How to handle a lost KeyStore password in Android

Question

I have forgotten my Keystore password and I don t really know what to do anymore  I can t or won t give any excuses for it   I want to update my app because I just fixed a bug but it s not possible anymore  What happens if I use the same Keystore but create a new key  Would I still be able to update the app and if it s not possible  how can I go about giving information to users about the updated version   If anybody has had a problem like this or has come across troubles  what advice can you give to help remedy the situation  Fortunately  it is a free app

User · Answer

I m surprised no one has mentioned this  but you can go to Google Play developer support  and they will work with you to create a new upload key  https   support google com googleplay android-developer contact otherbugs I filled an issue  and they contacted me within 1 day  Update  After following their email instructions I was able to create a new upload key  and it was enabled a few days later  Problem solved

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I have experienced same problem  I have tried below steps to solve the problem  -   Create sign apk with creating new keystore and new password  Now create again sign apk by using your old keystore  keystore used at the time of previous apk build upload  but now use new keystore password  Now definitely you will create successfully sign apk using old keystore    Hope this solution will help you

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In case a wrong password is provided  even just once  it keeps saying on next attempts      Keystore tampered with or password incorrect    Even when you provide the correct one  I tried it several times  maybe it s some kind of protection  Close the export wizard and start it again with the correct password  now it works

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Adding this as another possibility  The answer may be right under your nose -- in your app s build gradle file if you happened to have specified a signing configuration at some point in the past   signingConfigs       config           keyAlias  My App          keyPassword  password          storeFile file   storefile location           storePassword  anotherpassword            Do you feel lucky

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In fact  losing thekeystore password is not a problem  You can create a new keystore and set a new password for it with the keytool command below  You don t need original keystore password for it   keytool -importkeystore -srckeystore path to keystore with forgotten pw   -destkeystore path to my new keystore  When prompted  create password for your new keystore and for source keystore password  which you lost  just hit Enter  You will get warning about integrity not checked  and you will get your new keystore identical to original with newly set password    The reason this works is keystore password is only used to provide integrity of the keystore  it does not encrypt data with it  in contrast to private key password  which actually keeps your private key encrypted   Please note  that you must know your private key password to sign your apps  Well  if it is same as forgotten keystore password then you can resort to bruteforce as in  Artur s answer   This approach always worked for me

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I know that this question is AGES old but I saw many answers who were basically saying brute-force is the way to go  which is simply not true because devs usually have a strong and long password  which can t be brute-forced that easily  also it takes days and you have to have your computer running 24 7  so my solution is simple - Contact the support  they will even generate a new key for you  it s the fastest solution you will get

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In terminal go to which might be different in your PC   C  Program Files Java jre1 8 0 241 bin  Then  For Windows  keytool -list -v -keystore C  Users YOURUSERPROFILENAME  android debug keystore -alias androiddebugkey -storepass android -keypass android  For Mac  keytool -list -v -keystore    android debug keystore -alias androiddebugkey -storepass android -keypass android

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First download AndroidKeystoreBrute v1 05 jar and then follow the given image   prepare one wordlistfile like wordlist txt   in that file give your hint like   Password Hint   users  Users  Password  password  pa55word  Password               amp   1  2  123  789  U will get your password

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Today 2 2 2021  I can find my pw in the file name  quot executionHistory bin quot   Let you open it by notepad   and search for key keyPassword  See the attached picture below  https   i stack imgur com NNHFA png

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If you are a Mac user try checking out the Keychain Access application  My password was saved there under Passwords named org jetbrains android exportSignedPackage KeystoreStep KeyStorePasswordRequestor  Alternatively  you can search in the Keychain Access for android to find the password in the Keychain app   Not sure how the password ended up there though  But I don t recall myself putting it there  So must be Android Studio  Hope this is helpful    Note  don t forget to Rebuild Project or Clean Project before you try signing with an updated password  Otherwise  Android Studio may fail to build the apk though the password is correct

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SOLUTION 2019  Windows  Android Studio 3 3  gradle 4 10    This solution only works if  Remember password  checkbox was previously marked   First of all taskArtifacts bin don t exist for this version of gradle and idea log shows asterisks for passwords  This was old days solutions that doesn t worked to me   Where I found the clear text passwords  C  Users  username  AndroidStudioProjects  project  app build intermediates signing config release out signing-config json  Keys  mStorePassword and mKeyPassword   I really hope it helps someone else

