• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

DroidViews

  • Apps
  • Downloads
    • Android Apps
    • Themes
  • Guides
    • Root
  • ROMs
  • Reviews
  • Wallpapers

Setup ADB on Windows, Mac and Linux and Use Commands

DJ | 17 Apr 2013 | Google/ Guides

If you have been in relation with the Android sphere, I assume you know of what ADB is. Even if you don’t, you shall now recite it as here we’re going into a little depth about the same. We will begin our journey with defining and explaining its structure, commands and end it with setting it up and exploring its daily applications for Android users/developers. Lets now lean forward towards the basic, followed by the complications.

This guide and the information indulged in it is meant for anyone and everyone related to Android. You shall find its necessity on several occasions like taking logs, flashing firmware images, updating phone software, flashing ROMs/Recoveries & even while developing a ROM/Kernel/Application.  So, from users to developers, it will come in handy.

What is ADB?

ADB or Android Debug Bridge is a fully equipped and loaded command-line tool which is put to use in order to communicate with an Android device. ADB tool is provided alongside the Android SDK and one could easily find this tiny but versatile tool under <SDK>/platform-tools/

It comprises three basic and important components:

  • The Client
    It is what runs on your development machine
  • The Server
    It is held responsible for communication between the client and daemon running on a device/emulator
  • The Daemon
    It runs as a background process on each device/emulator instance

Now, let’s see how can a user set up ADB on his various OS incl. Windows, Linux & Mac. Since ADB is bundled with Android SDK, so you need it prior for your respective OS. Below are a few easy steps to setup ADB easily on your OS without much hassle. SDK and ADB work on JAVA, so make sure that you have JDK6 or higher running on your OS.

How to Setup ADB and Fastboot on Windows within Seconds

Easily Setup ADB and Fastboot on Mac, Linux and Chrome OS

How to Setup ADB on Windows

  1. Download the Android SDK package for Windows [android-sdk_r21.1-windows.zip]
  2. Extract the zip files to your C:\ drive. Now you have a folder android-sdk-linux
  3. Double click on SDK Manager to initiate the SDK manager. You shall perceive the following window.
  4. Make sure everything is un-ticked. Now select Android SDK Platform-tools and install it.
  5. During the next window, you will be prompted. Accept the license and click on Install.
  6. When the installation is complete, close the window.
  7. The SDK manager has now downloaded the platform-tools successfully, which certainly includes our prior ADB.
  8. The next step is to define the path where ADB is present.
  9. Go to C:\android-sdk-windows\platform-tools and take note of this path.
  10. Go to desktop, right click on Computer and select Properties.
  11. On the left pane, click on Advanced System Settings and a new window shall open.
  12. Select Environment Variables under Advanced tab.
  13. Select Path variable and click edit.
  14. Now add the path we noted in step #9 to the variable value and hit OK.
  15. Confirm and apply all the changes.
  16. To confirm that ADB has been configured properly, open CMD window and type in:
    adb
  17. You now have ADB successfully installed and configured on your Windows machine.

How to Setup ADB on Linux

You can setup ADB easily on any Linux distribution including Ubuntu, Fedora, openSUSE, Linux Mint etc.

  1. Download the Android SDK package for Linux [android-sdk_r21.1-linux.tgz]
  2. Place the downloaded file in your “HOME” folder.
  3. Right click on the file and select Extract here
  4. Now, you shall see a folder named android-sdk-linux.
  5. Open the terminal in the Home folder and type in the following commands:
    cd android-sdk-linux/tools
    ./android
  6. Make sure everything is un-ticked. Now select Android SDK Platform-tools and install it.
  7. During the next window, you will be prompted. Accept the license and click on Install.
  8. When the installation is complete, close the window.
  9. The SDK manager has now download the platform-tools successfully, which certainly includes our prior ADB.
  10. The next step is to define the path where ADB is present.
  11. Open the terminal again and type in the following commands to add the SDK Path to the .bashrc & .profile. Here “gedit” is the default text editor in Ubuntu. In case you are running other Linux distribution, replace it with the name of the corresponding text editor. For example, in the case of Linux Mint, you shall use: gksudo pluma ~/.bashrc and so on for other distributions.
    gksudo gedit ~/.bashrc
  12. Go towards the end and add the following lines:
    # Android tools
     export PATH=${PATH}:~/android-sdk-linux/tools
     export PATH=${PATH}:~/android-sdk-linux/platform-tools
     export PATH=${PATH}:~/bin
  13. Let’s do the same for .profile. Open Terminal and type:
    gksudo gedit ~/.profile
  14. Scroll to the very end of the file and add the following line:
    PATH="$HOME/android-sdk-linux/tools:$HOME/android-sdk-linux/platform-tools:$PATH"
  15. Reboot your system now to take effect.
  16. To confirm the configuration, open Terminal and type:
    adb
  17. You have now successfully installed and configured ADB on your Linux machine.

How to Setup ADB on Mac OS

At present Android SDK and its components like ADB only supports systems running Mac OS X 10.5.8 or higher. So, make sure that you meet the requirement.

