How to Access Adb in Os X Through Terminal, "Command Not Found"

Not able to access adb in OS X through Terminal, command not found

The problem is: adb is not in your PATH. This is where the shell looks for executables. You can check your current PATH with echo $PATH.

Bash will first try to look for a binary called adb in your Path, and not in the current directory. Therefore, if you are currently in the platform-tools directory, just call

./adb --help

The dot is your current directory, and this tells Bash to use adb from there.

But actually, you should add platform-tools to your PATH, as well as some other tools that the Android SDK comes with. This is how you do it:

1. Find out where you installed the Android SDK. This might be (where $HOME is your user's home directory) one of the following (or verify via Configure > SDK Manager in the Android Studio startup screen):

   • Linux: $HOME/Android/Sdk
   • macOS: $HOME/Library/Android/sdk

2. Find out which shell profile to edit, depending on which file is used:

   • Linux: typically $HOME/.bashrc
   • macOS: typically $HOME/.bash_profile
   • With Zsh: $HOME/.zshrc

3. Open the shell profile from step two, and at the bottom of the file, add the following lines. Make sure to replace the path with the one where you installed platform-tools if it differs:

   export ANDROID_HOME="$HOME/Android/Sdk"
   export PATH="$ANDROID_HOME/tools:$ANDROID_HOME/tools/bin:$ANDROID_HOME/platform-tools:$PATH"
   

4. Save the profile file, then, re-start the terminal or run source ~/.bashrc (or whatever you just modified).

Note that setting ANDROID_HOME is required for some third party frameworks, so it does not hurt to add it.

Set up adb on Mac OS X

Note: this was originally written on Installing ADB on macOS but that question was closed as a duplicate of this one.

Note for zsh users: replace all references to ~/.bash_profile with ~/.zshrc.

Option 1 - Using Homebrew

This is the easiest way and will provide automatic updates.

1. Install homebrew

   /bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install.sh)"
   

2. Install adb

   brew install android-platform-tools
   

   or try a cask install depending on your settings:

   brew install --cask android-platform-tools
   

3. Start using adb

   adb devices
   

Option 2 - Manually (just the platform tools)

This is the easiest way to get a manual installation of ADB and Fastboot.

1. Delete your old installation (optional)

   rm -rf ~/.android-sdk-macosx/
   

2. Navigate to https://developer.android.com/studio/releases/platform-tools.html and click on the SDK Platform-Tools for Mac link.

3. Go to your Downloads folder

   cd ~/Downloads/
   

4. Unzip the tools you downloaded

   unzip platform-tools-latest*.zip 
   

5. Move them somewhere you won't accidentally delete them

   mkdir ~/.android-sdk-macosx
   mv platform-tools/ ~/.android-sdk-macosx/platform-tools
   

6. Add platform-tools to your path

   echo 'export PATH=$PATH:~/.android-sdk-macosx/platform-tools/' >> ~/.bash_profile
   

7. Refresh your bash profile (or restart your terminal app)

   source ~/.bash_profile
   

8. Start using adb

   adb devices
   

Option 3 - If you already have Android Studio installed

1. Add platform-tools to your path

   echo 'export ANDROID_HOME=/Users/$USER/Library/Android/sdk' >> ~/.bash_profile
   echo 'export PATH="$PATH:$ANDROID_HOME/tools:$ANDROID_HOME/platform-tools"' >> ~/.bash_profile
   

2. Refresh your bash profile (or restart your terminal app)

   source ~/.bash_profile
   

3. Start using adb

   adb devices
   

Option 4 - MacPorts

1. Install the Android SDK:

   sudo port install android
   

2. Run the SDK manager:

   sh /opt/local/share/java/android-sdk-macosx/tools/android
   

3. Uncheck everything but Android SDK Platform-tools (optional)

4. Install the packages, accepting licenses. Close the SDK Manager.

5. Add platform-tools to your path; in MacPorts, they're in /opt/local/share/java/android-sdk-macosx/platform-tools. E.g., for bash:

   echo 'export PATH="$PATH:/opt/local/share/java/android-sdk-macosx/platform-tools"' >> ~/.bash_profile
   

6. Refresh your bash profile (or restart your terminal/shell):

   source ~/.bash_profile

7. Start using adb:

   adb devices

Option 5 - Manually (with SDK Manager)

1. Delete your old installation (optional)

   rm -rf ~/.android-sdk-macosx/
   

2. Download the Mac SDK Tools from the Android developer site under "Get just the command line tools". Make sure you save them to your Downloads folder.

3. Go to your Downloads folder

   cd ~/Downloads/
   

4. Unzip the tools you downloaded

   unzip tools_r*-macosx.zip 
   

5. Move them somewhere you won't accidentally delete them

   mkdir ~/.android-sdk-macosx
   mv tools/ ~/.android-sdk-macosx/tools
   

6. Run the SDK Manager

   sh ~/.android-sdk-macosx/tools/android
   

7. Uncheck everything but Android SDK Platform-tools (optional)

   

8. Click Install Packages, accept licenses, click Install. Close the SDK Manager window.

   

9. Add platform-tools to your path

   echo 'export PATH="$PATH:~/.android-sdk-macosx/platform-tools/"' >> ~/.bash_profile
   

10. Refresh your bash profile (or restart your terminal app)

    source ~/.bash_profile
    

11. Start using adb

    adb devices
    

zsh: command not found: adb in mac OS

export ANDROID_HOME=/Users/aanshu/Library/Android/sdk/platform-tools/adb

...is obviously wrong. It should instead be:

export ANDROID_HOME=/Users/aanshu/Library/Android/sdk

...because it provides a base to which the subsequent lines append.

adb command not found

Make sure adb is in your user's $PATH variable.

or

You can try to locate it with whereis and run it with ./adb

bash: adb: command not found error on Mac

Go to your Library folder on your mac.

~/Library/Android/sdk/build-tools/VERSION/

ADB is part of your Android studio installation. It should be located in above path.

adb command not found on Mac computer

Did you try to restart the terminal window?

You need either do that or run source .bash_profile
for the changes to take effect.

adb: command not found ( from within the platform-tools directory ) on Mac OS X Yosemite

Since "platform-tools" is probably not part of the system path, you should try running: "./adb" instead of "adb" from the platform-tools location. Or use the full path to it.

Using "." would indicate that you are trying to launch adb from the current directory

adb: command not found after restarting OS X

The adb tools need to be added to the paths so terminal searches the directory the tools are in.

Assuming you are using a bash terminal you edit or create .bash_profile-file that defines the paths to search, in the example below using the nano-editor:

nano ~/.bash_profile

Enter the path to the adb tools as follows:

export PATH=$PATH:/path/to/the/adb/tools

Save the file (CTRL-X, choose Yes on Save), close the terminal window and open up a new one to load the .bash_profile. This should solve your problem.

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