ADB: Android Debug Bridge

and other Android command line tools

How ADB Works​ ​- from developer.android.com; includes all available commands

How ADB Works​ ​-​ ​from Google Git; adb overview

How ADB Works​ ​- from dummies.com / do not take it personally!

Killing the adb server - why

Always starting with adb devices - why

Starting an emulator from command line

Connecting a physical device via TCP/IP

Command redirection

Install, update and uninstall an application

How to find a package name

Collecting application logs

Recording video from terminal/command prompt

Taking a screenshot from terminal/command prompt

Pull and push files from and to Android device

Changing runtime permissions from terminal/command prompt

Using dumpsys tool to diagnose the device (when needed)

Some other useful commands

Monkey tool

And where to look for more

Killing the adb server - why

“In some cases, you might need to terminate the adb server process and then restart it

to resolve the problem (e.g., if adb does not respond to a command).

To stop the adb server, use

​adb kill-server

You can then restart the server by issuing any other adb command.”

Always starting with adb devices - why

To make sure the device you are going to manipulate with is actually connected, always
start with

adb devices

And then issue your next adb command

Starting an emulator from command line

emulator -list-avds - returns the list of created emulators on your machine (their names)

emulator -avd <emulator_name> - start the emulator

Connecting a physical device via TCP/IP

Note: ​the very first link ​How ADB Works​ has the steps as well

Steps:
1. Your phone and computer are ​ON THE SAME WiFi

2. Connect your Android phone via USB

3. adb devices

4. adb tcpip <port_number_for_server>

6. Disconnect device from USB

6. adb connect 192.168.4.198:5559 - <phone_ip>:<port_number_for_server>

7. adb disconnect - disconnects every physical device connected this way

How to find ip from command line ​(alternatively, search in the phone settings)

adb -d shell ip addr show wlan0

Command redirection

adb -d <command> - sends a command to ​the only​ connected physical device

(CONNECTED via USB)

adb -e <command> - sends a command ​to the only ​connected emulator

(​CONNECTED via TCP/IP​)

​ nce a physical device is connected via TCP/IP, use -e or -s <serial_number>

Note: O

command redirection option as -d sends command to devices connected via USB

if more than one device or more than one emulator connected, use

adb -s <serial> <command>

For ex.,
adb -s ​emulator-5554​ install .apk

Install, update and uninstall an application

adb install Downloads/<file_name>.apk - use ​your​ path to .apk

adb devices | grep device | grep -v devices | cut -f 1 | xargs -I {} adb -s {} install

Reinstal (updated) application

adb install ​-r​ Downloads/<file_name>.apk - add -r before ​your​ path to .apk

Unistall

adb uninstall com.adjoy.standalone.test2 - use package name

How to find a package name

adb shell pm list packages - returns the list of packages installed on the device

adb shell pm list packages -f <app_name> - returns the package for the specific app

adb shell pm list packages -3 -returns third party packages that were installed from Play

store or as .apk (not pre-installed)

Alternatively, with dumpsys. First start the app do that it is running on the foreground, then

adb shell dumpsys window windows | grep 'mCurrentFocus'

Returns

mCurrentFocus=Window{2c0df8a u0

com.adjoy.standalone.test2​/com.adjoy.standalone.features.auth.AuthActivity}

Note:​ ​Does not work for Android 10 devices

Collecting application logs

Logcat​ ​is​ ​a command-line tool for debugging Android applications

adb logcat - command to start logging

useful options:

adb logcat -c clears all the info that might be in buffer from the previous sessions

adb logcat | grep ‘adjoy’​ - ​filter the log for a particular application

​ n Windows machine, please use ​find ​instead of​ grep - for ex., find “adjoy”
Note: O

Note: I​ f you need to grep more than one word, please do the following:

adb logcat | grep -E "(adjoy|dabbl)"

adb logcat > file_name.txt - writes the log a text file (or -f <file_name>), for example,

adb logcat | grep 'adjoy' > zip_code_crash.txt

​ n Windows machine, please use f​ ind ​instead of​ grep - for ex., find “adjoy”
Note: O

adb logcat | tee logfile.txt ​- prints the output in the console and also saves to a file

adb logcat ​tag:priority​​ - filtering by priority; for example,

adb logcat *:W

Note: ​Tags are defined by an app developer, use * in a tag place

Note: ​if you use​ zsh, ​you need to use single quotes​ a
​ round the expression​ '*:W'

More about filtering from the ​official website

adb logcat '*:W' | grep 'adjoy' > zip_code_crash.txt

​ n Windows machine, please use f​ ind ​instead of​ grep - for ex., find “adjoy”
Note: O

Recording video ​from terminal/command prompt

adb shell screenrecord /sdcard/ErrorMsgRegistrationScreen.mp4

give your files a meaningful name. You may use a bug # as a file name, too.

