Launch `adb`, installed by Homebrew, on macOS

Installing adb and google-platform-tools with Homebrew is as easy as:

$ brew cask install android-platform-tools

But, at least on macOS Catalina, when you try to run it you may be faced with the hated "adb" cannot be opened because the developer cannot be verified message:

"adb" cannot be opened because the developer cannot be verified

This dialog doesn’t give you the option to trust the program (supposing that you do trust the Homebrew Cask).

To trust adb , find the location of the binary by following the symlinks:

$ ls -l /usr/local/bin/adb
lrwxr-xr-x  1 asdf asdf  68 Apr 23 07:09 /usr/local/bin/adb -> /usr/local/Caskroom/android-platform-tools/29.0.6/platform-tools/adb

Now navigate to the binary in Finder, right-click on adb and click “Open”. Click “Open” on the dialog to trust it.

Trust adb

Now trust it in the terminal:

Trust adb in the terminal

You are now ready to use adb :

$ adb devices