How do I get the APK of an installed app without root access

Question

I m trying to extract the APK file of an installed Android app WITHOUT root permissions   I thought that this was impossible  because all APK files for non-system-apps are located in  data app  and accessing this folder requires root permission  Then I found that there are numerous apps in the Google Play store that seem to have access to the APK files even on non-rooted devices   Can someone tell me how this is possible  Aren t there backup apps which backup the APK files without root

User · Answer

List PackageManager getInstalledApplications   will give you a list of the installed applications  and ApplicationInfo sourceDir is the path to the  apk file      in oncreate    PackageManager pm   getPackageManager        for  ApplicationInfo app   pm getInstalledApplications 0      Log d  PackageList    package      app packageName      sourceDir      app sourceDir         output is something like D PackageList 5010   package  com example xmlparse  sourceDir   data app    com example xmlparse-2 apk D PackageList 5010   package  com examples android calendar  sourceDir   data app com examples android calendar-2 apk D PackageList 5010   package  com facebook katana  sourceDir   data app com facebook katana-1 apk D PackageList 5010   package  com facebook samples profilepicture  sourceDir   data app com facebook samples profilepicture-1 apk D PackageList 5010   package  com facebook samples sessionlogin  sourceDir   data app com facebook samples sessionlogin-1 apk D PackageList 5010   package  com fitworld  sourceDir   data app com fitworld-2 apk D PackageList 5010   package  com flipkart android  sourceDir   data app com flipkart android-1 apk D PackageList 5010   package  com fmm dm  sourceDir   system app FmmDM apk D PackageList 5010   package  com fmm ds  sourceDir   system app FmmDS apk

User · Answer

Android appends a sequence number to the package name to produce the final APK file name  it s possible that this varies with the version of Android OS   The following sequence of commands works on a non-rooted device    Get the full path name of the APK file for the desired package   adb shell pm path com example someapp   This gives the output as  package  data app com example someapp-2 apk  Pull the APK file from the Android device to the development box   adb pull  data app com example someapp-2 apk    The location of APK after successful pulling will be at    sdk platform-tools base apk on your pc laptop

User · Answer

On Nougat 7 0  Android version run adb shell pm list packages to list the packages installed on the device  Then run adb shell pm path your-package-name to show the path of the apk  After use adb to copy the package to Downloads adb shell cp  data app com test-1 base apk  storage emulated 0 Download  Then pull the apk from Downloads to your machine by running adb pull  storage emulated 0 Download base apk

User · Answer

Open ES explorer -  push Menu button at the left upper corner  three horizontal stripes  -  in the Libraries section choose APPs    Thus  you get the list of all the user apps  Find your app and select it with long pushing on it  Then press  More  in the right low corner and choose  Send   Then you can use different options  e g  you can choose  ES Save To  in order to save the  apk file to your home directory or anywhere else

User · Answer

I got a does not exist error  Here is how I make it works    adb shell pm list packages -f   findstr zalo  package  data app com zing zalo-1 base apk com zing zalo  adb shell  mido     cp  data app com zing zalo-1 base apk  sdcard zalo apk mido     exit   adb pull  sdcard zalo apk Desktop   sdcard zalo apk  1 file pulled  7 7 MB s  41895394 bytes in 5 200s

User · Answer

I found a way to get the APK s package name in a non-root device   it s not so elegant  but works all the time   Step 1  on your device  open the target APK  Step 2  on PC cmd window  type this commands    adb shell dumpsys activity a  gt  dump txt   because the output of this command is numerous  redirect to a file is recommended   Step 3  open this dump txt file with any editor   for device befor Android 4 4  the beginning of the file would be looked like this   ACTIVITY MANAGER ACTIVITIES  dumpsys activity activities      Main stack        TaskRecord 41aa9ed0  4 A com tencent mm U 0        numActivities 1 rootWasReset true userId 0       affinity com tencent mm       intent  act android intent action MAIN cat  android intent category LAUNCHER  flg 0x10600000 cmp com tencent mm  ui LauncherUI        realActivity com tencent mm  ui LauncherUI       askedCompatMode false       lastThumbnail null lastDescription null       lastActiveTime 19915965  inactive for 10s          Hist  9  ActivityRecord 41ba1a30 u0 com tencent mm  ui LauncherUI            packageName com tencent mm processName com tencent mm    the package name is in the 3rd line  com tencent mm for this example   for Android 4 4 and later  the dumpsys output has changed a little   try search  Stack  1   the package name would be very close below it   Also  search  baseDir   you will find the full path of the apk file

User · Answer

Accessing  data app is possible without root permission  the permissions on that directory are rwxrwx--x  Execute permission on a directory means you can access it  however lack of read permission means you cannot obtain a listing of its contents -- so in order to access it you must know the name of the file that you will be accessing  Android s package manager will tell you the name of the stored apk for a given package   To do this from the command line  use adb shell pm list packages to get the list of installed packages and find the desired package   With the package name  we can get the actual file name and location of the APK using adb shell pm path your-package-name   And knowing the full directory  we can finally pull the adb using adb pull full directory of the apk  Credit to  tarn for pointing out that under Lollipop  the apk path will be  data app your-package-name-1 base apk

User · Answer

check the list of installed apk s  following command also list the path where it is installed and package name   adb shell pm list packages -f use adb pull  package path package name  path in pc  package path and package name one can get from above command 1

User · Answer

Or you can get  Bluetooth File Transfer  from Google Play and set the home folder to  system    Then you can even go to

User · Answer

When you have Eclipse for Android developement installed    Use your device as debugging device  On your phone  Settings   Applications   Development and enable USB debugging  see http   developer android com tools device html In Eclipse  open DDMS-window  Window   Open Perspective   Other      DDMS  see http   developer android com tools debugging ddms html If you can t see your device try  re installing USB-Driver for your device In middle pane select tab  File Explorer  and go to system   app Now you can select one or more files and then click the  Pull a file from the device  icon at the top  right to the tabs  Select target folder - tada

User · Answer

You don t need ROOT permissions to get the list of Installed Apps   You can do it with android PackageManager   Below is a small code snippet   final PackageManager pm   getPackageManager      get a list of installed apps  List lt ApplicationInfo gt  packages    pm getInstalledApplications PackageManager GET META DATA    for  ApplicationInfo packageInfo   packages        Log d TAG   Installed package      packageInfo packageName       Log d TAG   Apk file path     packageInfo sourceDir

[android] How do I get the APK of an installed app without root access?

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