'aapt dump badging' on ADB shell

Question

I'm trying to get a list of apps and their launchable activities from a command line. I know that

aapt dump badging

will give me this information. I'm just wondering if I can get this information from within the context of an ADB shell. I realize I could pull the files to the local machine, but some of the APKs are rather large, so I'd prefer to just get that information directly from the device...

Solution

adb shell dumpsys will give you ton of information, including launchable activities. For example, the output will list activities that react to the action android.intent.action.MAIN:

  android.intent.action.MAIN:
    423fff90 com.android.bluetooth/.bpp.BluetoothBppActivity filter 42400218
    424003d0 com.android.bluetooth/.bpp.BluetoothBppSetting filter 42400608
    42400758 com.android.bluetooth/.bpp.BluetoothBppPrintPrefActivity filter 424009b8
    42400b08 com.android.bluetooth/.bpp.BluetoothBppStatusActivity filter 42400d60
    42400f10 com.android.bluetooth/.bpp.BluetoothBppAuthActivity filter 42401158
    42408bb8 com.google.android.apps.books/.app.BooksActivity filter 42408e88
    42414f50 com.android.providers.calendar/.CalendarContentProviderTests filter 42415270
    42415a38 com.android.providers.calendar/.CalendarDebug filter 42415c28
    42415df0 com.android.providers.calendar/.CalendarDebugActivity filter 42416048
    ...

Note that the output is huge; you might want to limit the output. You can see what sub-categories dumpsys knows about at the top of its output:

Currently running services:
  SurfaceFlinger
  accessibility
  account
  activity
  alarm
  ...
  package
  ...

In your case you're probably interested in only the output of adb shell dumpsys package.

Comments

[Ben]

perfect. now I just have to figure out the grep command to grab them from that monstrosity. :)