Android - Batch install apks from computer to Android without actually touching my Android

That's done easiest using adb (see the ADB tag-wiki for details on what ADB is and how to get/install it on your machine). As you don't state the OS you're using on your desktop, I write how it could be done on Linux (which I work with); should be easily adaptable to other platforms:

  • put all your downloaded .apk files into a single folder
  • connect your Android device, and make sure it's recognized (adb devices should list a connected device)
  • open a terminal/command prompt, and change to the directory where your .apk files reside
  • run for file in *.apk; do adb install $file; done
  • watch all the apps getting installed, without requiring any further interaction :)

NOTE: If you have .apk files which have "spaces" in their names such as 'Xposed Framework', 'Adobe Flash Player' etc. then you will have to rename them, as ADB cannot handle that. Either remove the spaces altogether, or replace them e.g. by underscores. Linux provides a Perl script for that (/usr/bin/rename) which you can use:

rename 's/ /_/g' *.apk

It replaces all space character with _, which makes names like this Xposed_Framework, Adobe_Flash_Player which are recognizable by adb.


If you have apks in different folders (like if you used adb pull) then you can use my script below:

for /r %f in (*.apk) do adb install -r "%f"

Just run it in the folder above all your APK Files and it will recurse and install all of them.