I built my first android app a few months ago and had it installed on my phone. After a few weeks I lost the app from my Windows PC because of a new installation of Windows. Now I need the app and it still resides inside the phone but I can't seem to find the apk file anywhere! I have tried looking in the app and app-private folders and also in the data folder but no luck. Any help would be appreciated.
Regards,
Owais
If that application still installed in your device then you can get that APK definitely
Find a application on play store named apk extractor.
It will be ask you for paid but skip it and install it, then there will be list of applications after installing apk extractor.
Just select the application for which you want apk.
Related
I need to extract the APK of my application when it is installed, I know there is an application called APK EXTRACTOR which performs this task, but in my case I want to extract the apk myself from delphi code.
So far I have only been able to find the APKs of pre-installed applications on the phone in the path "/system/app" and "system/priv-app" but internally I cannot find the apk of my app.
I recall a long time ago a file manager did a backup
of all the applications.
It puts all the APKs in a directory on the phone
It was on the GOOGLE market.
It might help to find out how he does it.
I am trying to run android on emulator. I could not find "android market" app in the default app list of the emulator. I tried to download that from google play but it requires you to have "google play app" in the default list, which is also not available in my emulator. Then I tried to search for downloading the apk file for "android market" on net, so that I could install it. But I could not find some reliable source for downloading that.
If you could suggest me some good way of installing this app, I would be really thankful to you. Please also tell me some good download link for downloading android apps.
First of all you need to know that .apk files can't be downloaded from google play. Those files are always installed directly to the supportive device. Secondly Emulator can't have play store app.
So, If you want to install the .apk files on emulator, first download .apk from torrent(famous .apk files are available there) then use adb tool to push .apk file on emulator. just google "how to install apk on emulator" you will find many option use adb push to emulator.
May this helps you, Enjoy android on Emulator. :)
I am developing an Android application and it is not finished. I would like to test it on multiple devices, locations with various users that are not near me. How can I achieve this? Is there an APK I can send them? Is there a way that is as simple as plugging my phone in and then running the application from Eclipse? Or would I have to make an installer of some sort (I don't know)?
Obviously you can plug your phone(s) into the machine you are developing on and run it from eclipse. This will allow you to test and debug on the devices you have access to.
You can also export an apk from eclipse (see the android pages for instructions). You could put this up on a file sharing site and make it available to your friends. They could then install it, as long as they have authorised "unsigned" apks to be installed in their phone settings.
Assuming you have deployed the app at least once from within Eclipse to debug and test yourself, you will most likely have an APK under the bin directory in your Eclipse project. The file should be .apk. This APK will have been signed automatically by Eclipse with your debug key. This is obviously not the key you use for publishing but for testing among friends I think it's fine.
What I often do is just e-mail that APK file as an attachment to my friends to an e-mail account they have setup on their phone. Then all they need to do on their phone is make sure they have the system setting to allow installation of non-market apps (i.e. not from Google Play), which maybe named something slightly different like "allow 3rd party apps". Then they can simply click on the app attachment in their e-mail, download it and run it and they should automatically be prompted with instructions to install it.
I just used MyAppSharer. (I believe there are other similar apps out there - this is just the one I've used and is very simple/easy:
...you can share by market link or directly share APK (App's full
package)
I just used that, and sent my app via apk file to my coworkers. Can't get much simpler.
Just install the app on your phone via Eclipse, then run this AppSharer, and voila - share it w/ anyone!
You can can easily export your project as an APK in eclipse
File -> Export -> Export Android Project
I do understand that a .apk file is created in the bin folder of an android project, when the project is run.
I have a question about this: is it possible that there would be any difference in the functionality of an app installed via eclipse (as in connecting the phone to the computer and uploading and installing the app on the phone) versus installing the app by downloading a .apk placed on a secure server?
The reason I ask this question is that I usually put up the .apk file on a secure server and the testing team downloads and installs the app for testing purposes. The testing team has started to report app crashes when accessing this app. However, I don't seem to be seeing the any such problems (even while replicating the same scenarios) with the app when I install it on the phone via a cable connected to the computer.
