How to use Requestly with Android Emulator

Dinesh Thakur

October 4, 2024

3MIN READ

Introduction

Struggling to debug API calls in your Android app? Intercepting and altering network requests on your Android emulator might be like completing a puzzle with missing pieces. Whether it’s changing request headers, simulating problem responses, or switching between development environments, the process can slow down development—especially when you have to rebuild the app after each change.

What if you could **intercept and modify network requests in real-time—**without changing a line of code? That’s exactly what Requestly offers. It allows you to capture, edit, and mock API requests and responses within your Android emulator without any major code change. In this article, we’ll show you how to set up and use Requestly to gain complete control over your network traffic and simplify debugging.

How Requestly Works

Requestly is a powerful proxy that sits between your Android Emulator and the internet. Whenever your app sends a request to a server, that request first routes through Requestly’s proxy. This allows Requestly to intercept your request and then it can log, modify or mock requests and responses, giving you complete control over the network traffic.

Here are some key features of Requestly:

Intercepting Requests: As soon as your app sends a network request, Requestly captures it. This allows you to see every outgoing API call or resource request.
Modifying Requests: After intercepting a request, Requestly allows you to make changes before it reaches the server. You can modify things like:
- URLs: Modify the request destination, allowing you to easily switch between environments (development, staging, production).
- Headers: Add, remove, or modify request headers (such as authentication tokens) to test your app’s response under various conditions.
- Query Parameters: Tweak parameters or data being sent, enabling flexible testing without changing the app’s code

Now lets see how you can do this in just a few clicks

Steps to Configure Requestly with Android Emulator

Setting up Requestly with your Android Emulator is a straightforward process. Follow these steps to get everything up and running smoothly:

1. Install Requestly : Download and install requestly’s desktop app.

2. Set Up the Android Emulator

Open Android Studio: Launch Android Studio and open your project.
Start the Emulator: Use android studio to run your app in the emulator.

3. Set Up Proxy: Setting up proxy in requestly is very straightforward

Click on Connect Apps button at top or in the middle

And you will see the emulator’s name just click connect and your proxy is ready to go

4. Enable SSL Pinning in your App:

To intercept HTTPS traffic, SSL Pinning must be enabled to allow Requestly to read encrypted data. Here’s how to do it:

Edit or create this file /res/xml/network_security_config.xml and add this code snippet

				
					<network-security-config>
  <debug-overrides>
    <trust-anchors>
      <certificates src="user"></certificates>
    </trust-anchors>
  </debug-overrides>
</network-security-config>

Now open your AndroidManifest.xml file and add this line in your application tag

				
					android:networkSecurityConfig="@xml/network_security_config"

5. Validate the Setup

Check Network Traffic: Run your app and Trigger some network requests (like API calls).

Monitor Requests in Requestly: Go back to Requestly and check if the requests are being intercepted and modified as per the rules you set.

Common Use Cases for Requestly with Android Emulator

Here are some quick ways Requestly can supercharge your Android development workflow:

Inspect Network Traffic: Inspect all outgoing and incoming requests from your app, showing detailed request and response data instantly
Instantly Switch API Environments: Redirect requests to different environments on the fly. Just set a rule to change API endpoints without touching your code
Test with Custom Auth Headers: Inject custom headers to simulate different authentication scenarios and user roles with no hassle, speeding up your testing process

Conclusion

In this blog, we saw how simple it is to use Requestly to intercept and modify network traffic in Android development. This makes Requestly a great tool for working with APIs, helping you debug and test your app more easily and saving you time and effort in your development process.

Dinesh Thakur

Dinesh Thakur, fascinated by technology since childhood, has mastered programming through dedication. Whether working solo or in a team, he thrives on challenges, crafting innovative solutions.