Refresh Android mediastore using adb

android adb android-mediascanner
foosion picture foosion · Jul 29, 2013 · Viewed 30.5k times · Source

I'm using adb to sync music on an android phone. Essentially, I rm the existing music directory and push replacement music files.

I'd like to be able to use adb to force a rescan, so that the google music player (and other apps) works properly with the new songs and playlists.

According to How can I refresh MediaStore on Android? you can force a rescan by broadcasting an appropriate intent.

adb provides 'shell am broadcast', which would seem to allow me to force a rescan from adb.

Alternatively I could run a rescan app or reboot, but I'd like to trigger the rescan from adb

What adb command should I issue? The music files and playlists are all in /sdcard/music.

Answer

user2892047 picture user2892047 · Oct 17, 2013

The rescan apps use a media mount intent to kick off the media scanner. You can use am broadcast to send the same intent.

The command is:

adb shell am broadcast -a android.intent.action.MEDIA_MOUNTED -d file:///sdcard

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