Understanding Appium Desktop: Tutorial

On This Page What is Appium Desktop?Why use Appium Desktop?January 16, 2026 · 6 min read · Tool Comparison

Understanding Appium Desktop: Tutorial

With the growing demand for applications that serve, delectation and retain user, the need for automation examination has become prominent. As users expect that a new app version with modern features will be launch every few weeks, helps application development and screen professionals deliver high-end apps within tight deadline.

is wide utilise for automated mobile app prove. It helps execute automated tests on aboriginal and intercrossed apps for faster and accurate results. This article will explore how to perform using Appium Desktop.

What is Appium Desktop?

Appium Desktop is an open-source Graphical User Interface (GUI) covering used for automated mobile application try. It is supported by Windows, Mac, and Linux.

Appium Desktop has two main components:

  1. Appium Server
  2. Appium Desktop Inspector

While the Appium Server is used to run the mechanisation test scripts, Appium Desktop Inspector is used for identifying the UI component of the application under test.

Appium Desktop provides a GUI for the Appium Server. This GUI puppet allows you to start and stop the Appium host and vista the logs. The Inspector can also get the properties of the elements in your mobile app.

Why use Appium Desktop?

Appium Desktop is an ideal creature for machine-driven testing of aboriginal, mobile web, and hybrid applications because of the following features:

  1. It is open-source, which means testers can salve the money that otherwise goes into costly license for tools and frameworks
  2. Using Appium Desktop, testers can connect a mobile device and do machine-controlled test on it
  3. Appium Desktop Inspector lets testers inspect web factor and identify their id and other details, which do testing simpler and more accurate
  4. It countenance testers to perform actions now on the application and record them to give the codification that can be used for quiz and debugging
  5. It lets testers pre-set configurations by setting up the craved capabilities for a more convenient essay process

Getting started with Appium Desktop

Before starting with the setup, it is essential to install and set up other prerequisite tools, as Appium Desktop is not a standalone testing puppet.

To begin with, do the following:

  • Install Javaand set up theenvironment variables
  • Install Android Studio and set up Android environment variables
  • Install Eclipse IDE for Java
  • Install Appium Desktop from thislinkand download the Appium Jars for Eclipse

Downloading Appium Desktop

Here is how you can download the Appium Desktop:

Step 1: As mentioned earlier, visit Appium Desktop ’ s GitHub page by chatter on thislink.

Step 2: This page has all the versions of Appium Desktop. You can download the latest version, which is unremarkably mentioned at the top of the page.

Step 3: Under the‘ Downloads ’section of the latest freeing, you can find various Appium Server GUI packages for Windows, Mac, Linux etc. Select the Windows version, download and save it on your PC.

With this pace, the downloading process for Appium Server GUI is complete.

Here is how you can instal it:

Step 1: Open the folder localization where the Appium Server GUI is downloaded. Double-click on the exe to start installing

Step 2: You will be provided with Installation Options. Choose accordingly and so but, click on theInstall button

Step 3: Appium Setup window will displayed as below, when the installing process starts

Step 4: Once the process is consummate, you will see the below Appium Setup window

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Step 5: Now, select the Run Appium Server GUI checkbox and click ‘ Finish ’. Appium Start screen will be displayed.

Step 6: To insure if the installation summons has been successful, clickstartServerpush. The Appium server will then start and ‘The server is extend’ message will be displayed in Appium window.

This intend the Appium Desktop has be successfully instal.

Step 7: Now, clickStop Serverbutton to stop the Appium server

Once the Appium Server stops, you can close the Appium Server GUI window. With this we complete the download and installation summons.

What is Appium Server GUI

Appium Server GUI is a graphical interface for the Appium Server. It is chiefly used to start and handle the Appium server without the requirement of command-line bid.

Starting Appium Server

Having establish the Appium Desktop app, put the Host and Port values to commence the Appium Server.

Getting the peregrine phone ’ s particular

To test the application on a mobile phone, Appium requires the device point (Device ID/ UDID, Android Version) in addition to the appPackage and appActivity names of the application to be tested. Testers can get the Device ID by connecting it to the background and extend ADB devices command on the command prompt.

Writing the Appium Test Script

To compose the Appium Test Script, make a new project in Eclipse. Create the package and course to start compose the trial book code.

In this script, (which open the Google Chrome app on the Android mobile phone under test) the quizzer needs to set the Desired Capabilities and instantiate the Appium Driver.

public class AppiumTesting {public static void master (String [] args) {//Setting Desired Capabilities DesiredCapabilities caps = new DesiredCapabilities (); caps.setCapability (`` deviceName '', “ Phone ''); caps.setCapability (`` udid '', `` //Mention the UDID of sound ''); caps.setCapability (`` platformName '', `` Android ''); caps.setCapability (`` platformVersion '', `` 8.0 ''); caps.setCapability (`` appPackage '', `` com.android.chrome ''); caps.setCapability (`` appActivity '', `` com.google.android.apps.chrome.Main ''); caps.setCapability (`` noReset '', `` true ''); //Instantiating Appium Driver try {AppiumDriver & lt; MobileElement & gt; driver = new AndroidDriver & lt; MobileElement & gt; (new URL (`` //Mention horde url ''), caps);} catch (MalformedURLException e) {System.out.println (e.getMessage ());}}}

The UDID of the mobile earpiece, Android adaptation, appPackage and appActivity item (for the Google Chrome app, in this illustration), fetched in the above section has to be utilise in the above code for put Desired Capabilities and instantiating Appium Driver.

Run this script and the Google Chrome App will be opened on the link nomadic device.

Starting Appium Desktop Inspector

Appium Desktop Inspector is used to place the UI element of the application being tested. It works good with both as well as.

After starting with the Appium Server, the quizzer can start the Inspector Session by click on the Search icon on the Appium log blind.

Then by inscribe the item provided by, begin with the review of elements for the desired app and disk the session on the cloud, as the connective with the device is established.

Inspecting UI Elements using Appium Desktop Inspector

To search the inspecting of UI Elements with Appium Desktop Inspector, let ’ s reckon a scenario that opens the Wikipedia App and scrutinize its Search Bar.

As presently as the tester foreground the search bar using the pointer, they will get the point of the select element. These details can be used in the script to perform tests on that specific factor.

Code Snippet:

driver.findElement (By.id (`` org.wikipedia.alpha: id/search_container '')) .click ();

By extend the codification above, the tester will get the textbook“Google”, which has be written on the Search bar of the Wikipedia App, printed on the console.

This is how one can use Appium Desktop to run test script in order to perform automated testing of mobile applications.

Conclusion

Appium Desktop enable accurate and comprehensive automated testing of intercrossed, native and web coating, thus ridding them of bugs, anomalies, and any issues that may harm the exploiter experience. Of course, all Appium examination are best to run on existent mobile devices because monitoring apps in real user conditions yield 100 % accurate results, every clip.

BrowserStack App Automate offers cloud-based admittance to both the late and bequest devices (Android, iOS, and Windows) installed with existent operating systems. App Automate also requires no extra setup, helping testers save precious time and meet their deadlines that much faster. Run Appium tests on 1000 of existent devices so that the app becomes unfeignedly cross-platform compatible.

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