Copy default applications from Android phone to computer using adb

To copy the .APK files of the pre-installed applications on an Android phone to a computer, install ADB as per this post and connect the phone to the computer via the USB cable that came with it. After that, enter the following command in a terminal window to copy the .APK files onto the computer:

$ adb pull /system/app ~/androidapps/app <enter>

The files will be copied from the phone’s /system/app folder to the folder ~/androidapps/app folder on the computer.