Summary
- ADB allows you to wirelessly screen mirror your phone to your computer with scrcpy.
- You can use better-adb-sync for file syncing with progress tracking between an Android smartphone and a computer.
- It allows you to easily take a screenshot on your phone and transfer it wirelessly to a computer.
So, you’ve heard people talking about ADB and that you should enable it on your Android phone. Why though? Here are three reasons to enable ADB on your smartphone right now.
ADB lets you wirelessly mirror your phone screen to a computer
In the latest macOS and iOS updates, you can mirror your iPhone’s screen to your Mac computer. This can be quite useful in some scenarios. But what about Android? Sadly, there’s no native way to mirror your Android device’s screen to a Windows PC (or any computer, for that matter).
However, that’s where scrcpy comes in. The odd name stands for “screen copy” with the letters used in the application’s name in bold. Regardless of the odd naming convention, I was able to use scrcpy with ADB over my home network on my OnePlus 13R, and it was fantastic.
There was very little lag when using scrcpy, and the mirrored display works just as it would if you were physically touching it. I was able to use gestures just like I did on the OnePlus 13R, and everything functioned exactly how I expected.
Once installed on macOS, Windows, or Linux, you’re able to run the command scrcpy in the terminal and remotely connect to your phone and show (and interact) with its screen on your computer.
I had two devices connected to my PC, one over USB and one over Wi-Fi. So, I ran the command scrcpy -e to force the connection over Wi-Fi, and it was flawless. Running scrcpy -d would force the connection over USB (though I see no reason to do this unless you don’t have a solid Wi-Fi network).
Either way, if you want to keep your phone screen pulled up on your PC, then use scrcpy. Just know that your phone will have to remain unlocked with the screen on for the program to work, and you’ll need to enter any passcodes on your phone’s screen (not your PC’s).
You can sync files between your PC and phone
While ADB has the adb push and adb pull commands natively, better-adb-sync is a program that I vastly prefer to use instead of the built-in offerings. It’s more of a rsync-type program that can be used to synchronize files between your computer and phone.
How to Install and Use ADB, the Android Debug Bridge Utility
Looking to control your Android device from your computer?
While the core functionality is very similar to adb push and adb pull, one feature makes it stand out from the built-in commands: the –show-progress flag. This will show you the transfer progress of the files between your phone and computer. The command for better-adb-sync, once installed, is just adbsync. So, you would run a command like adbsync –show-progress pull /sdcard/video.mp4 . to move a video file from your phone’s storage to your computer while showing the progress.
Knowing the status of a transfer is something I find crucial personally. I hate just sending a command and waiting with a blank response until it either fails or succeeds. Is it still working? Is the transfer still going? Did it stall? Is it going slow? Is that why it’s taking so long? These are all questions I often have when doing file transfers in the terminal.
Being able to use the –show-progress flag with better-adb-sync is vital for me, and I think you’ll find it great to use, too.
Take a screenshot and move it to your PC wirelessly
If you’ve ever wanted to easily screenshot your phone and get the image to your computer in one fell swoop, then ADB is your ticket.
Simply issue the command adb shell screencap /sdcard/screen.png, and your phone will screenshot the display. Then, use a command like adbsync pull /sdcard/screen.png . and it’ll pull the file to your computer. All of this can be done over Wi-Fi without cables if you’re wirelessly connected to the phone, too.
This can be useful when you’re trying to send someone something from the computer but need the information from your phone. Or, it could simply be used if you have a lot of phones around and can’t remember which button shortcut it is to take a screenshot.
There are a number of reasons to use this command, and I can see every one of them being valid. Plus, it pairs great with better-adb-sync to easily pull the file over to your computer after taking the screenshot, too.
Don’t fear the ADB!
Want to learn more ADB commands to use on your Android smartphone? Here are nine of the best ADB commands that every Android user should know.
Stephan is the sports journalist for the Maple Grove Report.
