Android Debug Bridge (abbreviated as ADB) is a very powerful, though often neglected, tool to perform different tasks on an Android smartphone. As the name itself suggests ADB is a connection between your phone and a PC running Windows/Linux. It is basically a command line interface to accomplish various common as well as uncommon Android operations. Most basic tasks like transferring data files between PC & smartphone, installing an application from PC directly are possible through ADB. But its capabilities are better realized in situations where other routine apps are not helpful enough. Included among these are taking a backup of system as well as user installed apps, along with app data, which can be further restored in case of system failure, cracking a forgotten screen lock pattern/PIN/password, backing up contacts from a smartphone with broken screen and many more.
How to activate ADB?
To activate ADB on your phone navigate to Settings → Developer Options and enable the USB Debugging option by ticking check box against it. Sounds quite straight? In recent phones running Android 4.2+ like Nexus, Moto G etc. Developer Options menu cannot be found under Settings as it is hidden by the manufacturer in order to safeguard the phone against accidental (or Intentional) misuse. In this case go to Settings → About Phone and tap the Build Number option repeatedly for 4-5 times. Developer Options will now be activated and the message depicting the same will be flashed on the screen.
Now the next part is to prepare your Computer for communicating via ADB. For this two things are needed
- ADB drivers for your phone model
- Program to run ADB
For many of the phone models drivers for ADB are installed automatically on PC when it is connected via USB cable, provided USB Debugging mode is enabled. If this is not the case or an error is displayed by Windows OS try to find drivers on support page of your phone model on manufacturer’s website to obtain the drivers.
After installing the drivers a program that can run adb commands must be installed on PC. These are included in Android SDK (Software Development Kit) which can be downloaded from Google. But this is a hefty large package and also needs some skill for proper installation. As we are interested only in adb part this time (and not app development as such) downloading whole SDK and configuring it will be a waste. There is a very handy program Minimal ADB and Fastboot developed by XDA Forum member shimp208. Download and install it on the computer and you are good to go.
Running adb commands
Now open ‘Minimal ADB and Fastboot’ from desktop. You will see a command prompt pointing to the directory where the program is installed. Connect your phone to the PC and make sure that ‘USB Debugging Connected’ line appears on its status bar. Now from this prompt you can run any adb command as per your need. To illustrate simplest of the things, type ‘adb devices’ and hit Enter. If everything is perfect your phone’s Serial No will be shown, which means that you have successfully configured ADB. For more uses of adb explore this blog.
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