adb command not found in linux environment

Question

While implementing the BluetoothChat application .apk inside G1 device, it always pops up a message:

$adb install -r /home/parveen/workspace/BluetoothChat/bin/BluetoothChat.apk 
-bash: adb: command not found

Why is this error popping up every time, and how can the problem be fixed?

score 114 · Answer 1 · edited Aug 14 '20 at 22:22

114

Updating the path as listed above in ~/.bashrc makes other bash commands stop working altogether.

the easiest way I found is to use what eaykin did but link it your /bin.

sudo ln -s /android/platform-tools/adb /bin/adb

No restart is required just type following command :

adb devices

To make sure it's working.

edited Aug 14 '20 at 22:22

Mostafa Norzade

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answered Mar 27 '12 at 16:51

crazymacleod

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ln: creating symbolic link `/bin/adb': Permission denied This error is arising... Any idea ???/ – KK_07k11A0585 Feb 15 '13 at 09:01
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For those that don't know, you have to be running this command as sudo. `sudo ln -s /android/platform-tools/adb /bin/adb` – Mario Segura Sep 05 '14 at 04:06
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Worked perfectly for me. Thank you. – thomh Oct 02 '16 at 17:06
I am glad that my solution in 2011 helped, even though it sits at the bottom of this page with a mark of "0" usefulness :) – eaykin Jan 12 '17 at 11:09
great ans thanks... i was flashing a rom on my phone :P – Pratik Jamariya Jan 25 '18 at 17:53
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Here an updated command: `sudo ln -s ~/Android/Sdk/platform-tools/adb /bin/adb` – allofmex Mar 16 '18 at 07:49
Excellent solution. Thanks – Carlos Jiménez Aug 27 '21 at 08:41
haha, on fedora here. `ln` does not exist, `/android` does not exist, and `/bin/adb` does not exist. – Jonathon Nov 24 '22 at 17:14
@crazymacleod can you update the answer with the link mentioned above? Would be helpful. – Vít Kapitola Mar 10 '23 at 08:30

score 103 · Answer 2 · edited Sep 18 '18 at 06:25

103

I found the solution to my problem. In my ~/.bashrc:

export PATH=${PATH}:/path/to/android-sdk/tools

However adb is not located in the android-sdk/tools/, rather in android-sdk/platform-tools/. So I added the following

export PATH=${PATH}:/path/to/android-sdk/tools:/path/to/android-sdk/platform-tools

And that solved the problem for me.

edited Sep 18 '18 at 06:25

Alex P.

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answered Dec 13 '10 at 21:16

mabac

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Works fine for me on Elementary OS 5.1. I had to ´source ~/.bashrc´ after – outrowender Jan 28 '21 at 11:35

score 22 · Answer 3 · answered Aug 12 '16 at 09:18

22

sudo apt install adb

in your pc adb not installed.

Try this, working for me

answered Aug 12 '16 at 09:18

Gautam

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Please note this is in cases where adb exists due to Android Studio but cannot be found. Reinstalling via the apt may cause further issues. – Chandrahas Aroori Jan 26 '21 at 06:58

score 17 · Answer 4 · answered May 24 '13 at 22:53

NOTE: while using adb on Linux you'll need to type ./adb to execute adb commands unless you create a path in ~/.bashrc. In a terminal write:

sudo gedit ~/.bashrc

Add the following line at the end of the file. Once you're done, save and exit.

Android tools

export PATH=~/Development/adt-bundle-linux/sdk/platform-tools:~/Development/adt-bundle-linux/sdk/tools:$PATH

Then in a Terminal run this command to reload your .bashrc: Code:

source ~/.bashrc

Now you can just run adb without put ./ before every command.

score 17 · Answer 5 · answered Sep 24 '10 at 07:24

I had the same issue on my fresh Ubuntu 64 bit installation, and the path was set up correctly.

Thus, which adb would resolve correctly, but trying to run it would fail with adb: command not found.

The very helpful guys at #android-dev pointed me to the solution, namely that the 32 bit libraries hadn't been installed. On my previous computers, this had probably been pulled in as a dependency for another package.

On Ubuntu (probably other Debians as well), running [sudo] apt-get install ia32-libs

see also http://serverfault.com/questions/415073/ia32-libs-depends-ia32-libs-i386-but-it-is-not-installable — Julian, Jun 01 '13 at 02:05

Daniel Delgado · Answer 6 · 2019-08-19T00:59:45.917

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Ubuntu 18.04

This worked for me:

Find out and copy platform-tools path, in my case is '/home/daniel/Android/Sdk/platform-tools'
Open bashrc nano ~/.bashrc
Save platform-tools path export PATH="${PATH}:/home/daniel/Android/Sdk/platform-tools"
Reset bash_profile source .bash_profile
adb devices is now working

edited Aug 19 '19 at 00:59

answered Aug 18 '19 at 16:55

Daniel Delgado

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Works also on Ubuntu 20.04, instead of the 4. step, you can just restart terminal (I can't find `.bash_profile` file.). – Vít Kapitola Mar 25 '21 at 07:42

score 8 · Answer 7 · edited Jun 01 '18 at 22:34

8

You need to add $ANDROID_SDK/platform-tools to your PATH, where $ANDROID_SDK is wherever you installed the Android SDK.

edited Jun 01 '18 at 22:34

Alex P.

