Sandbox Mode

By default, Google Wallet works in production mode with real Identities. You can reconfigure Google Wallet to work in sandbox mode. Requests are routed to Google's sandbox environment.

We recommend that you use sandbox mode during development and pre-production testing. Once you're ready, you can switch the device back to production mode.

Sandbox uptime

The sandbox environment doesn't have uptime SLAs like our production environment. If you encounter an error that you suspect is related to a sandbox outage, wait one United States business day before contacting us. Outages typically resolve themselves within that time period. Due to the potential for downtime, do not design any of your critical release processes to be dependent on the sandbox environment.

Enable and disable sandbox mode on an Android device

Important: The previous methods to enable and disable sandbox mode (abd and sandbox file download) are deprecated and will no longer work on Android devices. For connected Wear OS devices, see further instructions below the Android instructions.

Important: The feature to toggle between the Sandbox and Production environments is hidden by default. If you don't see the toggle, you can use the Google Pay Sandbox Access Request form to request to have the Google Account you use in Google Wallet allowlisted.

You can enable sandbox mode using the TapAndPay environment settings. To return to production mode, you follow the same steps outlined but select production instead of sandbox.

Use the TapAndPay environment settings

Execute the following steps to enable sandbox mode:

1. Open the Settings app.
2. Scroll to and tap Google > All services

3. Scroll to category Other and tap TapAndPay Environment. If you don't see TapAndPay Environment, reboot your device and start over from step 1.
4. Tap the drop-down menu and select SANDBOX.

5. You should see the following dialog notifying that the environment has changed. Tap OK and reboot your device.

Sync Google Wallet environment

When you open Google Wallet after rebooting, you may see the following dialog , which will require you to force stop and reopen Google Wallet:

Enable and disable sandbox mode on a Wear OS device

Important: Using adb to enable and disable sandbox mode will no longer work on Android devices. These instructions are only for connected Wear OS devices, see instructions at the beginning of the page for enabling and disabling sandbox mode on Android devices.

To enable sandbox mode on a connected Wear OS device, add an empty file and reboot, as the following example shows:

adb shell touch /sdcard/Download/android_pay_env_override_sandbox
adb reboot

To switch back to production mode on a connected Wear OS device, delete the file and reboot the device, as the following example shows:

adb shell rm /sdcard/Download/android_pay_env_override_sandbox
adb reboot

Check if your Android device is in sandbox or production mode

To see if your Android device is in sandbox or production mode, execute the following steps

1. Open the Google Wallet app .
2. At the top right, tap your profile picture or account > Wallet settings.
3. Scroll to the bottom of page and if you see a confirmation message that says SANDBOX, you're configured to make sandbox calls. If you don't see a message, you're configured to make production calls.

Figure 1: Production mode

Figure 2: Sandbox mode

Some devices don't have Google Wallet in their Google Settings. In order to access Google Wallet Settings, you need to use adb with the following command:

adb shell am start -n com.google.android.gms/com.google.android.gms.tapandpay.settings.TapAndPaySettingsActivity