How do I "shake" an Android device within the Android emulator to bring up the dev menu to debug my React Native app

Question

I am working on a cross-platform React Native mobile app. I am writing console.log statements as I develop. I want to see these logging statements in Chrome while I'm running the Android app in the default Android emulator. According to Facebook's docs I just need to "shake the device". How do I do this in the Android emulator?

To access the in-app developer menu:

On iOS shake the device or press control + ⌘ + z in the simulator. On Android shake the device or press hardware menu button (available on older >devices and in most of the emulators, e.g. in genymotion you can press ⌘ + m to >simulate hardware menu button click)

Answer 1

Within your app in the Android Emulator press Command + M on macOS or Ctrl + M on Linux and Windows.

Answer 2

With a React Native running in the emulator,
Press ctrl+m (for Linux, I suppose it's the same for Windows and ⌘+m for Mac OS X) or run the following in terminal:

adb shell input keyevent 82

Answer 3

If you're using the new emulator that comes with Android Studio 2.0, the keyboard shortcut for the menu key is now Cmd+M, just like in Genymotion.

Alternatively, you can always send a menu button press using adb in a terminal:

adb shell input keyevent KEYCODE_MENU

Also note that the menu button shortcut isn't a strict requirement, it's just the default behavior provided by the ReactActivity Java class (which is used by default if you created your project with react-native init). Here's the relevant code from onKeyUp in ReactActivity.java:

if (keyCode == KeyEvent.KEYCODE_MENU) {
  mReactInstanceManager.showDevOptionsDialog();
  return true;
}

If you're adding React Native to an existing app (documentation here) and you aren't using ReactActivity, you'll need to hook the menu button up in a similar way. You can also call ReactInstanceManager.showDevOptionsDialog through any other mechanism. For example, in an app I'm working on, I added a dev-only Action Bar menu item that brings up the menu, since I find that more convenient than shaking the device when working on a physical device.

Answer 4

For Linux you click on the three dots "..." beside the emulator, on Virtual sensors check "Move" and then try quickly moving either x, y or z coordinates.

Answer 5

'Ctrl + m' works for Windows in the Android emulator to bring up the React-Native developer menu.

Couldn't find that documented anywhere. Found my way here, guessed the rest... Good grief.

By the way: OP: You didn't mention what OS you were on.

Answer 6

If you want to simulate a 1 second shake from terminal you can use the following command:

adb emu sensor set acceleration 100:100:100; sleep 1; adb emu sensor set acceleration 0:0:0

Answer 7

As while developing react native apps, we play with the terminal so much

so I added a script in the scripts in the package.json file

"menu": "adb shell input keyevent 82"

and I hit $ yarn menu

for the menu to appear on the emulator it will forward the keycode 82 to the emulator via ADB not the optimal way but I like it and felt to share it.

Answer 8

I am on Mac OS so when I press Command, it enable zooming option. Here is my solution

• Open Configuration window [...] button
• Go toSettings tab ->General tab -> Send keyboard shortcuts to field
• Change value to Virtual device" as shown in the picture

After that focus on the emulator and press Command + M, the dev menu appears.

Answer 9

'Command + M' for OSX is working for me.

Answer 10

For those for whom Command + M simply minimizes the emulator:

1. Exit emulator
2. Go to Setting>Tools>Emulator and uncheck the Launch in a tool window checkbox
3. Open emulator
4. now Command + M will open developer menu

Answer 11

Use command + m(cmd + M) on MAC. Also make sure that you are accessing your application while you try to access the Debug Menui.e. your app must be running otherwise Cmd + M will just return the usual ordinary phone menu.

Answer 12

On Linux, Ctrl+M should work, but it doesn’t. To solve the problem, click on the “…” (its extended controls) and then close that window. Now you can open the menu by pressing Ctrl+M. Follow these steps:

1. Click on the “…” (its extended controls).
2. Close the extended controls.
3. Press Ctrl+M.

Answer 13

It might be not direct solution, but I've created a lib that allows you to use 3 fingers touch instead of shake to open dev menu, when in development mode

https://github.com/pie6k/react-native-dev-menu-on-touch

You only have to wrap your app inside:

import DevMenuOnTouch from 'react-native-dev-menu-on-touch'; // or: import { DevMenuOnTouch } from 'react-native-dev-menu-on-touch'

class YourRootApp extends Component {
  render() {
    return (
      <DevMenuOnTouch>
        <YourApp />
      </DevMenuOnTouch>
    );
  }
}

It's really useful when you have to debug on real device and you have co-workers sitting next to you.

Answer 14

I was trying on a release build via adb install -r -d <app-release>.apk 🤦

Make sure you're running the debug build, then the menu will work via the shortcut or CLI.