You might be falling into a caching issue. Make sure you get the QA team a new filename of the apk on the server to ensure that they never get a cached apk when downloading it. Also maybe create a md5 sum of the apk locally and run md5 on the apk on the server after upload to ensure it is the same.
e.g. use
md5 yourapk.apk > yourapk.md5
on your machine and the server..
Most likely you QA team has found issues that are specific to the device or Android platform version they test with. Try with your apk with the same hardware in your dev environment.
I don't see how that would possible. The Eclipse ADT plugin just calls the executables in the specified Android SDK location on your hard drive and the .apk gets generated only once when you use Eclipse to install the application to your plugged phone.
Unless you're packaging the two versions in a different way, that shouldn't be possible. My guess is that your testing team has just found bugs specific to the runtime environment (the phone). Maybe a different version of Android, conflicting custom ROM, etc.
No, there is no difference , if the apk on the secure server is as latest as you have on your computer.
I would recommend you to clean your project before uploading the apk to the server.
Regarding the crashes, i guess there are some location based problems.
Also check if you are uploading the apk from your workspace. or some other older version which is located in different place that you are not using anymore.
I am trying to distribute my application to some people for testing.
I have installed it on my Desire directly from eclipse and it works fine.
To create an APK-file, I choose "Export Unsigned Application Package" directly from eclipse, and then an APK file was created. I emailed it to myself and downloaded the file to the SD-card. But when I try to install it (using ES File Browser), I get a message saying "Application not installed".
(I have already checked the "Allow installation of non-Market application" on my phone)
Any ideas?
Yeah I found the problem, see my answer below:
I did not know that even with the "Allow Installation of non-Marked application", I still needed to sign the application.
I self-signed my application, following this link self-sign and release application, It only took 5 minutes, then I emailed the signed-APK file to myself and downloaded it to SD-card and then installed it without any problem.
I did not know that even with the "Allow Installation of non-Marked application", I still needed to sign the application.
I self-signed my application, following this link self-sign and release application, It only took 5 minutes, then I emailed the signed-APK file to myself and downloaded it to SD-card and then installed it without any problem.
You cannot install an unsigned application on a phone. You can only use it to test with an emulator. If you still want to go ahead, you can try self-signing the application.
Also, since you are installing the application from an SD card, I hope you have the necessary permissions set. Do go through stackoverflow.com and look at questions regarding installation of applications from an SD card - there have been many and they have been asked before.
Hope that helps.
You can test the unsigned-apk only on Emulator. And as its step of application deployment and distribution, you should read this article atleast once, i suggest: http://developer.android.com/guide/publishing/app-signing.html.
For your question, you can find the below line in above article:
All applications must be signed. The system will not install an application that is not signed.
so you have to have signed-apk before the distribution of your application.
To generate Signed-apk of your application, there is a simple wizard procedure, click on File -> Export -> Android -> Export Android application.
Just follow these steps to transfer the apk onto the real device(with debugger key) and which is just for testing purpose. (Note: For proper distribution to the market you may need to sign your app with your keys and follow all the steps.)
Install your app onto the emulator.
Once it is installed goto DDMS, select the current running app under the devices window. This will then show all the files related to it under the file explorer.
Under file explorer go to data->app and select your APK (which is the package name of the app).
Select it and click on 'Pull a file from the device' button (the one with the save symbol).
This copies the APK to your system. From there you can copy the file to your real device, install and test it.
Good luck !
I cannot install an apk build with "Export Unsigned Application Package" Android SDK feature, but i can install an apk browsing the bin directory of my project after the project buid. I put this apk on my sd on my HTC Wildfire phone, select it and the application install correctly.
You need to allow your phone to install unsigned apk.
Good Luck.
You could also send your testers the apk that is signed with your debug key. You can find that in the bin folder of your project after building in debug mode.
An unsigned application cannot be installed. When we run directly from eclipse, that apk is signed with debugger key and can be found in bin\ folder of the project. You can use that for test purpose distribution also.