I had another SDK already installed by the old google sdk manager when B4A was supporting it. I never used the new B4A sdk manager until tonight because everytime I try something new or update things, it always messes up something and costs me a lot of time to fix - case in point! So, since everything was working fine, I have not used even the google sdk manager in a while (since v6 of B4A) and I guess B4A replaced it somewhere along from version 6 of B4A to v8.
So, I now wanted to update one my apps firebase crash to crashlytics, the tutorial said I had to download all firebase file, but it appears the B4A SDK manager downloaded all the "recommended" files even though they were not visible in my search results list - which I now understand it will do that even if you do a search and think that it will only download the items visible from your search.
I don't use B4A a ton, so I don't know a lot of the real low-level nuances, like how the SDK manager works behind the scenes. So when you say stuff like a "blank folder" I am not 100% certain what you mean.