Powerful ADB commands for Android Tester

ADB commands - Adventures in QA

If you are working as mobile tester in an Android development team you are probably familiar with adb commands (Android Debug Bridge). The tool offers plenty of useful commands that help you to pull logs from the Android device or emulator. Besides pulling log files from the test device there are plenty of other useful commands that every mobile tester in an Android environment must know. Before using adb make sure the Android SDK is installed, a device is connected to your computer or an Android emulator has been started. Note: In order to use the adb commands on your test devices make sure that on every device the developer options and USB debugging are enabled.

Both options are hidden by default. On Android 4.2 and higher you can enable them by tapping seven times the build number in the Settings > About phone section. Once the developer options are enabled open them and enable USB debugging.

ADB commands

Start/ Stop ADB server

If a device is connected start the adb server to be able to interact with the device.

adb start-server

adb kill-server

List connected devices

adb devices
Will list all connected devices.

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Android Screen Recording using ADB

Thanks to Richard Bradshaw, also known as the @FriendlyTester, who reminded me in a tweet about the Android screen recording feature using an ADB (Android Debug Bridge) command. In one of my last posts, I already wrote about the new QuickTime recording feature for iOS devices running iOS8 in combination with a Mac OS X device running … Read more

Mobile App Update Testing

During the development process of mobile apps manual and automated testing is highly recommended. But there is another test you should do before releasing or submitting your app to a store. Testing the update procedure! Testing the update procedure from the current store version to the new release candidate is really important and it is … Read more