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install-android-application-from-apk.md

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Installing an application from APK

Introduction

This guide will show you how to install an application from an APK file on an Android emulator or a real device.

Prerequisites

  • Setup Android Emulator using mobile-helper-tool: npx @nightwatch/mobile-helper android.
  • APK file of the application you want to install

Android Device Bridge (adb)

The whole process is done using adb command line tool. So, you would need to make sure that adb is available from your terminal. You can check this by running adb --version.

If adb is not available directly, you can either add its location to your PATH environment variable, or cd to the location where the adb binary is present and use it directly from there.

For both the cases, you'd need the location where you've setup your Android SDK, which you can get that by running npx @nightwatch/mobile-helper android again:

ANDROID_HOME

The adb binary will be present in the platform-tools sub-directory of your Android SDK setup location from above. Eg: /path/to/Android/sdk/platform-tools/.

Adding adb location to PATH

Add the path of platform-tools directory to your PATH environment variable.

Linux/Mac:

Add the below command at the end of your ~/.bashrc or ~./bash_profile file and restart the terminal.

export PATH=$PATH:/path/to/Android/sdk/platform-tools/

Windows:

Add the below path to your PATH environment variable in the Control Panel and restart the terminal.

\path\to\Android\sdk\platform-tools\

Using adb directly

To use adb directly (without adding it to PATH), simply go to the directly where the binary is present and use it as follows:

cd /path/to/Android/sdk/platform-tools/

# for windows
adb.exe --version

# for mac/linux
./adb --version

Assumptions

  • APK path is /path/to/your/app.apk
  • Application package name is your.app.package

Steps

Check if device is connected

adb devices

Install the application

adb install /path/to/your/app.apk

Verify the installation

adb shell pm list packages -f your.app.package

Note: If the don't know the exact name of your package, you can use grep to find it from the list of installed packages. grep comes pre-installed on Linux and Mac terminals.

adb shell pm list packages -f | grep package_name

Overwrite the existing application

If you want to overwrite the existing application with the new APK, you can use the -r option with the install command.

adb install -r /path/to/your/app.apk

Remove the application

adb uninstall your.app.package

Install the application on a specific device

If you have multiple devices/emulators connected to your adb, you will get an error when you try to install the application. You need to specify the device on which you want to install the application.

This is not just for installation, you need to specify the device for any adb command you run.

To install the application on a specific device, you need to specify the device using the -s option before the install command.

adb -s <device_id> install /path/to/your/app.apk

You can get the device id by running the below command.

adb devices
# Output of adb devices
List of devices attached
emulator-5554	device
emulator-5556	device

Here, emulator-5554 and emulator-5556 are the device ids.