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.
-
Install homebrew
/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install.sh)"
-
Install adb
brew install android-platform-tools
or try a cask install depending on your settings:
brew install --cask android-platform-tools
-
Start using adb
adb devices
Option 2 – Manually (just the platform tools)
This is the easiest way to get a manual installation of ADB and Fastboot.
-
Delete your old installation (optional)
rm -rf ~/.android-sdk-macosx/
-
Navigate to https://developer.android.com/studio/releases/platform-tools.html and click on the
SDK Platform-Tools for Mac
link. -
Go to your Downloads folder
cd ~/Downloads/
-
Unzip the tools you downloaded
unzip platform-tools-latest*.zip
-
Move them somewhere you won’t accidentally delete them
mkdir ~/.android-sdk-macosx mv platform-tools/ ~/.android-sdk-macosx/platform-tools
-
Add
platform-tools
to your pathecho 'export PATH=$PATH:~/.android-sdk-macosx/platform-tools/' >> ~/.bash_profile
-
Refresh your bash profile (or restart your terminal app)
source ~/.bash_profile
-
Start using adb
adb devices
Option 3 – If you already have Android Studio installed
-
Add
platform-tools
to your pathecho 'export ANDROID_HOME=/Users/$USER/Library/Android/sdk' >> ~/.bash_profile echo 'export PATH=${PATH}:$ANDROID_HOME/tools:$ANDROID_HOME/platform-tools' >> ~/.bash_profile
-
Refresh your bash profile (or restart your terminal app)
source ~/.bash_profile
-
Start using adb
adb devices
Option 4 – MacPorts
-
Install the Android SDK:
sudo port install android
-
Run the SDK manager:
sh /opt/local/share/java/android-sdk-macosx/tools/android
-
Uncheck everything but
Android SDK Platform-tools
(optional) -
Install the packages, accepting licenses. Close the SDK Manager.
-
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=$PATH:/opt/local/share/java/android-sdk-macosx/platform-tools' >> ~/.bash_profile
-
Refresh your bash profile (or restart your terminal/shell):
source ~/.bash_profile
-
Start using adb:
adb devices
Option 5 – Manually (with SDK Manager)
-
Delete your old installation (optional)
rm -rf ~/.android-sdk-macosx/
-
Download the Mac SDK Tools from the Android developer site under “Get just the command line tools”. Make sure you save them to your Downloads folder.
-
Go to your Downloads folder
cd ~/Downloads/
-
Unzip the tools you downloaded
unzip tools_r*-macosx.zip
-
Move them somewhere you won’t accidentally delete them
mkdir ~/.android-sdk-macosx mv tools/ ~/.android-sdk-macosx/tools
-
Run the SDK Manager
sh ~/.android-sdk-macosx/tools/android
-
Uncheck everything but
Android SDK Platform-tools
(optional)
- Click
Install Packages
, accept licenses, clickInstall
. Close the SDK Manager window.
-
Add
platform-tools
to your pathecho 'export PATH=$PATH:~/.android-sdk-macosx/platform-tools/' >> ~/.bash_profile
-
Refresh your bash profile (or restart your terminal app)
source ~/.bash_profile
-
Start using adb
adb devices