Extracting .apk files from your Android
Ok, so the story behind this mini-tutorial is that I live with other people that have Galaxies and I upgrade their phones periodically, as part of the upgrade process I have to wipe the phones and a nandroid backup doesn't always work (like if you go from 1.5 to 1.6.3.4) and with the wipe some important things are lost: APN settings, Hebrew fonts, Hebrew Keyboard, etc.

I have to install the keyboard, fonts, script utility, etc. every time on every phone; some of these apps are in the market, but to use the market you need to do the setup wizard to add your Google account to the phone. And sine sometimes the owners of the phones aren't around, I need to have the .apk files with the apps I need to install so I can do it without downloading them from the market.

Hence, I had to figure out a way to extract the .apk files from my phone so I could install them on theirs.

Here's how it's done:


There are two ways of extracting .apk files from your device:
  1. Using a file manager like "EStrongs File Manager" or "ASTRO File Manger" (downloadable from the Market), or
  2. Manually extracting .apk files through the Android SDK.


Method #1 - Using a file manager
  • Prerequisite: Rooted device

Using ES File Manager
  • Open ES File Manager
  • Click on the menu button of your device
  • Click on "Manager"
  • Click on "App Manager"
  • Long press on app you want to extract
  • Click on "backup"
  • Extracted .apk files will be placed on the "backups" directory of your sd card

Using ASTRO
  • Open ASTRO File Manager
  • Click on the menu button of your device
  • Click on "tools"
  • Click on "Application Manager/Backup"
  • Choose apps to backup and click on "backup" to finish
  • Extracted .apk files will be placed on the "backups" directory of your sd card



Method #2 - Using the Android SDK

  • Prerequisites:
         - Rooted phone
         - Android SDK (follow Step 2.1 of this tutorial to install the Android SDK)
         - Android USB driver (to get your computer to recognize your phone, follow Step 1 of this tutorial)


To extract a .apk file from your device using the Android SDK:

  1. Plug your “Rooted” Android device into your computer via the included USB cable.
  2. From your adb command line (usually C:\android-sdk-windows\tools\) type “adb shell“ and press enter
  3. Switch to root user, type “su“ and press enter
  4. type “cd data/app“ and press enter
  5. List all the installed apk files, type “ls“ and press enter (find the one you want to extract)
  6. In another command window, pull one of the files on to your computer by typing:
    “adb pull /data/app/application.apk name.apk” and press enter
    Example:
    “adb pull data/app/com.mauri.aplikeishon.apk aplikeishon.apk”

You can find the extracted .apk files in the /tools/ directory of your SDK (usually C:\android-sdk-windows\tools\)



Hope you found this tutorial useful. Show your appreciation by clicking. Thanks!

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