How to unzip, edit and zip an android apk

Question

I have an android apk and I deleted my source code and dont have the project again, I want to change the version code of the old apk. my question is how do I unzip and repack the apk so I can use the. am using a mac system. I saw so many things for windows but i couldnt find for mac.I need help please

Liu Tao · Answer 1 · 2020-06-17T18:04:22.987

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unzip apk files

The simplest method is executing unzip command:

unzip xxx.apk -d xxx

A directory xxx will be generated to store unzipped files. Actually, .apk files are same as .zip files. Execute command file XXX.apk to see that.

get readable text files from apk

If you want readable text files such as the manifest file, I would suggest you to use the apktool. We could install the apktool easily with Homebrew:

brew install apktool

then get the readable text files:

apktool d xxx.apk

after the previous command, a xxx directory contains readable text files and others would be there.

edit zip files

If you want to edit a zip file in place, the Keka might be a good option.

edited Jun 17 '20 at 18:04

answered Aug 25 '16 at 03:59

Liu Tao

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this should be the acceptable answer, no need to download any app or tool. – vishwa.deepak Jul 21 '17 at 08:49
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However AndroidManifest.xml looks like garbled text. – Gqqnbig May 20 '19 at 21:50
I agree this should be marked as the accepted answer, thanks Liu Tao! – Michael Sep 15 '20 at 16:35
in windows this command is not recognized? – showtime Oct 22 '22 at 20:58
@dontdownvoteme windows doesn't support the command, but you could modify the apk extension as zip, and then use some other tool to unzip it. – Liu Tao Oct 24 '22 at 06:51

score 32 · Answer 2 · edited Dec 20 '18 at 17:10

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To give a complete answer for unpacking, editing and packing on Mac:

Unpacking / Unzipping

As Liu Tao stated, the easiest way to unpack a *.apk file on mac is to use the following command:

unzip xxx.apk -d xxx

This is because an *.apk file is nothing else than a zip file. Again, as Liu Tao stated, this can be found out with the file command.

file xxx.apk

Which will show an output that looks something like this:

xxx.apk: Zip archive data, at least v2.0 to extract

Editing

I think this is self-explanatory. Go into the folder to which you exported the *.apk contents and edit them as you would usually do.

Packing / Zipping

On Mac, this is also quite straight-forward. You can use the zip command to pack all the files back into an *.apk file.

zip -r xxx.apk xxx/

edited Dec 20 '18 at 17:10

Adil Hussain

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answered Oct 10 '17 at 09:02

Andreas Zwettler

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I'm afraid it doesn't look like this works anymore (at least not when trying to install on the emulator). Logcat is showing a `java.io.FileNotFoundException: AndroidManifest.xml` despite the file existing in the new APK – foxtrotuniform6969 Jun 06 '20 at 04:21
I have been trying to achieve this, on windows, I have been unable to do it. I have tried several zip tools: powershell unzip/zip commands, 7zip, C# zip libraries: System.IO.Compression.ZipFile, SharpZipLib, SharpCompress, DotNetZip. Any help would be extra recontra gratefuled. – Carlos Iglesias Sep 19 '21 at 16:33

score 14 · Accepted Answer · answered Apr 08 '15 at 18:06

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You want to use APKTool. It will handle the unzip and rebuild for you: http://ibotpeaches.github.io/Apktool/

answered Apr 08 '15 at 18:06

Blackdragon1400

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You can also use a tool like jdgui to get a semblance of your source code back. http://jd.benow.ca – Blackdragon1400 Apr 09 '15 at 13:54
kind of an overkill – hasen Aug 01 '17 at 05:04
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Not working for me. After generating apk file android says: There is problem parsing the package – Khalil Laleh Oct 16 '17 at 22:24
Man I hate the Java runtime: Error: Could not find or load main class version – zezba9000 Jun 18 '20 at 23:03