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Just to simplify things here  this solution works in 2020 for gradle ver  5 4 1  Open the file  project  gradle 5 4 1 executionHistory bin  Key Store password  Search for  quot storePassword quot  text For Key Password  Search for  quot keyAlias quot  text After search check for the password in the same line or the next line

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SOLUTION 2018  Sign app with new keystore file if you missing password or jks file   1  Create new keystore jks file with comand line  not android studio build menu   keytool -genkeypair -alias upload -keyalg RSA -keysize 2048 -validity 9125 -keystore keystore jks   Windows example    C  Program Files Android Android Studio jre bin keytool exe  -genkeypair -alias upload -keyalg RSA -keysize 2048 -validity 9125 -keystore  C  keystore new jks   2  Generate a  pem file from new keystore  keytool -export -rfc -alias upload -file upload certificate pem -keystore keystore jks   Windows example    C  Program Files Android Android Studio jre bin keytool exe   -export -rfc -alias upload -file   C  upload cert pem  -keystore   C  keystore new jks   3  Use this support form  set  keystore problem  and with attachment add  pem file  https   support google com googleplay android-developer contact otherbugs  4  12-48h you new keystore is enabled  Update your app on playstore with new apk signed with new keystore  D

User · Answer

I faced the same problem also tried various methods to recover   Either I was wrong with  Keystore Password  or  Alice Name   or may be with   JKS  name  So I was not sure about that  what is wrong though I tried all the methods above but unable to track back       There is one technical method I found helpful is Link from Linkedin  Or you can ask help from Google Playstore Support Team in case none of the methods are working i e    Google Playstore Help   Login with you registered email address from where you submitted your android app in Google Playstore  mention proper Developer ID  name  Project Package name as per the real  while submitting the application form through the link      Hope anyone of  the those link will be helpful for you

User · Answer

On a MAC launch Console utility and scrolled down to   Library Logs -  AndroidStudio - idea log 1  or any old log number  Then I searched for  keystore  and it should appear somewhere in the logs   Original question  link

User · Answer

Simplest way to get keystore password  project folder app build intermediates signing config release out signing-config json  Check out this file  search for StorePassword in signing-config json    mName   externalOverride   mStoreFile   C   Users  dAvInDeR  Desktop  KEYSTORE  keystore jks   mStorePassword   1234  abcd   mKeyAlias   uploadkey   mKeyPassword   1234  abcd   mStoreType   jks   mV1SigningEnabled  false  mV2SigningEnabled  false    Hope fully it will help you

User · Answer

See this link  It s unfortunate  but when you lose your keystore  or the password to your keystore  your application is orphaned  The only thing you can do is resubmit your app to the market under a new key   ALWAYS backup up your keystore and write the passwords down in a safe location

User · Answer

Android brute force will not work if your both the passwords are different so the best option might be like that try to find the file named as   log idea   in your  C  users your named account  then you might found that in there in android folder open that file lpg idea in notepad and then search for  alias   using find option in notepad you will find it that the password and alias and alias passwors has been shown there

User · Answer

Well to look up for lost keystore password you can try this  For me the following solution worked pretty well   find the idea log files in   Library Logs AndroidStudio2 0  You can also locate these by opening Android Studio-  Help- Show Log in File manager   Open the idea log file  Note  There may be multiple files named idea log 1  idea log 2 etc  Look through each of them till you find the password   Search for    Pandroid injected signing key password    and you can see the key password   Hope it helps

User · Answer

No need to use brute force a simple way is to find your plain text password   goto   C  Users  lt your username gt  AndroidStudioProjects WhatsAppDP  gradle 2 2 1 taskArtifacts   Open   taskArtifacts bin    when you open taskArtifacts bin might look encrypted  don t worry about that search for   keyPassword  a couple times  Then you will find your password in plain text  It may resemble   signingConfig keyPassword     t  lt your password gt        Hope this was helpful

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I had the same problem at once  Even though with App signing by Google Play  loosing keystore or it s password is not a big deal like earlier  Still as a developer we rather prefer to change it s password and use a generated keystore file without waiting for few days to google to handle it    To handle this issue with google use this link to make a request  To handle this issue by ourselves   First download two  java files from this link  Then compile the ChangePassword java by javac ChangePassword java command  Then after you may run   java ChangePassword  lt oldKeystoreFileName keystore gt   lt newKeystoreFileName keystore gt    Change oldKeystoreFileName keystore with the path  name of your current keystore file  and newKeystoreFileName keystore with path name for the new generated new keystore file  This will promot you to     Enter keystore password      Just enter whatever you prefer    no need to be the original password that lost  Then Enter the new password with       new keystore password     Voila  that s it  This won t change the checksum of your keystore and won t make any issues in app signing or uploading to play google events

