Skip to content

How to install Kivy Reloader

Kivy Reloader is available for Linux, macOS and Windows.

We provide a standalone installer to download and set up the Android toolchain with hot reload.

This is the Linux installation guide. If you are using another operating system, please, select it from the menu above.

Use curl to download the script and execute it with sh:

$ curl -LsSf https://kivyschool.com/kivy-android-ubuntu.sh | bash

This command (source) does the following:

This is the macOS installation guide. If you are using another operating system, please, select it from the menu above.

How to open the terminal on macOS

You can open the terminal on macOS by pressing ⌘ + Space and typing terminal in the search bar.

🍺 Step 1: Install Homebrew

What is Homebrew?

Brew website

Homebrew is a free and open-source software package management system that simplifies the installation of software on Apple's operating system, macOS, as well as Linux.

from Wikipedia

Paste this command into your terminal and press Enter:

$ /bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)"

Important

After Homebrew installation, close the terminal and open it again.

Otherwise, the brew command may not be found.

How to check if you have Homebrew installed
  • Press ⌘ + Spacebar, type terminal and press enter
  • Type brew --version and press enter.
$ brew --version

Homebrew 3.6.20

Select the result that matches your case:

  • If you see "zsh: command not found: brew", click on the menu above.

  • If you see "Homebrew {version}", you have Homebrew installed. You can skip this step.

If you see zsh: command not found: brew, the command brew was not found. There are two possible reasons:

  • You don't have Homebrew installed.

  • You have Homebrew installed, but you need to add it to your PATH.

Check if one of these folders exist: /opt/homebrew/ or /usr/local/homebrew/. If one of these folders exist, you need to add Homebrew to your PATH. Open the terminal and type:

export PATH=/opt/homebrew/bin:$PATH

Close the terminal and open it again. Type brew --version and press enter. If you see Homebrew {version}, you have Homebrew installed. You can skip this step.

If you are still seeing zsh: command not found: brew, you don't have Homebrew installed, you can install it by following the instructions on the Homebrew website.

🛠️ Step 2: Install Required Dependencies

Before installing Kivy Reloader, install all the required system dependencies with Homebrew. After installing OpenJDK, you need to make it available system-wide on macOS (see below). This symlink ensures that macOS tools (like java_home) and Buildozer can correctly find Java 17.

// Install all dependencies in one command
$ brew install android-platform-tools openjdk@17 autoconf automake libtool pkg-config cmake openssl

// Symlink OpenJDK
$ sudo ln -sfn /opt/homebrew/opt/openjdk@17/libexec/openjdk.jdk /Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/openjdk-17.jdk

This installs:

  • android-platform-tools: Contains adb for Android device communication
  • openjdk@17: Java Development Kit version 17 (required for Buildozer/Bundletool)
  • autoconf, automake, libtool, pkg-config, cmake, openssl: Build dependencies for Buildozer

🎯 Step 3: Install Kivy Reloader

$ curl -LsSf https://kivyschool.com/kivy-android-macos.sh | sh

This command (source) does the following:

This is the Windows installation guide. If you are using another operating system, please, select it from the menu above.

Use irm to download the script and execute it with iex:

£C:\Users\KivySchool powershell -ExecutionPolicy ByPass -c "irm https://kivyschool.com/kivy-android-windows.ps1 | iex"

This command (source) will install:

  • Scrcpy: Android screen mirroring tool.
  • Initializes ADB: Runs adb kill-server, adb start-server, and adb devices to ensure Android device connectivity. Make sure your device is connected to the computer.

Install WSL2 and Ubuntu-24.04

£C:\Users\KivySchool wsl --install -d Ubuntu-24.04

Once Ubuntu 24.04 installation finishes, close it. Open it again and run:

$ curl -LsSf https://kivyschool.com/kivy-android-wsl2.sh | bash

1. Creates a folder called kivyschool-hello with this structure:

kivyschool-hello/
├── beautifulapp/
│   ├── __init__.py
│   └── screens/
│       ├── main_screen.kv
│       └── main_screen.py
├── buildozer.spec            # configuration file for Buildozer
├── kivy-reloader.toml        # configuration file for Kivy Reloader
├── main.py
├── pyproject.toml            # created by `uv init`
└── uv.lock                   # created by `uv add`

2. Installs:

  • uv: Python environment manager for installing and pinning Python 3.11
  • Buildozer dependencies: Essential system packages for building Android apps (e.g., build-essential, openjdk-17-jdk, adb, etc.)
  • Python packages: Installs Kivy Reloader, Cython, and Buildozer via uv
  • Scrcpy: Android screen mirroring tool.
  • bundletool: Google's APK/Bundle tool

So you can start building Kivy apps for Android with hot reload.

Next section: How to use Kivy Reloader