ADB Explorer

A simple, good-looking file explorer for Android devices over ADB, packaged as a self-contained macOS app. adb (Google platform-tools) is bundled inside the app — nothing needs to be installed on the Mac that runs it.

Features

• Device picker with live plug/unplug detection, model + Android version + storage info
• Browse any folder (starts at /sdcard), breadcrumbs, back/up, ⌘F filter
• List/grid view toggle — the grid shows lazy-loaded image thumbnails
• Selecting an image in list view opens a side preview panel
• Download files/folders (adb pull) with progress bar
• Upload via button or drag & drop — drop anywhere for the current folder, or onto a specific folder (it highlights) to upload into it
• Copy/paste: ⌘C/⌘V or context menu. In-app copy duplicates on the device (never overwrites — Finder-style "copy" names); pasting files copied in Finder pushes them to the device; "Copy to Mac" puts the files on the macOS clipboard for pasting in Finder
• Double-click a file to pull it to a temp folder and open it with the default Mac app (temp files are cleaned up when the app quits)
• New folder, rename, delete (with confirmation), multi-select (⌘/⇧ click, ⌘A)
• Right-click context menu incl. "Copy path"
• Light + dark mode, follows the system theme

Installing

Download ADB-Explorer-<version>.zip from the Releases page (works on Apple Silicon and Intel Macs). Unzip, drag ADB Explorer.app to /Applications (or anywhere), then first launch only: right-click the app → Open → Open. That step is needed because the app is ad-hoc signed, not notarized with an Apple Developer certificate.

If macOS still refuses, run: xattr -cr "/path/to/ADB Explorer.app" and open again.

Using it

1. Enable USB debugging on the phone (Settings → Developer options).
2. Plug it in, accept the "Allow USB debugging?" prompt on the phone.
3. Launch ADB Explorer. The device appears in the top-right picker.

Development

npm install        # once
./scripts/fetch-platform-tools.sh   # once, downloads Google's adb/fastboot binaries
npm start          # run from source (uses ./platform-tools/adb)
npm run dist       # build dist/ADB Explorer.app + shareable zip (universal)

platform-tools/ is gitignored (Google's redistributable binaries, ~37 MB) — run the fetch script once after cloning to populate it.

Layout:

• main.js — Electron main process: adb wrapper, ls parsing, transfers, IPC
• preload.js — context bridge between main and renderer
• renderer/ — UI (vanilla HTML/CSS/JS, no build step)
• platform-tools/ — Google adb binaries, bundled into the app at package time
• build.sh — icon generation + electron-packager + ad-hoc codesign + zip

Notes:

• The app talks to the device with adb shell ls -la and parses toybox output; paths are single-quote escaped, so names with spaces/quotes work.
• Set ADB_EXPLORER_SHOT=/path/out.png to capture a screenshot of the window 4 s after launch (used for automated UI checks). Add ADB_EXPLORER_TEST_JS='<js>' to run JS in the renderer first (screenshot then fires 4 s after the JS).
• To build Apple-Silicon-only (halves the size), change --arch=universal to --arch=arm64 in build.sh.

Author

Made by Matteo Miceli.