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)
“dumpsysis 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
