Installing ADB on macOS

If you've already installed Android Studio --

Add the following lines to the end of ~/.bashrc or ~/.zshrc (if using Oh My ZSH):

export ANDROID_HOME=/Users/$USER/Library/Android/sdk
export PATH=${PATH}:$ANDROID_HOME/tools:$ANDROID_HOME/platform-tools

Restart Terminal and you're good to go. 👍

Note for zsh users: replace all references to ~/.bash_profile with ~/.zshrc.

Option 1 - Using Homebrew

This is the easiest way and will provide automatic updates.

1. Install the homebrew package manager

    /bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install.sh)"
   

2. Install adb

    brew install android-platform-tools
   

3. Start using adb

    adb devices
   

Option 2 - Manually (just the platform tools)

This is the easiest way to get a manual installation of ADB and Fastboot.

1. Delete your old installation (optional)

    rm -rf ~/.android-sdk-macosx/
   

2. Navigate to https://developer.android.com/studio/releases/platform-tools.html and click on the SDK Platform-Tools for Mac link.

3. Go to your Downloads folder

    cd ~/Downloads/
   

4. Unzip the tools you downloaded

    unzip platform-tools-latest*.zip 
   

5. Move them somewhere you won't accidentally delete them

    mkdir ~/.android-sdk-macosx
    mv platform-tools/ ~/.android-sdk-macosx/platform-tools
   

6. Add platform-tools to your path

    echo 'export PATH=$PATH:~/.android-sdk-macosx/platform-tools/' >> ~/.bash_profile
   

7. Refresh your bash profile (or restart your terminal app)

    source ~/.bash_profile
   

8. Start using adb

    adb devices
   

Option 3 - Manually (with SDK Manager)

1. Delete your old installation (optional)

    rm -rf ~/.android-sdk-macosx/
   

2. Download the Mac SDK Tools from the Android developer site under "Get just the command line tools". Make sure you save them to your Downloads folder.

3. Go to your Downloads folder

    cd ~/Downloads/
   

4. Unzip the tools you downloaded

    unzip tools_r*-macosx.zip 
   

5. Move them somewhere you won't accidentally delete them

    mkdir ~/.android-sdk-macosx
    mv tools/ ~/.android-sdk-macosx/tools
   

6. Run the SDK Manager

    sh ~/.android-sdk-macosx/tools/android
   

7. Uncheck everything but Android SDK Platform-tools (optional)

8. Click Install Packages, accept licenses, click Install. Close the SDK Manager window.

9. Add platform-tools to your path

    echo 'export PATH=$PATH:~/.android-sdk-macosx/platform-tools/' >> ~/.bash_profile
   

10. Refresh your bash profile (or restart your terminal app)

    source ~/.bash_profile
    

11. Start using adb

    adb devices
    

Note that if you use Android Studio and download through its SDK Manager, the SDK is downloaded to ~/Library/Android/sdk by default, not ~/.android-sdk-macosx.

I would rather add this as a comment to @brismuth's excellent answer, but it seems I don't have enough reputation points yet.