Install Flutter SDK on Windows

The Flutter SDK consists of various tools and programs that allow for Flutter development. This article will take us through the steps necessary to install that SDK on Windows.

Downloading the Flutter SDK

We need to first download the Flutter SDK for Windows. This is a zip file that we need to unzip into a local directory, for example, c:\tools\flutter.

Updating the system path

Now that we have the Flutter SDK unzipped into a local directory, we need to tell Windows where to find the SDK. To do this, we can use the Control Panel on Windows to update the path variable.

Open control panel

First, open the Control Panel with the Search Box near the Start Menu on the bottom of the Windows screen.

Navigate to system settings

When the Control Panel appears, select System and Security.

Select system

Next, select System.

Navigate to advanced settings

Next, select Advanced systems settings.

Configuring environment variables

We need to update our path to include a new entry to the Flutter SDK’s bin folder. For example, the path could be c:\tools\flutter\bin. After entering this information, hit OK and close the control panel.

Verify the flutter installation

We now have our system path set up and can verify our installation. Let’s open up a new [terminal](https://www.codecademy.com/resources/docs/command-line/terminal and enter the following command to check our Flutter SDK installation:

flutter --version

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The output should look similar to the following:

Flutter 3.3.10 • channel stable • https://github.com/flutter/flutter.git
Framework • revision 135454af32 (6 weeks ago) • 2022-12-15 07:36:55 -0800
Engine • revision 3316dd8728
Tools • Dart 2.18.6 • DevTools 2.15.0

When we see this output, we know we have successfully installed the Flutter SDK!

Conclusion

Congratulations! We are almost done with this lesson, but before we finish, let’s review what we learned about installing the Flutter SDK on Windows:

• We copy the zip to a folder (for example c:\tools\flutter) and unzip the files.
• We open Control Panel and edit our path to include an additional entry for the bin folder in the Flutter folder (for example c:\tools\flutter\bin).
• To test the installation, we should open a new command line and type in the flutter –version command.