Download Android SDK Platform-Tools | Download ADB, Fastboot

Android SDK Platform-tools is an official tool released by Google which is available for download now. If you are into Android mods and Custom ROMs, you would have had to use Fastboot and ADB tools at some point while you used Android devices. These Android SDK Platform-tools prove of much use whether it is to download an OTA update, flash Custom firmware, or just to unlock our Android device’s bootloader. Usually, in order to use Fastboot and ADB tools from the Android SDK Platform-tools, it is necessary to download the entire Android SDK package. Of course, space is a lot if you only need to utilize the Fastboot and ADB tools.

If you want to download ADB and Fastboot tools, you can also download them from third party sources. We have mentioned Minimal ADB and Fastboot, one of such third party utilities, later in this article. But it is preferred that you download these integral tools from official sources. The latest ADB and Fastboot tool within the Android SDK package can be downloaded for Windows, Mac, and Linux systems. You will find these tools is a zip file that you are able to download and extract to any location on your computer. Also, it is just near 10 MB in size. You will not require the other tools in the package, just the Fastboot and ADB tools.

ADB and Fastboot from third party sources are not entirely reliable and you need to be cautious of malware. The Android SDK Platform-tools is directly from Google, so they are officially sourced. This means that you will have the latest Android SDK platform-tools with you and you will not even have to face compatibility issues.

By the time, the older versions of the ADB and Fastboot tool get outdated and are no longer compatible with the phones with new Android versions. If you attempt to unlock a new pixel phone bootloader with an outdated version of the Fastboot tool, your attempt is likely to end in failure and your phone may also get bricked. Having an updated ADB tool is just as important. As newer versions of Android are released and the older versions of the ADB and Fastboot tools are no longer compatible, Google makes sure to provide timely updates and provides Android SDK platform-tools that are compatible with the newer version of Android.

The Android SDK Platform is very useful for Android developers. If you are an Android developer, it is advised that you should get the latest Android SDK Platform-tools from Android Studio’s SDK manager. This is to make sure that the tools are saved to the right place with your other downloaded Android SDK tools and so that they are easily updated.

Android SDK Platform Tools

We have listed down all the tools that are included in the Android SDK package. As a new Android version is released, these tools are also updated so that the user’s phone is not bricked as well as to support newer features and APIs. Occasionally, they also receive minor updates to add new features and to remove bugs. It is important to note that each update that these tools get is backward compatible with the older Android versions. So it is advisable to have the latest version with you. Here is the list of features:

• ADB: Android Debug Bridge is a very flexible tool that gives you control over an Android hardware device such as a mobile phone, tablet, a smartwatch, or an emulator. It also lets you manage, install, or backup an APK file on your Android device.
• etc1tool: etc1tool is a command-line utility tool that enables you to encode PNG images to the ETC1 compression standard and decode ETC1 compressed images back to PNG format.
• Fastboot: The Fastboot tool allows you to flash an Android device with a platform and other system images. Whilst your device is in Fastboot mode, you can even install root images and flash custom ROMs or flash firmware.
• Logcat: The logcat logging utility is a command-line tool included with the Android SDK that is used to display OS and application log messages. The logcat tool helps you to locate errors that you make while coding or developing an app.

Download ADB and Fastboot for Windows, Mac, Linux

Below, you can find the latest versions of the Android SDK Platform-tools from which you can get the ADB and Fastboot tools for various platforms i.e. Windows PC, Mac OS / OSX, and Linux systems. Google provides updates by time for the tools and you will accordingly receive them.

You can download the latest Android SDK Platform-tools 30.0.3 from here!

How to Install Android SDK Platform Tools:

After downloading the Android SDK tools, there is no need to install it anywhere. As the Platform-tools is simply a zip file, you can just extract the package to any location on your computer. You just need to be cautious about downloading the package for the correct platform. Once you have extracted the files, you just need to double click on the ADB and Fastboot tools in order to use them.

Minimal ADB and Fastboot

As mentioned earlier in the article, the Minimal ADB and Fastboot Tool is a third party utility tool for developers who only want to download the ADB and Fastboot tools. Since there are no extra tools along with them, the size is relatively much smaller, around 1 MB only. You can refer to our detailed guide for the download and further details regarding the Minimal ADB and Fastboot tool.

