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Setting Up adb

In this guide you will learn how to set up adb

About adb

adb (Android Debug Bridge) is a command line tool that lets you communicate with your Android device from your PC.

It has a bunch of useful features like installing/uninstalling apps, collecting system logs from your phone and debugging apps.

It is an official Android sdk tool developed by Google, so it is completely safe to download and use!

Prerequisites

You will need

PC (Windows/Mac/Linux)
USB cable to connect your phone to your PC
IQ higher than 70

Enabling USB Debugging on your phone

In order to debug your phone with adb you first have to allow it. To do so, simply do the following steps on your phone:

Enable Developer Options. You can do so by going to Settings > About Phone and tapping Build Number 7 times
Now go to Settings > System > Developer options and enable USB Debugging

Installing adb

Now on your PC:

Download adb. Save it to wherever you want, it doesn't matter!
Go to the folder you downloaded it to and extract the zip

Congratulations! You're all set and ready to use adb!

Getting started using adb

Open the adb folder in a terminal

EITHER right click the folder and click Open in Powershell / Open command prompt here / whatever
OR open a terminal manually and change directory to the adb folder with cd PathToFullFolder like cd C:\Users\Ven\Downloads\adb or cd /home/ven/Downloads/adb

Now you can execute adb commands via:

Windows: .\adb myCommand
Linux: ./adb myCommand

Make sure your phone is connected to your PC and unlocked!

Let's test it!

Unlock your phone and connect it to your PC
Run .\adb devices or ./adb devices depending on your Os
If everything is okay, you should now get a popup on your Phone whether you want to allow USB Debugging. Select yes
Your Terminal should print something like

List of devices attached
576OPB01    device

Advanced - Adding adb to path for easier access

path is a variable that exists on all operating systems. It tells your terminal where to look for programs so you don't have to be in that program's directory all the time.

By adding adb to your path you can execute it from anywhere by simply typing adb. Doing so is very simple actually!

Adding adb to your path on Windows

Open the app search bar
Search for env and choose Edit the system environment variables
Click the Environment Variables button
Under System Variables in the second half find PATH and click on edit
Click New and paste the full path to the adb folder

Next time you start a terminal you can just run adb and it will know where to look!

Adding adb to your path on Linux or Mac

Open a terminal
Find out which shell you're using via echo $SHELL
Run the appropriate command for your shell:
- zsh -> echo "export PATH=/FULL/PATH/TO/ADB/FOLDER:$PATH" >> ~/.zshrc
- bash -> echo "export PATH=/FULL/PATH/TO/ADB/FOLDER:$PATH" >> ~/.bash_profile
Make sure you replace /FULL/PATH/TO/ADB/FOLDER with the actual path
Example with my setup: echo "export PATH=/home/ven/Downloads/adb:$PATH" >> ~/.zshrc