ADB(Android Debug Bridge) for Beginners

Android Debug Bridge

ADB Very useful program made itself by Google for Programmers and developers. Its based on command line and basically communicates with your Android to respond to certain commands. There is vast amount of knowledge about adb but its most useful commands limit to getting...

Logcat:-

A real time log of what is happening in background of our devices. It is really useful for developers to see which component has malfunctioned and helps to narrow down their search for what failed and what needs to be fixed. Several times users are asked to give logcats of their devices which are giving errors. We will go in detail that how to get logcats in every and easiest way possible.

App Installation and Management:-

adb proves really handy if you want to install apks directly from your PC or want to batch install or delete them.

Shell Execution:-

You must have heard of Terminal Emulator. It is an app for android to execute shell commands(linux commands) which are basically present as applets in /system/bin, /system/sbin or /system/xbin(in our case) folders. A very imporant applet called busybox is installed there mainly used for execution of basic commands during root browsing or ROM installation. Many times updater script of ROMs use busybox commands to install it. Well, these commands can be initiated from your device too but they can be initiated from adb also making it easy for programmers.

Pushing and Pulling:-

Most used commands of adb. adb makes it a piece of cake for new device developers to get an ideo of structure and basic knowledge of devices by pulling command. We can pull out i.e copy any files or folders from our devices to our PC, even the root directories without rooting the devices. It help rooters and ROM chefs of new devices to get an idea and implement their mods on them. Pushing is also very useful command. It copies your files and folders from PC to your device. Very useful in pushing some /system apps and other things

Remounting and setting permissions

Basic commands:-

Of-course basic commands such as rebooting and rebooting in recovery mode and download mode are supported.

Others:-

There are several other features of adb such as fastboot, aapt, etc

Will be updating on on how to use ADB with commands in coming days. Stay tuned...

Hello friends,


I'm back with the instructions on how to download and install ADB and required tools.


Setting up ADB

  Open http://developer.android.com/sdk/index.html

• Click on Download SDK
• You will see the Terms & Conditions for downloading the SDK. You can read it in case you have time and patience.
• Select " I have read and agree with the above terms and conditions" and either 32-bit or 64-bit depending on Operating you are planning to use for Development.
• Extract the Zip folder contents to C:\android-sdk folder
• Run SDK Manager from C:\android-sdk folder folder
• It will ask you which package to download? However, it is your choice which package to Download, but here, we will only talk about platform. In case if it’s not installed select the platform tools and install.
• Once installation is done you will find several files like adb,fastboot etc inside platform-tools folder.
• You can copy entire sdk folder to any drive now and use it from there as it does not require Windows registry to work on the machine.
• You can set environment variable by adding the following line

          SETX PATH %PATH%;SDK_Install_Path\platform-tools;SDK_Install_Path\android-sdk-windows\tools" -m


Note: Just replace the "SDK_Install_Path" in the above with the proper path of your SDK installation. Example: C:\android-sdk


I will also be updating this topic with  basic ADB usage and command. Stay tuned for further updates....