10 basic Android terminal command

1. The adb devices command

The adb devices command is the most important one of the bunch, since it's used to make sure
your computer and Android device are communicating. That's why we're covering it first.

If you're a pro at the operating system on your computer, you'll want to add the directory with the
Android tools to your path. If you're not, no worries. Just start up your terminal or command
console and point it where you put the extracted tools you downloaded above.

Once you're sure that you are in the right folder, type adb devices at the command prompt. If you
get a serial number, you're good to go! If you don't, make sure you're in the right folder and that
you have the device driver installed correctly if you're using Windows. And be sure you have
USB debugging turned on!

The adb push command

If you want to move a file onto your Android device programmatically, you want to use the adb
push command. You'll need to know a few parameters, namely the full path of the file you're
pushing, and the full path to where you want to put it. In the picture above I'm pushing a song
from my Music folder on my desktop to the music folder on my phone.

Notice the slashes in the file path and the quotes around the path on my computer in the
command. Windows uses \ as a directory switch in a file path and Unix uses /. Because the
file name has spaces and special characters (I renamed it this way on purpose!) you need to
encase the path in quotes.

3. The adb pull command

If adb push sends files to your Android device, it stands to reason the adb pull command would
pull them out.

That's exactly what it does, and it works the same way as the adb push command did. You need
to know both the path of the file you want to pull off, as well as the path you want it placed into.
You can leave the destination path blank and it will drop the file into your tools folder to make
things easy.

In this example, I did it the hard way and entered the full path(s) so you can see what it looks
like. Remember your forward slash versus backward slash rules here and you'll have no
problems.

4. The adb reboot command

This is exactly what you think it is — a way to reboot your device from the command line.
Running it is simple: just type adb reboot and enter.

Before you say "I can just push the button!" you have to understand that these commands can be
scripted, and your device can reboot in the middle of a script if you need it to. And that's a good
segue to number five.

The adb reboot-bootloader and adb reboot recovery

commands
Not only can you reboot your device, but you can also specify that it reboots to the bootloader.
This is awfully handy, as sometimes those button combos are touchy, and if you have a lot of
devices it's tough to remember them all. Some devices don't even have a way to boot to the
bootloader without this command. And once again, being able to use this command in a script is
priceless.

Doing it is easy, just type adb reboot-bootloader and hit the enter key.

Most devices can also boot into the recovery directly with the adb reboot recovery (note there is
no hyphen in this one) and some can't. It won't hurt anything to try.

6. The fastboot devices command

When you're working inside the bootloader, adb no longer works. You're not yet booted into
Android, and the debugging tools aren't active to communicate with. You'll need to use the
fastboot command in its place.

Fastboot is probably the most powerful Android debug tool available, and many devices don't
have it enabled. If yours does, you need to be sure things are communicating. That's where the
fastboot devices command comes into play. At the prompt, just type in fastboot devices and you
should see a serial number, just like the adb devices command we looked at earlier.

If things aren't working and you're using Windows, you likely have a driver issue and you'll need
to source it from the manufacturer.

7. The fastboot unlock command

The fastboot unlock process will erase everything on your phone and reset it.

The holy grail of Android commands, fastboot flashing unlock does one thing, and one thing
only -- unlocks your bootloader. It's not enabled on every phone, even phones that support
fastboot, but we're including it because even if you don't need it, it's an important part of
Android's openness. Google doesn't care what we do with phones as long as it doesn't go against
rules for Google Play access, and that includes this easy way to crack them open, even if the
company who made your phone doesn't support it.
Using it is easy enough. Once you've used fastboot devices to make sure everything is
communicating, just type fastboot flashing unlock at the prompt and hit enter. Look at your
device, read carefully, and choose wisely.

8. The adb install command

While adb push can copy files to our Android devices, adb install can actually install apps.
You'll need to supply the path where you have the .apk file saved, then run it like this: adb install
TheAppName.apk.

If you're updating an app, you use the -r switch: adb install -r TheAppName.apk. There is also a -
s switch which tries to install on the SD card as well as other commands you probably won't ever
need.

And finally, you can uninstall apps by their package name with adb uninstall package-name-
here. Uninstall has a switch, too. The -k switch will uninstall the app but leave all the app data
and cache in place.

9. The adb sideload command

An OTA (over-the-air) update is downloaded by your phone as a .zip file. You can also
download that zip file manually and install it without having to wait for your phone to have the
update pushed to it. The end result is the same as if you had waited, but we hate waiting.

All you have to do is download the update to your computer. Plug your phone into the computer.
Then, reboot into recovery on your phone and using the up and down volume buttons choose
Apply update from ADB. Then hop into your favorite terminal/command line and type adb
sideload Full-Path-to-the-file.zip and hit enter. Let things run their course, and you're golden.

10. The adb shell command

he adb shell command confuses a lot of folks. There are two ways to use it, one where you send
a command to the device to run in its own command-line shell, and one where you actually enter
the device's command shell from your terminal.