  1. Download the Android SDK package for Mac OS [android-sdk_r21.1-macosx.zip]
  2. Extract the downloaded zip package to your Home directory.
  3. Now, you shall see a folder named android-sdk-macosx
  4. Navigate inside android-sdk-macosx/tools/
  5. Double-click “android” to execute the SDK Manager.
  6. Make sure everything is un-ticked. Now select Android SDK Platform-tools and install it.
  7. During the next window, you will be prompted. Accept the license and click on Install.
  8. When the installation is complete, close the window.
  9. The SDK manager has now downloaded the platform-tools successfully, which certainly includes our prior ADB.
  10. The next step is to define the path where ADB is present.
  11. Open terminal window and type following:
    nano ~/.bash_profile
  12. This shall open the .bash_profile file. Now enter the following line to define the ADB path.
    export PATH=${PATH}:~/android-sdk-macosx/tools
    export PATH=${PATH}:~/android-sdk-macosx/platform-tools
  13. Reboot your system now to take effect.
  14. To confirm the configuration, open Terminal and type:
    adb
  15. You have now successfully installed and configured ADB on your Mac OS machine.

Guide to ADB Commands

ADB commands are independent of the OS you’re using them on. Once you have set up the SDK and hence, the ADB, you can move forward and make use of any of these commands upon your requirement. Lets hit the basic commands.

  1. What if you connected your Android device to your machine and you want to make sure that it’s correctly detected? You got to put to use this simple command.
    adb devices

    Now, what it does is, start a daemon (background process) and output the device debugging serial. So, if it does so, then you can be sure that your device has made a successful connection with the machine.

  2. The second most made-in-use command is logcat. Most used, because it’s not only used by users to report the errors in Apps, Kernel, ROMs etc but also by the developers to track the bugs and fix them. So, it holds a great importance in Android development.
    Once, you have started to log, you also need to put a barrier of stoppage when you think that you have acquired sufficient knowledge about what you seek, to do this press Ctrl + C.Logcat command can itself be used in several ways. To display a real-time log of the device, Its best to take a log since boot, which gives a more appropriate knowledge. This command in most cases is used by developers to simply take note of the log of their developed Apps, ROMs, Kernels etc. To take in a real-time log, type the following command in your CMD (Windows) or Terminal (Linux/Mac).
adb logcat

Cases arise when you’re a user and at certain situations, you’re required to take note of the log and upload it for the developer assistance/help. But, recording the log over CMD/Terminal is pretty messy and so this command makes it simple. What it shall do is, take the log and store it decently in a .txt file, so that a user can carry it or transfer it easily. Again, its better to log since boot until you are considerate about logging a single process. Type in the following command:

adb logcat > logcat.txt

Here, “logcat.txt” is the name of the file, you may vary it in accordance to your needs. For Eg. adb logcat > ROMlogcat.txt
The same file shall be stored in C:\Users\<username> for Windows & Linux

  • Pull/Push commands hold equivalent importance as it saves the trouble of manually extracting a specific apk using a file manager with Root permissions and then transferring it to the PC. What it does is, directly pull out/push in the desired apk from/to any location under the device without much hassle.To pull an apk file, type:
    adb pull <filepath)

    eg. adb pull /system/app/SystemUI.apk

    To push/copy over an apk file to the device, type:

    adb push <filename> <filepath>

    eg. adb push SystemUI.apk /system/app/SystemUI.apk

    NOTE: The file names and file paths in these commands are case-sensitive. Also, in case of system apks, its advised to first mount using the following command.

    adb remount
  • There are several occasions when a user has to use his device accessed in shell mode and ADB makes it easier. To initiate a shell connection with the device/emulator, type in the following command:
    adb shell

    While in the ADB shell, a user has access to some unique and new commands which are as following:

    cd <path>

    The above commands changes the CMD/Terminal directory to a specified directory inside the Android device/emulator.
    e.g: cd /system/app

    ls <path>

    The above command lists all the files in the current shell directory
    e.g: ls /system/app

    rm <file_path>

    The command removes a specified file from the directory
    e.g: rm /system/app/SystemUI.apk

    cp <file_path> <copy_path>

    The command copies a specified file to another location
    eg. cp /system/app/SystemUI.apk /sdcard/SystemUI.apk

    To exit the shell, type:

    exit
  • Booting commands also hold their place and come in very handy while rooting processes and even while Android development. Below are stated such 3 commands:
    adb reboot

    The command simply reboots your device at any instance

    adb reboot recovery

    The command reboots a device into recovery mode

    adb reboot bootloader

    The command reboots a device into its bootloader (fastboot) mode

  • In case you’re in bootloader mode, your device shall never show any response to ADB commands. But, here comes fastboot in action, which has a limited, but a few and very useful commands. This is the same reason that bootloader mode is often referred to as fastboot mode.
    fastboot devices

    Displays the device ID of the Android device connected while in bootloader mode.

    fastboot reboot

    Reboots a device

    fastboot reboot-bootloader

    Reboots the bootloader

    fastboot oem unlock

    Initiates the bootloader unlocking sequence

    fastboot oem lock

    Re-locks the device bootloader

    fastboot flash recovery <recovery_image_name.img>

    Flashes a recovery image to the device
    eg: fastboot flash recovery clockworkmod-6.0.3.1_mako.img

    fastboot flash radio <radio_file_name.img>

    Flashes the Radio (baseband) image file
    eg. fastboot flash radio radio-crespo-i9020xxki1.img

    fastboot flash bootloader <bootloader_file_name.img>

    Flashes a bootloader image to the device partition
    eg. fastboot flash bootloader bootloader-crespo-i9020xxlc2.img

This is all! We’ve guided you set up Android SDK, ADB and use the simple command-line tool. We do not expect everyone to grasp this knowledge all at once, so in case you’re in any trouble while setting up or while using these commands, comment below and we shall give you a helping hand.

