The simplest way to install an application on an Android phone is to download an application from the Play Store. Apart from that, Android gives us the freedom to install 3rd party APK apps from different sources. This is one of the best features of Android. We use the package installer to install APK files, but it’s not the only way to install APK files. It is possible to install APK files without using the package installer. You can install apps with ADB. This feature may seem unnecessary, but sometimes it can be a life saver. Now let’s look at what this feature is and how to use it:
How to install apps with ADB?
A 2nd way to install APK files is to use USB debugging. It is possible to install the APK file with the commands given with ADB. This is just one of the many features of ADB.
A PC and charging cable are required to install apps with ADB. In order to use ADB on an Android phone, we need to activate the USB debugging option. To activate USB debugging, we press the build number repeatedly in the settings and activate the developer options. Then we activate the USB debugging option from the developer options. That’s all we do on the phone, now we can move on to the computer.
We need Minimal ADB and Fastboot tool to use ADB commands on the computer. You can download and install the tool from this link. After the installation is finished, we can now start install apps with ADB. The command we will use to install applications via ADB is the “adb install” command. After typing the command, we need to write the file path of the APK that we will install. Exactly like this:
After typing and confirming the command, the application installation process starts with ADB. When we see the text Success, it means that the installation is complete.
The method of install apps with ADB is a really useful feature and makes it easier for users. It will be a life saver to use this feature when we delete an important system application. For example the case of deleting the package installer. Or you can just use it to try. Regardless, this feature offers an option other than the package installer to install APK files, and that’s the most important part. We can install apps with ADB as well as delete applications. With this topic, you can learn how to delete the applications with ADB.
