adb commands

ADB: Android Debug Bridge  and other Android command line tools

• To make sure the device you are going to manipulate with is actually connected use:   adb devices

•  Returns the list of created emulators on your machine (their names):   emulator -list-avds

•  Start the emulator:   -avd <emulator_name>

• Killing the adb server  “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

Some other useful commands

• 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

• Returns Android version installed one the device (for example  Android 8.0 )   adb shell getprop ro.build.version.release

• Returns API level (for example 27):    adb shell getprop ro.build.version.sdk

• Reboots the device:   adb reboot

• Inspect battery diagnostics:   adb shell dumpsys batterystats options  

The output typically includes the following:

*History of battery-related events

*Global statistics for the device

*Approximate power use per UID and system component

*Per-app mobile milliseconds per packet

*System UID aggregated statistics

*App UID aggregated statistics

Monkey tool

“The Monkey 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.”

• Sends 500 random clicks and  touches to Dabbl application:    adb shell monkey -p com.adjoy.standalone -v 500

Change battery level

adb -e shell dumpsys battery set level 15   for virtual device

adb -e shell dumpsys battery reset                 for virtual device

adb -d shell dumpsys battery set level 15   for real (physical) device

adb -d shell dumpsys battery reset                 for real (physical) device

Install, Update, Uninstall an application

• Install to Device:  adb install Downloads/Dabbl-v1.45-adjoyAlpha.apk

• Update to Device:  adb install -r Downloads/Dabbl-v1.45-adjoyAlpha.apk

• Uninstall from Device: adb uninstall com.adjoy.standalone.test2    - use package name

• Clears all package data from the device; after running this command, the is if it were just installed 

adb shell pm clear com.adjoy.standalone.test2

Find package name

•  Returns all packages installed on the device:   adb -d shell pm list packages

•  Returns all installed by user. Returns third party packages that were installed from Play store or as .apk (not pre-installed):   adb -d shell pm list packages -3

• Returns the package for the specific application:    adb -d shell pm list packages -f   yours_app_name

Video record the screen

• Video record the screen:  adb shell screenrecord /sdcard/phone_number.mp4

• To stop recording (or stop any action) press:  ctrl+ c

• Copy recording to your DEVICE:   adb pull /sdcard/phone_number.mp4 

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

adb shell screenrecord --time-limit 120/sdcard/phone_number.mp4

instead of 120 AND placeholder, insert the needed time in seconds: --time-limit 120 will produce a 2-minute video.

Take a screenshot

•  Take a screenshot:  adb shell screencap /sdcard/phone_number.png

• Copy screenshot to your DEVICE:  adb pull /sdcard/phone_number.png

To remove a file from your device

• To remove your file from your device, run:   adb shell rm /sdcard/phone_number.mp4

Connecting a physical device via WiFi

Steps:

1.  Your phone and computer are ON THE SAME WiFi

2.  Connect your Android phone via USB

3.  adb devices     type in your promtp (command) line

4.  adb tcpip 5555    type in your promtp (command) line

6.  Disconnect device from USB

6.  adb connect 192.168.0.100:5555      

Where the first part before <:> is your phone ip :  the last part after <:> is your port_number_for_server (usually 5555).

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

How to find ip from command line   adb -d shell ip addr show wlan0

How to find your device ip? View phone IP from Settings > About Phone > Status   

Collecting application logs

• Collect logs in prompt line. The command to start logging:        adb logcat

• Clears all the info that might be in buffer from the previous sessions:   adb logcat -c  OR   ctrl+c

FOR PC searches for exact string of the app:    adb logcat | findstr "adjoy"  means  adb logcat | findstr " your app`s name" 

In the first part ADB looks for EXACT STRING OF OUR APP adb logcat | findstr "adjoy" > zip_code_crash.txt   IN THE LAST PART WE CREATE txt file (log file)

FOR PC creates log (txt) file with command (promt) line:  adb logcat > file_name.txt

Note: On Windows machine, please use    find (or findstr)    instead of    grep - for ex., find “adjoy” 

FOR iOS:      adb logcat | grep 'adjoy' > zip_code_crash.txt

Note: I f you need to grep more than one word, please do the following:   adb logcat | grep -E "(adjoy|dabbl)"  

• Prints the output in the console and also saves to a file:  adb logcat | tee logfile.txt

Logcat sources:  https://developer.android.com/studio/command-line/logcat 

 https://adbshell.com/