Virtual Devices

Genymotion Desktop comes with a Graphical User Interface (launchpad) which allows you to configure, launch and manage your Virtual Devices.

Managing virtual devices

Your installed Android virtual devices are displayed in Genymotion Desktop launchpad dashboard:

Start a virtual device

Quick boot

Quick boot is only available with QEMU hypervisor and it is not supported on Windows systems yet.

You can quick boot a virtual device using one of the following methods:

Double-click on the virtual device
Click
Right-click on the virtual device and select Quick boot
Click

and select Quick boot

If Quick boot is not available, all these methods will default to Cold boot.

Cold boot

To perform a cold boot, right-click on the virtual device, or click , and select Cold boot.

Configure a virtual device

Right-click on the device, or click , and select Edit. This will open the Virtual Device Configuraiton Window. From there, you can change the Virtual Device name, system settings, and more.

GENERAL

Virtual Device Configuration - GENERAL
Name:

Name of your virtual device. You can set a different name if necessary.

OS Image:

Information about the OS image (Android version, Source, etc.).

The OS image settings can only be modified when creating a new device.

You can toggle root access in this section. Only available with non-rooted Android Images.

SYSTEM

Virtual Device Configuration - SYSTEM
In this section, you can change the following system settings:
Processor(s):

Sets the number of processors used by the virtual device. Default value is the recommended one for an optimal use.

When defining more processors than default, we advise setting one less than the total amount of processors to leave one dedicated to the host and avoid performance and stability issues.

Memory size:

Sets the memory space allocated to the virtual device. The value must be below the memory of your computer and take into account the memory space used by your computer.

Set the values recommended for the real devices (512MB to 2048MB) for optimal result.

VM Heap size:

Sets the amount of memory allocated by the Java Virtual Machine (JVM) per application. Default value is 256MB.

Use bigger values if you wish the garbage collector to run less frequently.

DISPLAY

Virtual Device Configuration - DISPLAY
Primary Display:

Sets the screen size and density of the device primary display. You can either select a predefined resolution from the drop-down list, or set a custom resolution.

You may experience display or performance issues when using custom screen size and density values.

Advanced display options:
Normal:

Standard single display.

Multi-Display:

Add external displays to the device. Click to add a display, or to remove one:

The number of additional display depends on the Android version. Additional displays are not available with Android 9.0.

This feature is still experimental and does not work properly on Android 13.

Options:
Rounded corner radius:

Set radius of the display corners to add a rounded effect. Value must be set in density independent pixels (dp).

Rounded corner content padding:

Set the padding of the rounded corner content. Value must be set in density independant pixels (dp).

Window style:
Windowed (default):

Run the device in a system window.

Full screen:

Run the device in fulSkinned

Skinned:

Use a skin as Window decoration. There are four default skins:

phone-1 (9:16),

phone-2 (3:5),

tablet-gaming-1 (8:5) and tablet-gaming-2 (8:5) but you can also create your own custom skin

Select a skin from the list
Advanced:
Force the OpenGL ES maximum API version (default: 3.1).

ANDROID OPTIONS

Virtual Device Configuration - ANDROID OPTIONS
Show Android navigation bar:

Toggle Android navigation bar (default: on).

Use virtual keyboard for text input:

Toggle Android virtual keyboard (default: off).

HYPERVISOR OPTIONS

QEMU
VirtualBox
Virtual Device Configuration - HYPERVISOR OPTIONS
Uncheck Enable QuickBoot to disable quick boot with QEMU.
Set the hypervisor Network mode:
NAT (default):

Network Address Translation (NAT) is the simplest way of accessing an external network from a virtual device. It does not require any configuration on the host network. It is the default networking mode.

Bridge:

In Bridged mode, the virtual device is a full participant in the physical network. It can contact other machines on the network and can be contacted by other machines as if it were a physical computer on the network.

In Bridged network mode, you must select the interface on which you want to apply the bridge and the network needs to have a DHCP server or router to provides a valid IP address for the virtual device.

Other

Right-click the device, or click:

Apart from the options covered before, you can also perform the following actions:

Delete to delete a device.
Duplicate to copy a device.
Factory reset to reset a device to factory settings.
Generate logs to generate device specific logs.

Interacting with virtual devices

This chapter describes features that help you easily interact with your virtual devices.

Multi-touch gestures

Touchscreen

Genymotion Desktop supports touchscreen: touch and multi-touch can now be performed on your touchscreen, as on a real mobile or tablet device.

With mouse and keyboard

If you don't use or have a touchscreen, multi-touch is also simulated with the mouse and keyboard:

Windows/Linux
macOS
Zoom in

Ctrl + +

Zoom out

Ctrl + +

Tilt forth

Ctrl + +

Tilt back

Ctrl + +

Rotate clockwise

Shift + +

Rotate counterclockwise

Shift + +

Copy and Paste

The clipboard is shared between your computer and Genymotion Desktop. Thus, you can easily copy and paste text from your computer to Genymotion Desktop, and vice versa.

Clipboard sharing can be disabled in Genymotion global settings - see Clipboard sharing.

Drag'n Drop

Drag and drop a file to the virtual device display to install or upload it. The behavior of dragged and dropped files is different according to the file type:

.apk files (Android applications): APK files are installed on the virtual device. If the same application already exists but with another signature, you can decide to override the existing application. See Deploy an application.
.zip archives (flashable archives): Zip archives detected as flashable (i.e. containing a /system folder) are flashed on the device. Flashable archives may damage your virtual device. We recommend making a backup of the device (cloning) before flashing it.
Other (regular files): Regular files will be uploaded to /sdcard/Download. They can be accessed via the Amaze or File Explorer applications provided in the virtual device.

Display tips

When navigating within a virtual device, you can:

toggle full-screen: Press Ctrl + Shift + F or Ctrl + Fn + F on macOS.
resize the virtual device display window: Select and drag an edge or a corner of the window.
fit to content: When the virtual device window is resized, black areas appear on the borders. Double-click in one of those areas to fit the virtual device window size to its content.

Generating logs

In some cases, notably for assistance purposes, you may need to generate a log archive: 1. Select Help → Generate logs from Genymotion launcher (dashboard). 2. Select the path to save the generated archive. 3. Wait until the archive is generated and click Close.

To generate logs for a single virtual device, right-click on the device, or click , and select Generate logs.

Virtual device shortcuts

Shortcuts can be viewed and customized with the Settings widget.

For shortcuts related to the use of Genymotion Desktop itself, please refer to Genymotion Desktop shortcuts.