If you’ve been an Android enthusiast lurking in the modding scene, or an app developer for any length of time, sooner or later, you will stumble upon a neat tool called the Android Debug Bridge, or ADB for short. It’s extensively used in Android Studio as a command line companion utility. Android developers also use it as a standalone solution to manually install and test apps on Android smartphones as well as emulated Android devices.
But there’s a lot ADB can do, and most of it isn’t only useful to developers. Even if you aren’t a developer, and you’re reading this article, there’s a good chance you’ve probably used ADB once or twice to sideload an app or tweak a permission. But that isn’t all ADB can be used for. Keep reading for some tips and tricks for using ADB you might not have known about.
Especially useful are the APK install, disabling of system apps, backing up and restoring application data.