How to run a specific Android app using Terminal? [duplicate]

Question

I installed Eclipse and Android SDK already. Everything is running fine.

I want to install an .apk file so I follow the instruction already. But the problem is, when I start the emulator, it doesn't run my app automatically.

Is there a command in the terminal that allow me to run the specific app that I ask for it?

Answer 1

Use the cmd activity start-activity (or the alternative am start) command, which is a command-line interface to the ActivityManager. Use am to start activities as shown in this help:

$ adb shell am usage: am [start|instrument]        am start [-a <ACTION>] [-d <DATA_URI>] [-t <MIME_TYPE>]                 [-c <CATEGORY> [-c <CATEGORY>] ...]                 [-e <EXTRA_KEY> <EXTRA_VALUE> [-e <EXTRA_KEY> <EXTRA_VALUE> ...]                 [-n <COMPONENT>] [-D] [<URI>]        ... 

For example, to start the Contacts application, and supposing you know only the package name but not the Activity, you can use

$ pkg=com.google.android.contacts $ comp=$(adb shell cmd package resolve-activity --brief -c android.intent.category.LAUNCHER $pkg | tail -1) $ adb shell cmd activity start-activity $comp 

or the alternative

$ adb shell am start -n $comp 

See also http://www.kandroid.org/online-pdk/guide/instrumentation_testing.html (may be a copy of obsolete url : http://source.android.com/porting/instrumentation_testing.html ) for other details.

To terminate the application you can use

$ adb shell am kill com.google.android.contacts 

or the more drastic

$ adb shell am force-stop com.google.android.contacts