How do I get an ad ID using adb?

I came up with a workaround to do this without rooting the phone. This requires some work with Android UI Testing and some bash shell scripting. All this code was written by me, so please let me know if you find any bugs or suggestions for improvement.

Basically we're going to show the Google Places Settings screen and clean up the text with UI Automator and use bash shell scripts to automate everything, including using grep to pull the ad ID.

Step 1. Create a test project

Create a new project in Eclipse named GoogleAIDTest. In the Java Build Path, you will need to add the JUnit3 library and then add the external JARs uiautomator.jar and android.jar. You can find more details on this in the Android Docs: UI Testing / Setting Up Development Environment

Now add the com.testing.googleaidtest namespace to your project and then add a class called GoogleAidTest. The content looks like this

package com.testing.googleaidtest;

import com.android.uiautomator.core.UiObject;
import com.android.uiautomator.core.UiObjectNotFoundException;
import com.android.uiautomator.core.UiSelector;
import com.android.uiautomator.testrunner.UiAutomatorTestCase;

public class GoogleAidTest extends UiAutomatorTestCase {

public void testDemo() throws UiObjectNotFoundException {   


    final int AD_ID_LINEAR_LAYOUT_INDEX = 3;
    // Get the 4th Linear Layout (index 3) and find the RelativeLayout and the TextView within it
    UiObject childText = new UiObject(new UiSelector()
       .className("android.widget.LinearLayout").index(AD_ID_LINEAR_LAYOUT_INDEX)
       .childSelector(new UiSelector().className("android.widget.RelativeLayout"))
       .childSelector(new UiSelector().className("android.widget.TextView")));  

    assertTrue("Unable to find textView", 
            childText.exists());

    System.out.println("The content of this child is: " + childText.getText());

    // The content should be like this, with a \n as a separator between lines
    //Your advertising ID:
    //deadbeef-4242-6969-1337-0123456789ab

    int newlineIndex = childText.getText().indexOf('\n');
    if (newlineIndex != -1) {
        // Debug output to confirm there is a newline
        System.out.println("Index of newline is at index " + String.valueOf(newlineIndex));

        // Split the lines
        String[] parts = childText.getText().split("\n");

        // Confirm we have the second line 
        if (parts != null && parts[1] != null) {
            System.out.println("The Advertising Id for this device is: " + parts[1]);
        } else {
            System.out.println("Could not split the line!");
        }
    } else {
        System.out.println("Could not find the newline!");
    }

  } 

      

        
        
        
      

    

Step 2. Create a test jar

You will need to run the following command to create the "required build config files to generate the output JAR"

<android-sdk>/tools/android create uitest-project -n GoogleAidTest -t 1 -p <path to project>

      

        
        
        
      

    

Once you're ready to build, run the following command in the base directory of the GoogleAidTest project:

ant build

      

        
        
        
      

    

In your bin directory, you will have a file called GoogleAidTest.jar, copy it to the same directory as your script in the next section (or wherever you really want, but you will have to tweak the following script for your environment)

Step 3. Make a wrapper script named "getgaid.sh" to serve AdSettingsActivity and scrape the google ad id

#!/bin/sh
# Only works on devices with API level 16 and above (due to uiautomator) 
##
# NOTE:
# This script requires that you build GoogleAidTest beforehand and put the jar file in current working directory

# Change adbPath to your own android sdk path
adbPath="$HOME/android-sdks/platform-tools/adb"

# Check for adb and GoogleAidTest.jar existence before test
if [ ! -f "$adbPath" ]; then 
    echo "adb not found!"
elif [ ! -f "GoogleAidTest.jar" ]; then
    echo "GoogleAidTest.jar not found!"
else
    # Start Ad Settings Activity
    $adbPath shell am start -n com.google.android.gms/.ads.settings.AdsSettingsActivity

    # Push the GoogleAidTest jar to the phone, GoogleAidTest.jar should be in the current working directory
    $adbPath push GoogleAidTest.jar /data/local/tmp/

    # Run the test, using grep to pull out the relevant line
    $adbPath shell uiautomator runtest GoogleAidTest.jar -c com.testing.googleaidtest.GoogleAidTest | grep "Advertising Id"

    # Stop the Ad Settings Activity to clean up 
    $adbPath shell am force-stop com.google.android.gms
fi

      

        
        
        
      

    

Step 4. Make your script executable

chmod +x getgaid.sh

      

        
        
        
      

    

Step 5. Run the script

./getgaid.sh

      

        
        
        
      

    

The settings screen for ads will be briefly displayed on your device. The script now clears the ad id text from the UI. When the action ends, the action ends.

The command line will display the Google Ads ID for easy copy and paste!

The Advertising Id for this device is: deadbeef-4242-6969-1337-0123456789ab

      

        
        
        
      

    

Limitations

• Please note that this will only work on devices with the API level above
• If the UI for the AdsSettingsActivity page changes, the test script may stop functioning. I used UI Automator Viewer (found in android-sdks / tools / uiautomatorviewer) to find the correct indexes of controls. Adjust if necessary.