Default recording time is 180 seconds (3 minutes). You may, however, change the that

by adding following the arguments

adb shell screenrecord --time-limit <TIME> /sdcard/ErrorMsgRegistrationScreen.mp4,

instead of <TIME> placeholder, insert the needed time in seconds: --time-limit 120 will

produce a 2-minute video.

Since video is saved to sdcard, we need to "pull" it from the device

adb pull /sdcard/ErrorMsgRegistrationScreen.mp4 - pulls to current working directory

adb pull /sdcard/ErrorMsgRegistrationScreen.mp4 ​/Users/tanya/Desktop - pulls to a

specified destination

If no distention directory specified, the file will be stored at your current working

directory (to check - pwd on Mac, cd on Windows)

To remove a file from your device, run

adb shell rm /sdcard/ErrorMsgRegistrationScreen.mp4

Recording the video in Android Studio -

https://developer.android.com/studio/debug/am-video.html?hl=en

Taking a screenshot from​ ​terminal/command prompt

adb shell screencap -p > ~/Desktop/screenshot.png

-p forces screencap to use PNG format

adb shell screencap /sdcard/screenshot.png - saves the screenshot to the device’s

sdcard; always .png! You have to say it explicitly

To pull it from device

adb pull /sdcard/screenshot.png - is destination is not specified, goes to current working

directory

adb pull /sdcard/screenshot.png /Users/tanya/Desktop - pulls to the Desktop

Remember - we can also do it in the emulator settings and in Android Studio (under

Logcat) with buttons.

Pull and push files from and to Android device

adb pull /sdcard/screenshot.png /Users/tanya/Desktop - pulls (copies) the file to the

Desktop

adb push ​/Users/tanya/Desktop/profile_image.png /sdcard/ - push (copies) the file to

device sdcard

Note: ​You may drag and drop file from your computer to your emulator, that includes

.apk files - an easy way to install the app

Changing runtime permissions from terminal/command prompt

To find out, what runtime permissions your app is using, run

adb shell dumpsys package <package_name> | grep permission

The following (partial) output under runtime permissions

android.permission.CAMERA: granted=true

means the user is currently allowing the app to access the camera

To revoke permission, run

adb shell pm revoke <package_name> android.permission.CAMERA

To grant permission, run

adb shell pm grant <package_name> android.permission.CAMERA

The same way you can revoke and grant any ​RUNTIME permission​ your application

may require; saves time especially if working with an emulator.

Using dumpsys tool to ​diagnose the device (when needed)

“​dumpsys​is a tool that runs on Android devices and provides information about system
services”

Sometimes it could be useful to get information about a device memory or battery

usage. You can do it this (and not only with dumpsys)

How to get an info related to the battery consumption, find out h

​ ere
How to get an info about the memory is t​ here

Some other useful commands

adb shell getprop​ - returns the list of the devices properties; could be useful when you
need to get, say, a device model or Android version

adb shell getprop ro.build.version.release​ - returns Android version installed one the
device, for example, Android 8.0
adb shell getprop ro.build.version.sdk​ - returns API level, for example, 27

adb shell pm clear com.adjoy.standalone.test2​ - clears all package data from the
device; after running this command, the is if it were just installed

adb shell am force-stop com.adjoy.standalone.test2​ - am stands for activity

manager; the command force closes the application

adb shell am start <package_name>/<activity_name>​ - starts the application from

command line; you’d need to know what is the app’s first activity that is created on
launch

For example,
adb shell am start
com.adjoy.standalone.test2/com.adjoy.standalone.features.auth.AuthActivity

adb reboot ​- reboots the device

Monkey tool
“The M
​ onkey​ is a program that runs on your emulator or device and generates
pseudo-random streams of user events such as clicks, touches, or gestures, as well as
a number of system-level events.”

adb shell monkey -p com.adjoy.standalone -v 500 - sends 500 random clicks and
touches to Dabbl app

And where to look for more

Android command lines tools ​https://developer.android.com/studio/command-line

Magic of ADB​ - a talk by W

​ ojciech Sadurski​, Google at droidcon San Francisco 2019