/expiring in the background.

Troubleshooting

  • If you observe Espresso server crash on startup and various exceptions about missing class/method in the logcat output then consider updating appium:espressoBuildConfig capability with module versions that match your application under test. This might require some experimentation, as different apps have different module requirements. Check, for example, issue #812
  • If you experince issues with application activities being not found or not starting then consider checking How To Troubleshoot Activities Startup article.
  • Espresso requires the debug APK and app-under-test APK (AUT) to have the same signature. It automatically signs the AUT with the io.appium.espressoserver.test signature. This may be problematic if you're using an outdated Android SDK tools and/or an outdated Java version.
  • If there are problems starting a session, set the capability forceEspressoRebuild to true and retry. This will force rebuilding of Espresso Server. If the following session startup is successfull, set it back to false, so the session startup performance is back to normal.
  • If you experience session startup failures due to exceptions similar to Resources$NotFoundException then try to adjust your ProGuard rules: 
    -dontwarn com.google.android.material.**
-keep class com.google.android.material.** { *; }

-dontwarn androidx.**
-keep class androidx.** { *; }
-keep interface androidx.** { *; }

-dontwarn android.support.v4.**
-keep class android.support.v4.** { *; }

-dontwarn android.support.v7.**
-keep class android.support.v7.** { *; }
    Please read #449 for more details on this topic.
  • When you want to build without compose dependencies
    • Espresso driver has Jetpack Compose dependencies to support Jetpack Compose. It could break the application under test's dependencies. The typical case is when the application under test does not have the Jetpack Compose dependencies. Then, you can try out no compose dependencies branch). In Appium 2.0, the branch is available as appium driver install --source=local /path/to/the/appium-espress-driver with the no-compose-deps branch instead of npm installation.

Contributing

Contents of Repo

  • espresso-server/: Android Java code that gets built into a test apk. The test apk runs a NanoHTTP server that implements the WebDriver protocol.
  • lib/: NodeJS code that constitutes the Appium driver, which is responsible for handling capabilities and starting up the Espresso instrumentation context. Once the Espresso server is up, this code is responsible for proxying user requests to it.

Running

  • To build the Espresso server and the NodeJS code, run npm run build
  • To just build the Espresso server, run npm run build:server or cd espresso-server && ./gradlew clean assembleDebug assembleAndroidTest. The server can also be built from Android Studio.
    • To build the espresso server for a custom target package ./gradlew -PappiumTargetPackage=io.appium.android.apis assembleAndroidTest
  • To just build NodeJS code, run npm run build:node

Tests

  • Espresso server unit tests are located at io.appium.espressoserver.test and can be run in Android Studio
  • NodeJS unit tests are run with npm run test
  • End-to-end tests are run with npm run e2e-test (remember to run npm run build before running this command so that it has up-to-date Espresso Server and NodeJS code)