What is the difference between logcat and dumpsys?

adb logcat displays real-time log messages from the Android system and apps, useful for monitoring and debugging. adb shell dumpsys generates a detailed report of the current state of system services, such as battery, memory, and network, useful for in-depth system analysis.

The adb shell dumpsys command is used to retrieve a system dump from an Android device or emulator. It provides a lot of detailed information about the status of various system services on the device. When you run this command, it outputs diagnostic information for all services currently running on the device. This can include information about battery status, memory usage, network connections, package information, and more.

You can narrow down the output to a specific service by adding the service name after dumpsys. For example:

• adb shell dumpsys battery will provide information about the battery status.
• adb shell dumpsys meminfo will provide memory usage information.
• adb shell dumpsys wifi will provide information about the Wi-Fi service.

This command is primarily used for debugging and performance analysis by developers and engineers.