Universal Fastboot and ADB tool

The universal Fastboot and ADB tool is another third party utility tool for developers who only want to download the ADB and Fastboot tools. Easy to use, it has been created to support all devices compatible with Fastboot and ADB. Like the minimal ADB and Fastboot tool, this tool also has no other attachments other than the Fastboot and ADB tools. So this, also requires around much less space, around 10 MB.

Android SDK Platform Tools – Changelog

Below mentioned is the official changelog for all the previous versions of the Android SDK Platform released by Google. By this changelog, you can figure out for yourself how frequently Google provides updates for the tools and makes sure to provide fixes for all the bugs.

30.0.3 (June 2020)

ADB :

• Fix installation of APKs signed with v4 signature scheme on pre-Android 11 devices.
• Fix crash when authenticating without ADB_VENDOR_KEYS.
• Fix crash when using adb-  H.

30.0.0 (April 2020)

ADB :

• Add initial support for wireless pairing.
• Add support for incremental APK installation.
• Implement client-side support for compression of adb { push, pull, sync} when used with an Android 11 device.
• Improve performance of adb push on high-latency connections.
• Improve push/pull performance on Windows.

If you want to get this older version of Android SDK Platform for Windows, Mac or Linux, get them from the links provided below:

• Download platform-tools_r30.0.0-windows.zip
• Download platform-tools_r30.0.0-darwin.zip
• Download platform-tools_r30.0.0-linux.zip

29.0.6 (February 2020)

ADB :

• 64-bit size/time support for adb 1s when used with an Android 11 device.
• Support listening on : : 1 on POSIX.
• Client support for WinUSB devices that publish a WinUSB descriptor (required for Android 11) should no longer require a USB driver to be installed.
• Fix hang when using adb install on something that isn’t actually a file.

If you want to get this older version of Android SDK Platform for Windows, Mac or Linux, get them from the links provided below:

• Download platform-tools_r29.0.6-windows.zip
• Download platform-tools_r29.0.6-darwin.zip
• Download platform-tools_r29.0.6-linux.zip

29.0.5 (October 2019)

ADB :

• Slight performance improvement on Linux when using many simultaneous connections.
• Add — fastdeploy option to adb installs, for incremental updates to APKs while developing.

29.0.0 (June 2019)

ADB : 

• adb reconnect performs a USB reset on Linux.
• On Linux, when connecting to a newer adb server, instead of killing the server and starting an older one, adb attempts to launch the newer version transparently.
• adb root waits for the device to reconnect after disconnecting. Previously, adb root ; adb wait for device could mistakenly return immediately if adb wait-for-device started before adb noticed that the device had disconnected.

Fastboot :

• Disables an error message that occurred when fastboot attempted to open the touch bar or keyboard on macOS.

28.0.2 (March 2019)

ADB :

• Fixes flakiness of adb shell port forwarding that leads to “Connection reset by peer” error message.
• Fixes authentication via ADB_VENDOR_KEYS when reconnecting devices.
• Fixes authentication—when the private key used for authentication does not match the public key—by calculating the public key from the private key, instead of assuming that they match.

Fastboot :

• Adds support for dynamic partitions.

Updated Windows requirements :

• The platform-tools now depend on the Windows Universal C Runtime, which is usually installed by default via Windows Update. If you see errors mentioning missing DLLs, you may need to manually fetch and install the runtime package.

28.0.1 (September 2018)

ADB : 

• Add support for the reconnection of TCP connections. Upon disconnection, adb will attempt to reconnect for up to 60 seconds before abandoning a connection.
• Fix Unicode console output on Windows. (Thanks to external contributor Spencer Low!)
• Fix a file descriptor double-close that can occur, resulting in connections being closed when an adb connect happens simultaneously.
• Fix adb forward – – list when used with more than one device connected.

Fastboot : 

• Increase command timeout to 30 seconds, to better support some slow bootloader commands.

28.0.0 (June 2018)

ADB : 

• Add support for checksum-less operation with devices running Android P, which improves throughput by up to 40%.
• Sort output of adb devices by connection type and device serial.
• Increase the socket listen to backlog to allow for more simultaneous adb commands.
• Improve error output for adb connect.

Fastboot:

• Improve output format, add a verbose output mode (-V).
• Clean up help output.
• Add product.img and odm.img to the list of partitions flashed by fastboot flashall.
• Avoid bricking new devices when using a too-old version of fastboot by allowing factory image packages to require support for specific partitions.

Hope that you found our article helpful. If you have any questions, please ask us in the comment section below.