Tags: ADB and Fastboot How to Guides Tips and Tricks

Related Posts

dual boot

How To Dual Boot Android and Windows

android versions

How to Downgrade Android Versions

lg

How to Add Any App to LG UX’s Dual App Feature

Reader Interactions

Discussion

  1. Apr 22, 2017 at 11:03 AM
    Masud Mtk says:
    Reply

    plz link

  2. Apr 15, 2017 at 11:41 AM
    Gobind Ram Waghella says:
    Reply

    thanks. you saved my day.!!!

  3. Nov 13, 2014 at 9:34 PM
    Bill Nye says:
    Reply

    When I try to perform step 5 it says I need to install java, which I did. Tried restarting to no avail.

  4. Jul 5, 2014 at 6:59 PM
    Tommi Carr says:
    Reply

    After I enter: export PATH=${PATH}:~/android-sdk-macosx/tools
    export PATH=${PATH}:~/android-sdk-macosx/platform-tools

    Nothing happens in the terminal, is this normal? I continued with the tutorial after this anyway and it didn’t work.

    • Jul 5, 2014 at 8:04 PM
      Rakesh says:
      Reply

      Now we have easier guides to get ADB Fastboot working: https://www.droidviews.com/tag/adb-and-fastboot/

  5. Apr 25, 2014 at 6:05 AM
    Bryan Miller says:
    Reply

    Been trying cmd promp in IOROOT25 and having a hard time with it seeing my phone. sometimes it will say offline but most tries it doesn’t see anything. once it had my serial number with unauthorized. my computer sees my phone and I can open my files but cmd promp will not in IOROOT25..

    • Apr 25, 2014 at 5:03 PM
      Rakesh says:
      Reply

      Reinstall the drivers. Connect device in download mode to computer. Open Windows Device Manager and set the COM Port to COM41. See here for details: https://www.droidviews.com/how-to-restore-lg-g2-to-stock-firmware/

  6. Apr 25, 2014 at 2:46 AM
    Bryan Miller says:
    Reply

    I did every step for windows and when I got to editing path variables there are two, users and system. I am not sure which one to change to – C:DownloadsSoftwareandroid-sdk_r21.1-windowsplatform-tools

    • Apr 25, 2014 at 5:54 AM
      Rakesh says:
      Reply

      Open Platform-tools, launch a cmd window, connect your device and type ‘adb device’ to check if your device is detected. If yes, you can use other commands too.

      • Apr 25, 2014 at 6:09 AM
        Bryan Miller says:
        Reply

        Been trying cmd promp in IOROOT25 and having a hard time with it seeing
        my phone. sometimes it will say offline but most tries it doesn’t see
        anything. once it had my serial number with unauthorized. my computer
        sees my phone and I can open my files but cmd promp will not in
        IOROOT25.

      • Apr 25, 2014 at 6:55 AM
        Bryan Miller says:
        Reply

        ok tried cmd window in platform-tools and ran fastboot devices but still no devices. I am running vista is that a problem ?

  7. Apr 17, 2014 at 10:38 PM
    Luke Witten says:
    Reply

    Followed step by step twice. Device isn’t detected..

  8. Aug 28, 2013 at 7:44 AM
    Richard Collett says:
    Reply

    samsung GS$ i9505 continually vibrates twice and screen with phones name flashes up for a few seconds then disappears

  9. Jun 30, 2013 at 3:24 AM
    Abbie Hoffman says:
    Reply

    Did this 5 times step by step… still get “command not found” on #14.

  10. Jun 14, 2013 at 5:57 AM
    Atmatosh Jha says:
    Reply

    hi! i have unzipped it to c: and installed sdk platforms-tools but i can’t see the directory C:android-sdk-windowsplatform-tools. There is no such folder named C:android-sdk-windowsplatform-tools. plz help

    • Jun 14, 2013 at 6:02 AM
      Atmatosh Jha says:
      Reply

      now i m DONE. Thank You.

      • Jun 14, 2013 at 6:20 AM
        Dhananjay Bhardwaj says:
        Reply

        Glad for that 🙂

Join The Discussion: Cancel reply

We never share our visitor/user details. For more info, Please read our privacy policy before submitting your comment.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Primary Sidebar

Ezoic

Ezoic

Footer

  • Apps
  • Downloads
    • Android Apps
    • Themes
  • Guides
    • Root
  • ROMs
  • Reviews
  • Wallpapers

© 2023 · DroidViews