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Android debug bridge

lastmod 2025-11-07created 2015-10-194 edits

Android Debug Bridge (adb) is a versatile command line tool that lets you communicate with an emulator instance or connected Android-powered device. It is a client-server program that includes three components:

  • A client, which runs on your development machine. You can invoke a client from a shell by issuing an adb command. Other Android tools such as the ADT plugin and DDMS also create adb clients.
  • A server, which runs as a background process on your development machine. The server manages communication between the client and the adb daemon running on an emulator or device.
  • A daemon, which runs as a background process on each emulator or device instance.

You can find the adb tool in: 

<sdk>/platform-tools/

Adb command

List of ADB commands.

  • adb devices: shows the list of phones and emulators recognized by the adb server. Useful for finding the TCP/IP port numbers of connected devices.
  • adb devices -l: long format version of the adb devices command.
  • adb install [-l][-r] file_spec: used to install or reinstall an app.
    • -l : prevents it from being copied over to another device.
    • -r: reinstalls the application without deleting existing app data.
    • file_spec: the .apk file of the app to install
  • adb uninstall [-k] package: removes the app with the package name.
    • -k : keeps the app's data.
    • package: the full path of the package, without the .apk extension.
  • adb push local remote: copies the file named local on the developer's computer to the target system under the name remote.
    • e.g. ./adb push ~/Project/EduPiano/godot/EduPiano.apk /sdcard/Download/
  • adb pull remote local: copies the file named remote on the target system to the developer's computer under the name local.
  • adb reboot: reboots the Android system.
  • adb kill-server: stops adb when there is a problem with it.
  • adb start-server: starts adb after it has been stopped.

Adb shell commands

ADB Shell is like a minimal Unix shell, so you can explore and modify the target system with simple commands. To connect to the target system's shell and get a # prompt: 

$ adb shell

Below is a collection of useful shell commands.

  • logcat: view logcat.
  • pm: short for package manager. List packages/permissions/instrumentation/features, install/remove packages, etc.
  • am: short for activity manager. Start activities, broadcast Intents, start Instrumentation, start / stop profiling, etc.
  • service: list Android services, send commands to services.
  • monkey: generates random events in an application. Randomly fires user events and system events.
  • cat /data/anr/traces.txt: VM TRACES (thread dump).
  • cat /proc/binder/proc/[PID]: binder process state.
  • cat /proc/binder/xxx: binder-related information (xxx is transaction, transaction_log, failed_transaction_log, stats, etc.).
  • cat /data/system/packages.xml: settings information of installed packages.
  • setprop: set a system property.
  • getprop: print the list of set system properties.
  • dumpsys [service]: dump app/service state information; can take additional parameters per service.
  • dumpstate: dump device state information. Consists of a combination of several commands that extract state information.
  • dumpcrash: dump state information when an application crashes.
  • bugreport: logcat + dumpsys + dumpstat.

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