Note: This post was written in 2015. Some mirror URLs may have changed or become unavailable. As of 2025, the recommended mirrors for Chinese developers are Tsinghua TUNA, USTC, and other university mirrors, or simply using Android Studio’s built-in SDK Manager.

For developers behind the Great Firewall of China, accessing Google’s servers directly is slow or unreliable. This post covers mirror-based solutions for:

  • Android SDK updates
  • Android Studio downloads
  • AOSP source code downloads
  • Android NDK downloads

Chinese Mirror Sites

Chinese universities and cloud providers host mirrors of Google’s Android download servers, offering much faster speeds.

SDK Manager Proxy (Historical Approach, ~2015)

Open Android SDK Manager and configure the proxy:

  • Mirror URL: http://ubuntu.buct.edu.cn/ or http://ubuntu.buct.cn/
  • Port: 80 (default)

Android SDK Manager Proxy

NDK Downloads (Historical Approach)

NDK mirror — kept in sync with Google’s official NDK releases at the time.

Android SDK Manager

AOSP Source Mirrors

MirrorURLStatus
Tsinghua TUNAhttps://mirrors.tuna.tsinghua.edu.cn/git/AOSP/platform/manifestActively maintained, monthly archive available
USTC (Hefei)https://mirrors.ustc.edu.cn/aosp/platform/manifestSynced from TUNA, long-term maintenance
SUSTech (Shenzhen)https://mirrors.sustech.edu.cn/AOSP/Newer option

For the initial AOSP sync (about 80 GB), use TUNA’s monthly archive:

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# Download repo tool from Tsinghua mirror
curl https://mirrors.tuna.tsinghua.edu.cn/git/git-repo -o ~/bin/repo
chmod +x ~/bin/repo

# Download monthly archive (recommended for first sync)
wget https://mirrors.tuna.tsinghua.edu.cn/aosp-monthly/aosp-latest.tar
tar xf aosp-latest.tar
cd aosp
repo sync -j4

# Or initialize a specific branch directly
repo init -u https://mirrors.tuna.tsinghua.edu.cn/git/AOSP/platform/manifest -b android-14.0.0_r33
repo sync -j4

SDK Downloads

Android Studio’s built-in SDK Manager now works reasonably well within China — it uses Tencent CDN acceleration internally. Additional mirrors:

  • Tencent SDK Mirror: Built into Android Studio for Chinese users
  • Alibaba Cloud Mirror: mirrors.aliyun.com

References