I’m going to post the question and the answer here for people, who, just like me have been trying to find a solution for this stupid problem (I expected better from you Google).
For folks installing the Android SDK along with Eclipse (with the ADT plugin) on a mac, here’s a problem I’m sure everyone is facing:
After unzipping the SDK to some location and installing Eclipse with the ADT plugin (for users who haven’t got this far, refer to Installing the Android SDK) when trying to point Eclipse to the SDK in the preferences, it says “Can’t parse the SDK as platforms is missing”. To install SDK platforms, you try to run the AVD Manager (Eclipse>>Window>>AVD Manager OR AndroidSDKFolder/tools/android) it says it needs the platforms folder.
Silly thing is that there’s a readme in the android sdk folder that says the sdk doesn’t contain platforms and you need to download them using AVD manager.
Chicken and egg problem 😛
How to fix it? Look down below in the answers….
I created the “platforms” and “add-ons” folders in the same folder that contains the “tools” folder. NOW run androidsdk>>tools>>android and no more complaints.
I hope this will help the next android cadet and push him along 😀