These days, Android has finally given us a way to get ADB – the tool we most likely will need – in a smaller download so we can just use that, instead of downloading the whole Android Studio. That presented a problem where if you had a slow internet connection, you would have to wait a while. In the past, there was no getting around this, so you had to download the whole caboodle. These days, that would mean a 600+ MB download of Android Studio which includes SDK Tools, which in turn includes ADB. Installing ADB the proper, old fashioned way usually requires downloading the whole Android SDK. With ADB, users can control their connected Android device over USB from a computer, copy files back and forth, install and uninstall apps, flash system elements, run shell commands, and more.ĪDB is used for a number of geeky tricks for your Android which include flashing a stock ROM or update, flashing a custom recovery, gaining root access to your device, and other such things. The Android Debug Bridge is a command-line utility included with Google’s Android SDK. We need to tell you what ADB is and what it is used for.

Enable adb in android studio