Settings.Secure#ANDROID_ID
returns the Android ID as an unique 64-bit hex string.
import android.provider.Settings.Secure;
private String android_id = Secure.getString(getContext().getContentResolver(),
Secure.ANDROID_ID);
There are many answers to this question, most of which will only work "some" of the time, and unfortunately that's not good enough.
Based on my tests of devices (all phones, at least one of which is not activated):
- All devices tested returned a value for
TelephonyManager.getDeviceId()
- All GSM devices (all tested with a SIM) returned a value for
TelephonyManager.getSimSerialNumber()
- All CDMA devices returned null for
getSimSerialNumber()
(as expected)
- All devices with a Google account added returned a value for
ANDROID_ID
- All CDMA devices returned the same value (or derivation of the same value) for both
ANDROID_ID
and TelephonyManager.getDeviceId()
-- as long as a Google account has been added during setup.
- I did not yet have a chance to test GSM devices with no SIM, a GSM device with no Google account added, or any of the devices in airplane mode.
So if you want something unique to the device itself, TM.getDeviceId() should be sufficient. Obviously some users are more paranoid than others, so it might be useful to hash 1 or more of these identifiers, so that the string is still virtually unique to the device, but does not explicitly identify the user's actual device. For example, using String.hashCode(), combined with a UUID:
final TelephonyManager tm = (TelephonyManager) getBaseContext().getSystemService(Context.TELEPHONY_SERVICE);
final String tmDevice, tmSerial, tmPhone, androidId;
tmDevice = "" + tm.getDeviceId();
tmSerial = "" + tm.getSimSerialNumber();
androidId = "" + android.provider.Settings.Secure.getString(getContentResolver(), android.provider.Settings.Secure.ANDROID_ID);
UUID deviceUuid = new UUID(androidId.hashCode(), ((long)tmDevice.hashCode() << 32) | tmSerial.hashCode());
String deviceId = deviceUuid.toString();
might result in something like: 00000000-54b3-e7c7-0000-000046bffd97
It works well enough for me.
Also you might consider the WiFi adapter's MAC address. Retrieved thusly:
WifiManager wm = (WifiManager)Ctxt.getSystemService(Context.WIFI_SERVICE);
return wm.getConnectionInfo().getMacAddress();
Reported to be available even when WiFi is not connected. If Joe from the answer above gives this one a try on his many devices, that'd be nice.
In some case,you may want do get Uniquely Identifying for a 'real' android phone,and you can do it like this:
In Android.Provider.Settings.System we have some interesting values that could be of use, one specifically is “Android_ID”. From the documentation it is the following;
String ANDROID_ID The Android ID (a unique 64-bit value) as a hex string. “android_id”[code]import Android.Provider.Settings.System;
...
String Android_ID = System.getString(this.getContentResolver(), System.ANDROID_ID); [/code]Also, note that in an emulator this will return “null”, though a real device will return an actual value. The nice thing about this tid-bit of code is that you are not required any special permissions to call it, since it’s essentially a passive call to get information. No write access is (obviously) required.