Installing an APK File to an Emulated or Physical Device Using the Android Debug Bridge
To upload an APK file to an Android device, use the ADB command-line tool. The ADB tool is located in the platform‑tools directory of your Android SDK install. See the Android developer website for more information about the ADB tool.
Tip: | To make accessing the Android tools from the command line easier, add the platform-tools and tools folder of your SDK install to your default path. |
Note: | You can use the following procedure for both virtual Android devices and physical Android devices. |
To install an APK file using the ADB tool
1. Ensure that your Android device is fully booted.
2. If you are using a physical device, connect the device to your computer and ensure that you have all required drivers installed.
Note: | For physical Android devices, you might need to enable debugging. To do so, launch the Settings application, and select Applications > Development > USB Debugging. |
3. Open a command prompt and execute one of the following, where apkFilePath is the path to the APK file and filename is the name of your APK file.
a. For Windows:
cd apkFilePath
C:\android-sdk-windows\platform-tools\adb install filename.apk
b. For Macintosh:
cd apkFilePath
/android-sdk-macosx/platform-tools/adb install filename.apk
The ADB tool interacts with the device and installs your build.
4. Launch your application from the device and test it.
Note: | From the command line, use adb logcat to monitor output from your device. This can be useful when debugging your application. |
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