Android – Build unsigned APK file with Android Studio

androidandroid-studioapkbuild

I'm developing an Android app with the Android Developer Tool.
Now I tried the new Android Studio, everything works fine if connect my smartphone with the PC and directly run the program in the Android Studio.
But now I want to test the program with other smartphones without connecting them to my PC.

The ADT creates the .apk file under "projectname/bin" every time you compile the program. How I see it at the moment, Android Studio doesn't do that.

So, my question is: Is it possible to create an unsigned .apk file with Android Studio?

Best Answer

I would recommend you to build your APK file with Gradle:

Click the dropdown menu in the toolbar at the top (Open 'Edit Run/Debug configurations' dialog)
Select "Edit Configurations"
Click the "+"
Select "Gradle"
Choose your module as a Gradle project
In Tasks: enter assemble
Press Run

Your unsigned APK is now located in

ProjectName\app\build\outputs\apk

For detailed information on how to use Gradle, this tutorial is good to go: Building with Gradle in Android Studio. I also wrote a blog post on how to build an unsigned APK with Gradle.

If you moved your project from the other IDE and don't want to recompile, you may find your APK file that was already built in the IDE you moved from:

If you generated the Project with Android Studio, the APK file will be found in ProjectName/ProjectName/build/apk/...
Imported the project from eclipse: File should be in the same directory. Go to Project - Show in Explorer. There you should find the bin folder where your APK file is located in.
Imported from IntelliJ, the location would be ProjectName/out/production/...

Side note: As Chris Stratton mentioned in his comment:

Technically, what you want is an APK signed with a debug key. An APK that is actually unsigned will be refused by the device.

Related Solutions

Android – How to install an APK file in the Android emulator

You can simply drag and drop the .apk file of your application to the emulator and it will automatically start installing.

Another option:

Windows:

Execute the emulator (SDK Manager.exe->Tools->Manage AVDs...->New then Start)
Start the console (Windows XP), Run -> type cmd, and move to the platform-tools folder of SDK directory.
Paste the APK file in the 'android-sdk\tools' or 'platform-tools' folder.
Then type the following command.

adb install [.apk path]

Example:

adb install C:\Users\Name\MyProject\build\Jorgesys.apk

Linux:

Copy the apk file to platform-tools in the android-sdk linux folder.
Open Terminal and navigate to platform-tools folder in android-sdk.
Then Execute this command -

./adb install FileName.apk

If the operation is successful (the result is displayed on the screen), then you will find your file in the launcher of your emulator.

Mac:

PATH=$PATH:~/Library/Android/sdk/platform-tools

Example : PATH=$PATH:/users/jorgesys/eclipse/android-sdk-mac_64/tools

Then run adb.

Mac:

1.Run the emulator,

2.then copy your .apk file and paste into /Users/your_system_username/Library/Android/sdk/platform-tools,
if you are not able to find sdk path in your mac system, do the following steps: Open finder->select Go option on top menu -> select Go to Folder option -> it will popup a window with a textfield: /Users/your_system_username/Library/Android/sdk/ -> now open platform-tools folder and paste your copied .apk file,

Now open the terminal and type the following: cd Library/Android/sdk/platform-tools
execute the following in your terminal: ./adb install yourapkfilename.apk if you get the following error message: error: no devices found - waiting for device, follow step 5.
Run your emulator from Android Studio, once emulator active then repeat step 4, you will see the success message on your terminal.

Android – way to get the source code from an APK file

Simple way: use online tool https://www.decompiler.com/, upload apk and get source code.

Procedure for decoding .apk files, step-by-step method:

Step 1:

Make a new folder and copy over the .apk file that you want to decode.
Now rename the extension of this .apk file to .zip (e.g. rename from filename.apk to filename.zip) and save it. Now you can access the classes.dex files, etc. At this stage you are able to see drawables but not xml and java files, so continue.

Step 2:

Now extract this .zip file in the same folder (or NEW FOLDER).
Download dex2jar and extract it to the same folder (or NEW FOLDER).
Move the classes.dex file into the dex2jar folder.
Now open command prompt and change directory to that folder (or NEW FOLDER). Then write d2j-dex2jar classes.dex (for mac terminal or ubuntu write ./d2j-dex2jar.sh classes.dex) and press enter. You now have the classes.dex.dex2jar file in the same folder.
Download java decompiler, double click on jd-gui, click on open file, and open classes.dex.dex2jar file from that folder: now you get class files.
Save all of these class files (In jd-gui, click File -> Save All Sources) by src name. At this stage you get the java source but the .xml files are still unreadable, so continue.

Step 3:

Now open another new folder

Put in the .apk file which you want to decode
Download the latest version of apktool AND apktool install window (both can be downloaded from the same link) and place them in the same folder
Open a command window
Now run command like apktool if framework-res.apk (if you don't have it get it here)and next
apktool d myApp.apk (where myApp.apk denotes the filename that you want to decode)

now you get a file folder in that folder and can easily read the apk's xml files.

Step 4:

It's not any step, just copy contents of both folders(in this case, both new folders) to the single one

and enjoy the source code...