Appium Mobile Testing Interview Questions for 2 Years Experience (2026)

Short answer: Appium 2 is a server plus separately installed drivers (UiAutomator2 for Android, XCUITest for iOS) and optional plugins. In Appium 1 the drivers were bundled. Your test client sends W3C WebDriver commands to the server, which passes them to the driver for that platform.

npm install -g appium
appium driver install uiautomator2
appium driver install xcuitest      # macOS only
appium                              # starts the server on port 4723

Another Appium 2 change: the default base path is /, not /wd/hub. Old client configs that still use /wd/hub fail to connect.

Short answer: Appium 2 follows W3C rules, so non-standard capabilities need the appium: prefix. Client option classes add it for you.

UiAutomator2Options options = new UiAutomator2Options()
    .setDeviceName("Pixel_7_API_34")
    .setApp(System.getProperty("user.dir") + "/apps/demo.apk")
    .setAutoGrantPermissions(true);

AndroidDriver driver = new AndroidDriver(new URL("http://127.0.0.1:4723"), options);

The JSON sent looks like {"platformName": "Android", "appium:automationName": "UiAutomator2", "appium:app": "..."}. A missing prefix on a raw map is a common reason a session will not start.

Short answer: by default, UiAutomator2 clears app data between sessions without uninstalling. noReset=true keeps app data (useful to stay logged in during local debugging). fullReset=true uninstalls and reinstalls the app for a completely clean start, at the cost of time.

For CI, prefer a predictable clean state; tests that depend on leftover data from a previous run are a common cause of "passes locally, fails in CI".

Short answer: prefer accessibility id (content-desc on Android, accessibilityIdentifier on iOS) because it is fast and works on both platforms. Then resource-id (Android). Use XPath last: the driver must build and search the whole UI tree, which is slow and breaks when the layout changes.

driver.findElement(AppiumBy.accessibilityId("login_button")).click();
driver.findElement(AppiumBy.id("com.example:id/email")).sendKeys("qa@example.com");

If the app has no accessibility ids, ask developers to add them - it also helps screen-reader users.

Short answer: use explicit waits on a condition; avoid Thread.sleep. Do not combine a large implicit wait with explicit waits - the timings add up in confusing ways.

WebDriverWait wait = new WebDriverWait(driver, Duration.ofSeconds(15));
WebElement banner = wait.until(
    ExpectedConditions.visibilityOfElementLocated(AppiumBy.accessibilityId("welcome_banner")));

Common failure: waiting for presence when the element exists but is still covered by a loading spinner. Wait for the spinner to disappear, or for the element to be clickable.

Short answer: list the contexts, switch to the WEBVIEW_... one to use web locators, and switch back to NATIVE_APP afterwards. On Android the app must enable WebView debugging in its build.

Set<String> contexts = driver.getContextHandles();   // e.g. [NATIVE_APP, WEBVIEW_com.example]
driver.context(contexts.stream().filter(c -> c.startsWith("WEBVIEW")).findFirst().orElseThrow());
driver.findElement(By.cssSelector("#pay-now")).click();
driver.context("NATIVE_APP");

Short answer: use W3C Actions, or the driver's mobile: gesture commands. The old TouchAction API is deprecated and has been removed from recent Java clients.

// UiAutomator2 gesture extension
boolean canScrollMore = (Boolean) driver.executeScript("mobile: scrollGesture", Map.of(
    "left", 100, "top", 300, "width", 600, "height", 1200,
    "direction", "down", "percent", 0.75));

On Android you can also scroll to text with a UiScrollable selector through AppiumBy.androidUIAutomator(...).

Work through these in order:

1. Check the page source with driver.getPageSource() or Appium Inspector - the attribute may differ from what you expect.
2. Check the context - you may still be in NATIVE_APP while the element is inside a WebView (or the reverse).
3. Check timing - is an animation or loader still running?
4. Check if it is off-screen - scroll it into view first.
5. Check for a system dialog (permissions) on top of the app.