settings get

read-only

Reads one value out of the phone's settings provider.

Command: adb shell settings get
Commands: Settings provider
Risk: read-only

Syntax

settings get <system|secure|global> <key>

Flags and arguments

Token	Meaning
system \| secure \| global	Which namespace the key lives in. There are three, they are separate tables, and reading the wrong one returns nothing rather than an error.

Examples

```
settings get global http_proxy
```
Check whether the phone is pointed at a debugging proxy.
```
settings get global window_animation_scale
```
Read a value before you change it, so you have something to put back.
```
settings get system show_touches
```
A `system` key, to show that the namespace is not always `global`.

Reading the output

Sample output

null

One line: the value, or the four characters `null`. `null` is a real answer and not a failure — most developer switches are simply unset on a fresh phone, and their effective value is the platform default rather than anything stored. Anything longer than one line is not a value; it is an error the shell merged into the output.

Output fields

Field	Meaning
<value>	What is stored, as text.
null	The key is not set. The platform default applies.
(a stack trace)	The read was refused. Not a value.

Version and vendor notes

Getting the namespace wrong is silent: the key is simply absent in the table you asked. There is no error to notice.
Read before you write. The platform does not remember the previous value for you, so this command is the only way to know what to restore.

We have a UI for this

Android ADB Toolbox runs this command over USB and parses what comes back — a Chromium browser, no SDK, nothing uploaded.

Open Android ADB Toolbox

Related commands

Commands that turn up in the same session as settings get.

Command	What it does
settings put	Writes a value into the settings provider — the mechanism behind most developer-options tricks.
getprop	Prints the system properties — the phone's own answer to what it is.
am broadcast	Sends a broadcast intent, which is how SystemUI demo mode and other platform receivers are driven from a shell.

Checked against AOSP, toybox and kernel sources while writing the parsers behind our Web ADB tools. Where a behaviour genuinely varies by Android version or manufacturer, this page says so instead of giving a number that would be wrong on half the phones out there.

Frequently asked questions

How do I run an adb shell command?

Switch on developer options and USB debugging on the phone, plug it in, then run `adb shell <command>` from a machine with platform-tools installed — or run `adb shell` on its own to get an interactive prompt and type the command without the prefix. If the command produces binary output, such as a screenshot, use `adb exec-out` instead of `adb shell`: the plain shell service attaches a terminal, which rewrites newline bytes and corrupts the data.

Do adb shell commands need root?

Not the ones on this reference. They run as the `shell` user, which can manage packages for its own Android user, read most `dumpsys` services, write the settings provider, inject input and read shared storage. Root is only needed for things this reference deliberately avoids — reading another app's private data (except through `run-as` on a debuggable build), writing system partitions, or reading `/data/anr` directly.

Why does the output look different on my phone?

Either the Android version or the manufacturer. Some flags and fields arrived in a specific release, and those are noted per command. The rest is OEM patching, which hits `dumpsys` hardest: a dump is debug output whose text is whatever the service author last printed, and manufacturers change it and backport their changes. Read fields by name rather than by position, and treat an unfamiliar shape as a difference rather than as a failure.

Can I run this from a browser instead of a terminal?

For many commands, yes — the Web ADB tools on this site talk to a phone over WebUSB from a Chromium-based desktop browser, with no SDK installed and nothing uploaded. Each page links to the tool that runs its command, when one exists. Two limits are worth knowing: only one program can hold the ADB interface at a time, so a desktop `adb server` has to be stopped first, and `adb forward` and `adb reverse` cannot work in a browser at all.

Would rather click than type? The Web ADB Toolkit runs commands like this from a browser over USB. Or browse every command.