A quiet, fast desktop GUI for Android Debug Bridge.
Devices, screen mirroring, files, apps, logcat and shell in one keyboard-first window.
Every Android developer has a text file of adb commands to copy from:
pull this file, clear that app's data, forward that port, grep logcat for a
crash. Tether puts all of it in one window. Plug in a phone or start an
emulator, and every screen works straight away: no command to remember, no
serial number to type.
It runs on the standard adb server, so Android Studio, scrcpy and your terminal keep working next to it.
📊 Device overview: live vitals and one-click actions for the selected device.
- 📦 Zero setup. Already have adb? Tether finds it. Don't have it? One click downloads the official platform-tools straight from Google into the app. Nothing is installed system-wide.
- 🤝 Plays nice with your tools. Tether talks to the standard adb server, so Android Studio, scrcpy and your terminal keep working side by side. No fighting over USB.
- ⚡ Native and tiny. Built with Tauri and Rust: a small binary with low memory use, not another 200 MB Electron app.
- ⌨️ Keyboard-first.
⌘K/Ctrl+Kcommand palette for every action, device and screen. - 🧠 Speaks adb natively. Uses the adb server protocol directly instead of scraping CLI output, so it stays fast and reliable.
- 🎨 Designed, not assembled. A dense, calm interface with real dark and light themes, spring animations and accessible contrast.
- 🔄 Updates itself. Signed over-the-air updates: one click, and it restarts on the new version.
- 🌍 English and Russian out of the box.
| Feature | What you get | |
|---|---|---|
| 📱 | Devices | Live device list over USB, Wi-Fi and emulators, with clear states (unauthorized, offline, no permissions…) |
| 📦 | adb setup | Auto-detection of existing adb, one-click platform-tools download with license consent, and a notice when Google ships a newer one |
| 📶 | Wi-Fi pairing | Pair Android 11+ devices with a QR code or pairing code, or connect by IP |
| 🖥️ | Screen mirroring | Low-latency mirroring and control powered by scrcpy-server, device audio, MP4 recording with sound, a pop-out window and saved defaults |
| 📁 | File manager | Browse, preview (with photo EXIF) and transfer with a queue, compressed when the device allows; computer ⇄ device panes, drag files in and out |
| 🧩 | Apps | Install APK / split APKs on several devices at once, manage permissions, clear data, extract APKs, signing certificates, per-app data usage |
| 📜 | Logcat | A log viewer that keeps up: level, tag, package and regex filters, crash detection |
| 💻 | Shell | Multi-tab terminal with snippets and run-on-all-devices |
| 📊 | Device overview | Battery, storage, memory, CPU, display and network at a glance |
| 🎛️ | Developer toggles | Dark mode, animation scales, DPI, layout bounds, demo mode, system and per-app language, saved profiles and one-click revert |
| 🧮 | Multi-device grid | Every connected screen side by side; install, run, tap and screenshot on all of them at once |
| 📲 | Sideload OTA | Flash an OTA zip from recovery with progress and safety checks |
| 🔔 | Menu bar & notifications | Device status in the menu bar or tray; alerts when devices connect or an app crashes |
| 🔧 | Power tools | Port forwarding with live connections, intents & deep links, performance charts, bugreports, captures gallery with annotations |
| 🩺 | Diagnostics | "Can't see your device?" checklist that explains and fixes common problems |
| ⌨️ | Keyboard-first | Command palette, rebindable shortcuts, open at login straight into the menu bar |
What comes next is in the 🗺️ roadmap.
🧭 Every screen, one sidebar away.
 🖥️ Mirror and control the screen, with audio, recording and a pop-out window. |
 📜 Logcat that keeps up, with filters, presets and crash folding. |
 ⌨️ ⌘K / Ctrl+K jumps to any screen, device or action. |
 📁 Browse, preview and transfer files, or work in two panes. |
 🧩 Apps with real names and icons, installs on many devices. |
 📈 Live performance charts and a process table. |
 🎛️ Developer toggles, profiles and one-click revert. |
 🌗 Real dark and light themes. |
 📦 Finds your adb, or downloads the official platform-tools. |
 ⚙️ Bitrate, resolution, codec and device options per session. |
brew trust kewldan/tap && brew install --cask kewldan/tap/tether # macOS
winget install kewldan.Tether # WindowsOr download the installer for your OS from the latest release, or build from source (see below).
Note
The macOS build isn't notarized yet. If macOS says it can't verify Tether, open System Settings › Privacy & Security and click Open Anyway once.
On first launch Tether looks for an existing adb (PATH, ANDROID_HOME, the
Android Studio SDK, Homebrew, scoop, winget). If none is found, it offers to
download the official platform-tools for you.
Prepare your phone: enable Developer options (tap Build number 7 times), turn on USB debugging, connect the cable and approve the RSA prompt.
Tip
On Linux, install udev rules (android-udev-rules or your distro's
equivalent) so non-root users can access the device.
Prerequisites: Rust (stable), Bun, and the Tauri prerequisites for your OS.
bun install
bun run tauri dev # run the app
bun run dev # UI only, in the browser, with a mocked backend
bun run lint # Biome
bun run build # type-check and build the frontend
cd src-tauri && cargo test && cargo clippy --all-targets -- -D warningsReleases and OTA updates are described in docs/releasing.md.
- Shell: Tauri 2 + Rust (
tokio) speaking the adb server protocol onlocalhost:5037 - UI: React 19, TypeScript, Tailwind CSS v4, shadcn/ui on Base UI, Motion
- Mirroring: scrcpy-server + WebCodecs
- Tooling: Bun, Biome, Vite
MIT © kewldan
Android platform-tools are not bundled. When you choose to download them, they come directly from Google under the Android SDK License Agreement. scrcpy-server is bundled under the Apache 2.0 license (notice).