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answered Mar 25 '10 at 17:19

CommonsWare

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if we keep on adding program directories to $PATH, won't it take longer for each command to run, because now more locations have to be accessed to find where the command is. – Rohan Bhatia Jan 03 '18 at 12:34
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@RohanBhatia: If finding programs on the `PATH` is a significant amount of overhead on your development machine, you may need a new development machine. For example, I just ran the Linux command `time which adb`, where `which` searches the `PATH` for `adb` and `time` prints the amount of time the rest of the command took. That took 2 milliseconds. That's with ~20 directories in my `PATH`, some of which have hundreds of commands. – CommonsWare Jan 03 '18 at 12:45
I was just listing a possibility. I didn't know it takes only this much time to search for the command. – Rohan Bhatia Jan 03 '18 at 12:54
Should I create a symbolic link of the command in `usr/bin` or `~/bin` directory or add the path of this command to the `PATH env variable`? – Rohan Bhatia Jan 03 '18 at 12:57
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@RohanBhatia: I strongly recommend that you add it to the `PATH` environment variable. – CommonsWare Jan 03 '18 at 12:57
And to do that I need to edit `etc/environment`, right? – Rohan Bhatia Jan 03 '18 at 12:59
I used `export PATH=$PATH:NEW/PATH`, but this only worked for current session. – Rohan Bhatia Jan 03 '18 at 13:02
Another way is to execute `export command` each time I login by adding it to `~/.profile`. Which way should I follow? – Rohan Bhatia Jan 03 '18 at 13:09
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@RohanBhatia: That will depend on the conventions used by your Linux distro. – CommonsWare Jan 03 '18 at 13:17

score 8 · Answer 8 · answered Aug 21 '17 at 11:37

8

Follow these steps:

Set android vars

Initially go to your home and press `Ctrl + H` it will show you hidden files now look for .bashrc file, open it with any text editor

then place the lines below at the end of file:

export ANDROID_HOME=/myPathSdk/android-sdk-linux
export PATH=$PATH:$ANDROID_HOME/tools:$ANDROID_HOME/platform-tools


Now Reboot the system

It Works!

answered Aug 21 '17 at 11:37

Nithin Raja

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No need to reboot (at least on my Kubuntu 16.04), just to re-open terminal – demaksee Feb 27 '18 at 15:43

Lakshya Tyagi · Answer 9 · 2020-11-18T08:25:57.927

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For Ubuntu 20.04

After trying many solution

sudo apt install adb

worked for me.

After installing try command adb devices for starting daemon successfully then again use same command adb devices to get the list of devices

edited Nov 18 '20 at 08:25

answered Nov 15 '20 at 11:50

Lakshya Tyagi

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score 5 · Answer 10 · answered Sep 19 '12 at 08:08

5

I have same problem as you. finally as i know, in linux & mac OS, we use ./adb instead of adb

answered Sep 19 '12 at 08:08

res

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In linux, you can also use adb. You just need add a path to adb command in your environment. You just need to edit bashrc file and add a path to adb command there. It should work fine after that. – VendettaDroid Sep 22 '12 at 10:41

score 5 · Answer 11 · answered Dec 17 '17 at 15:39

5

In my case "adb" is located in "~/Android/Sdk/platform-tools/"

the following command solved the problem:

export PATH=$PATH:~/Android/Sdk/platform-tools/

answered Dec 17 '17 at 15:39

Ahmed Abdeldaim

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score 3 · Answer 12 · edited Jun 01 '18 at 22:34

I have just resolved the problem myself on mint(ubuntu). It seems that adb is a 32 bit executable at least according to readelf -h. for the program to work in 64-bit ubuntu or whatever installation, we must have 32-bit libraries inplace.

solved the problem with

sudo dpkg --add-architecture i386
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install libc6:i386 libncurses5:i386 libstdc++6:i386

score 2 · Answer 13 · edited Oct 03 '12 at 11:22

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The way I fix this problem is:

create a link from adb file(drag 'adb' with holding alt then drop to any directory and select 'link here')
use #sudo cp adb /bin (copy link from 1 to /bin)

I've done this several times and it works 100%(tested on Ubuntu 12.04 32/64bit).

edited Oct 03 '12 at 11:22

bool.dev

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answered Aug 21 '12 at 09:05

user1145691

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score 2 · Answer 14 · edited Nov 09 '12 at 09:49

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adb is in android-sdks/tools directory. You simply type this command: adb logcat.

