Get hardware serial number of Android device

Question

I need to get the hardware serial code of Android device where my app is installed. This hardware serial number is the one that you can see on Settings > About Device > Status > Serial number.

I though I would get it using Settings.Secure.ANDROID_ID or android.os.Build.SERIAL, but neither of them worked, meaning that they didn't give me unique identifier I'm looking for. For instance android.os.Build.SERIAL got me the unique ID shown on ADB when you run the command adb devices.

Notice that the goal of this question is not to find another unique identifier that could help me, it's only about getting the device hardware serial number.

Thanks for the help.

EDIT:

Please be clear that I'm not looking for the value provided by the String android.os.BUILD.SERIAL. I know how to get that value but I'm not interested in it.

I have a Samsung device, therefore, the serial number they used is different than the one provided by android.os.BUILD.SERIAL.

Post your code, and also explain why you think it is not working — arlistan
@FedeBucich It's that it's not working it's that I get other unique identifiers that are not the one I'm looking for. I need to get the one I can check on settings, not the one I get when I connect the device to the PC using ADB, or other unique IDs. — Storo
@Funkystein I'm sorry but it has nothing to do with it, since on that post they are interested in using android.os.Build.Serial, which is not the unique ID I need. — Storo
the settings app is open source, you probably can go into that code to figure out what is used. — njzk2

Storo Storo · Accepted Answer · 2014-12-03T15:02:30

The solution is very simple:

Class<?> c = Class.forName("android.os.SystemProperties");
Method get = c.getMethod("get", String.class, String.class);
serialNumber = (String) get.invoke(c, "sys.serialnumber", "Error");
if(serialNumber.equals("Error")) {
    serialNumber = (String) get.invoke(c, "ril.serialnumber", "Error");
}

This will get you the serial number of most samsung devices. I use the "sys.serialnumber" value to get the serial number of my SM-T210 (Galaxy Tab 3) and SM-T230 (Galaxy Tab 4) tablets, but probably works with a lot more Samsung tablets. The "ril.serialnumber" is to get the value on my Samsung GT-I8550L (Galaxy Win).

I hope this helps.

Get hardware serial number of Android device

1 Answers