In the image above, I'm inside the device shell. Getting there is easy enough, just type adb shell
and enter. Once inside, you can interact with the actual running operating system on your phone.
I'll warn you that unless you're familiar with an ash or bash shell, you need to be careful here
because things can turn south quickly if you're not. Ash and bash are command shells. They
allow you to interact with your phone through typed commands and a lot of folks use one or both
on their Linux or Mac computers even if they didn't know it. ** It is not DOS so don't try any
DOS commands.**

The other method of using the adb shell command is using it to tell your phone to run a shell
command without going into the shell. Using it is easy; type adb shell An example would be
changing permissions on a file like so: adb shell chmod666 /sdcard/somefile.

Be very careful running direct commands using these methods.

And there you have it. There are plenty more commands to learn if you 're the type who likes to
learn commands, but these 10 are the ones you really need to know if you want to start digging
around at the command prompt.

https://www.androidcentral.com/10-basic-terminal-
commands-you-should-know
ome of the most used commands on Android terminal:

 : Creates a new empty file.

 cp: Copies a file or directory.
 mv: Moves a file or directory.
 cat: Prints the contents of a file.
 lessls: Lists the files and directories in the current directory.
 cd: Changes the current directory.
 pwd: Prints the current working directory.
 mkdir: Makes a new directory.
 rm: Deletes a file or directory.
 rmdir: Deletes an empty directory.
 touch: Displays the contents of a file a page at a time.
 grep: Searches for a given string in a file or set of files.
 find: Searches for a given file or directory.
 tar: Archives files or directories.
I Android terminal emulator commands
In this application, root-rights are not necessary, although useful. But this note is not about him,
but about typical terminal emulator commands that can be used on Android devices without root
privileges.

All commands below are tested on Android Terminal  Emulator, which review is on a site.
The sh command interpreter was used.

File and directory operations

Team Purpose Example

cd or
Go to the specified directory / Go to the directory one level up cd sdcard
cd ../

View the list of files and directories in the current directory / Same, but with
ls or ls -a ls
hidden files.

Pwd Print the name of the directory in which we are located. pwd

Mkdir Create a directory mkdir test

rm –r Delete the directory rm -r test

Touch Create a file (empty) touch proba

Rm Delete any file rm proba

mv proba
Mv Rename file
test

Cat Display the contents of the text file cat test

We display the contents of a text file, but starting from the end of the
Tac tac test
document.

System and hardware information

Team Purpose Example

  Find out the device operation time without

  uptime   uptime
rebooting

  Ps   List all running processes ps

  Df   Find out how much memory is occupied and on   df

 what media

  Date   We display the system date and time   Date

  service list   We get acquainted with active services   service list

  The command to control the services on the

  service
device

  Allows you to manage power consumption and   The command lists the available
  Svc
Internet access (Wi-Fi, 3G) operations.

  It will help you choose the input method and   The command lists the available
  Ime
configure it. operations.

  pm list
  We list the programs installed on the device pm list packages
packages

  am start -n
  am start -n   Run the program com.android.browser / .BrowserActivit
y

The Android SDK includes an Android device emulator—a virtual device that runs on your
computer. The Android Emulator lets you develop and test Android apps without using a
physical device.

This page describes command-line features that you can use with the Android Emulator.

Start the emulator

Use the emulator command to start the emulator, as an alternative to running your project or
starting it through the AVD Manager.

Here's the basic command-line syntax for starting a virtual device from a terminal prompt:

emulator -avd avd_name

[ {-option
[value
]} … ]
no-snapshot-load Performs a cold boot and saves the emulator state on exit.

Advanced options

The command-line startup options in the following table are available but not commonly used by
the average app developer.
In the descriptions, the working directory is the current directory in the terminal where you're
entering commands. For information about the AVD system directory and data directory and the
files stored within them, see the section about default directories and files.

Some of these options are appropriate for external app developers, and some of them are used
primarily by platform developers. App developers create Android apps and run them on specific
AVDs. Platform developers work on the Android system and run it inside the emulator with no
pre-created AVD.

Table 4. Advanced command-line options

Advanced option Brief description

Enables bootcharting with a timeout in seconds. Some Android system
images have a modified init system that integrates a bootcharting facility.
-bootchart You can pass a bootcharting timeout period to the system with this option. If
timeout your init system doesn't have bootcharting activated, the option does nothing.
This option is primarily useful to platform developers, not external app
developers.

Specifies a cache partition image file. Provides a filename and an absolute

path or a path relative to the data directory to set up a persistent cache file. If
-cache filepath the file doesn't exist, the emulator creates it as an empty file.

For example:

-cache-size size
Sets the cache partition size in MBs

Sets the user data partition image file. Provides a filename and an absolute path or a
path relative to the working directory to set up a persistent user data file. If the file
-data doesn't exist, the emulator creates an image from the default userdata.img file,
filepath stores it in the filename you specified, and persists user data to it at shutdown.

-datadir dir Specifies a data directory using an absolute path.

-help-disk- Gets help about about disk images. This option provides information relevant
images to both app and platform developers.

-help-char- Gets help about character device specifications. A device parameter is

devices required by some emulator options.