If you want to your stack traces in a text file use this command: adb logcat > trace.txt. Now your traces are copied into that file.

If it is not working then go to android-sdks/platform-tools then put this command: ./adb logcat > trace.txt. Hope it will helps to you.

edited Nov 09 '12 at 09:49

Sean O'Toole

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answered Nov 09 '12 at 09:26

Dinesh

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score 2 · Answer 15 · answered Dec 19 '17 at 15:45

2

In Ubuntu i could run the following command:

  sudo apt install android-tools-adb

answered Dec 19 '17 at 15:45

Ahmad Shabib

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Please augment your code-only answer with some explanation, in order to reduce the impression that StackOverflow is a free code writing service. – Yunnosch Dec 19 '17 at 19:08

score 1 · Answer 16 · answered Apr 10 '15 at 11:45

Make sure you installed sudo apt-get install android-tools-adb Now check sudo adb It will show help of adb

Now please kill/start adb use following commands -

sudo adb kill-server sudo adb start-server

Lastly, sudo adb devices

Hopefully this will work !!!

score 1 · Answer 17 · answered Feb 27 '12 at 18:36

I had this problem when I was trying to connect my phone and trying to use adb. I did the following

export PATH=$PATH{}:/path/to/android-sdk/tools:/path/to/android/platform-tools
apt-get install ia32-libs
Connected my phone in USB debug mode and In the terminal type lsusb to get a list of all usb devices. Noted the 9 character (xxxx:xxxx) ID to the left of my phone.
sudo gedit /etc/udev/rules.d/99-android.rules
Add [ SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTRS{idVendor}=="####:####", SYMLINK+="android_adb", MODE="0666" GROUP="plugdev" TEST=="/var/run/ConsoleKit/database", \ RUN+="udev-acl --action=$env{action} --device=$env{DEVNAME}" ] (whatever is in [...] )to the file and replace "####:####" with the number from step 3cop
sudo service udev restart
Restarted my System
open terminal browse to adb directory and run ./adb devices

And it shows my phone hence adb starts working without error.

I hope it helps others

score 0 · Answer 18 · answered Nov 07 '14 at 12:36

0

I was getting this error also and Ubuntu suggested me to install it so I installed* it and this worked in my case.
* - sudo apt-get install android-tools-adb

Note:x64 architecture

answered Nov 07 '14 at 12:36

Mike Spike

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score 0 · Answer 19 · answered Dec 06 '14 at 02:26

creating a symbolic link was the solution for me either. However before working I had to grant access and execute rights to the created symbolic links.

I am not sure if it was @eaykin's answer or @crazymacleod's that worked for me, as I did both before finding the above mentioned solution.

Thanks!

eaykin · Answer 20 · 2011-03-30T10:22:53.000

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updating the $PATH did not work for me, therefore I added a symbolic link to adb to make it work, as follows:

ln -s <android-sdk-folder>/platform-tools/adb <android-sdk-folder>/tools/adb

edited Mar 30 '11 at 10:22

answered Mar 12 '11 at 22:20

eaykin

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score 0 · Answer 21 · answered Jun 05 '20 at 16:55

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For Fedora

sudo dnf install adb

answered Jun 05 '20 at 16:55

siva balan

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score 0 · Answer 22 · answered Jan 16 '22 at 23:02

Please try to update your bash profile.

For linux users: You need to add your Android SDK location.

For MAC users , in addition to the above step one extra change is required: You also need to add your Android Platform Tools location.

For more detail you can watch this video for reference: https://youtu.be/0-S5a0eXPoc?t=1211

score 0 · Answer 23 · answered May 12 '23 at 09:23

0

WHAT WORKED FOR ME:

 1. nano ~/.zshrc
        or
  nano ~/.bashrc

 
2. alias adb='~/Android/Sdk/platform-tools/adb'

Home this helps you out.

answered May 12 '23 at 09:23

Mr Coolman

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score 0 · Answer 24 · answered Jul 12 '23 at 07:21

Steps to install ADB in arch linux using pacman

It is crucial to make sure your system is up to date before installing ADB. Run the following command in your terminal as the root user to do this.
sudo pacman -Syyu
After updating your system again,
sudo pacman -S android-tools
When asked hit enter to yes
And you are done.

score 0 · Answer 25 · answered Aug 11 '23 at 17:10

None of the solutions here worked for me. It was driving me nuts because adb would work fine in a terminal window, but not in Android Studio's terminal.

After enough messing around, I finally found that for some reason under Settings -> Tools -> Terminal, the Shell path was not set to /bin/bash. (I don't remember what it was originally set to now and I can't see it anymore, it was something to do with sh)

Changing this to /bin/bash solved the problem for me.

adb command not found in linux environment

25 Answers25

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