User · Answer

C  Users admin AndroidStudioProjects TrumpetTVChannel2 gradle 2 14 1 taskArtifacts taskArtifacts bin  1st  try to create new keystore    then open taskArtifacts bin with notepad and look for password that you just given    you will able to figure out words near to password that you just given then search for these words near to your password in same file    you will able to figure out the password

User · Answer

Android Keystore Password Recovery tool helped me 100  but it takes too much time   For my case it takes my whole night to recover my password

User · Answer

Go to taskhistory bin in  gradle folder of your project search password scroll down till you find the password

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For anyone else who may run across this  I wanted to share an answer that may be the case for you or for others browsing this article  like myself    I am using Eclipse and created my keystore in it for my 1 0 release   Fast forward 3 months and I wanted to update it to 1 1   When I chose Export    in Eclipse and chose that keystore  none of my passwords that I could remember worked   Every time it said  Keystore tampered with or password incorrect    It got to a point where I was getting ready to run a brute force program on it for as long as I could stand  a week or so  to try to get it to work   Luckily  I to sign my unsigned  apk file outside of Eclipse   Voila - it worked   My password had been correct the entire time   I m not sure why  but signing it in Eclipse through the Export menu was reporting an error even when my password was correct   So  if you re getting this error  here are my steps  taken from Android documentation  to help you get your apk ready for the market   NOTE  To get unsigned apk from Eclipse  Right-click project   Android Tools   Export Unsigned Application   Sign unsigned apk file with keystore  a  open administrator cmd prompt and go to  c  Program Files Java jdk1 6 0 25 bin  or whatever version of java you have  where you have copied the unsigned apk file and your keystore   b  at cmd prompt with keystore file and unsigned apk in same directory  type this command  jarsigner -keystore mykeystorename keystore -verbose unsigned apk myaliasnamefromkeystore  c  it will say   Enter Passphrase for keystore     Enter it and press Return   d       Success looks like this    adding  META-INF MANIFEST MF     signing  classes dex   e  the unsigned version is overwritten in place  so your signed apk file is now at the same file name as the unsigned one Use ZipAlign to compact the signed apk file for distribution in the market  a  open admin cmd prompt and go to  c  AndroidSDK tools  or wherever you installed the Android SDK  b  enter this command  zipalign -v 4 signed apk signedaligned apk  c       Success looks like this   Verifying alignment of signedaligned apk  4  50 META-INF MANIFEST MF  OK - compressed      1047129 classes dex  OK - compressed  Verification succesful   d  the signed and aligned file is at signedaligned apk  the filename you specified in the previous command              READY TO SUBMIT TO MARKETPLACE

User · Answer

Brute is your best bet   Here is a  script that helped me out   https   code google com p android-keystore-password-recover wiki HowTo  You can optionally give it a list of words the password might include for a very fast recover  for me it worked in  lt 1 sec

User · Answer

In Ionic I was able to find it here   app platforms android app build intermediates signing config release out signing-config json   Maybe this will help someone  cheers

User · Answer

It may be bit late but it will help someone for sure You can search password if you remember something otherwise try searching like   signingConfig storePassword  also if you forgot key alias you can find here that also search something like signingConfig keyAlias     Project gradle 3 3 taskArtifacts taskArtifacts bin     Hope it will help someone

User · Answer

To summarise there are 3 answers to this question  and the solution is not given by the accepted answer     If you have your logs intact  then you can find the password in the Android Studio log files as per Georgi Koemdzhiev s answer above  You can retrieve the password from the  taskArtifacts bin  file in your  gradle directory as per ElDoRado1239 s and Gueorgui Obregon s answers above  This doesn t seem to work for newer versions of Gradle  2 10 and above   Use AndroidKeystoreBrute to guess or bruteforce your password as per Srinivas Keerthiprakasam s answer above    All these 3 solutions are covered in-depth at this link

User · Answer

I have found the password in   C  Users  Username   AndroidStudio2 2 system log idea txt   Search for  Pandroid injected signing store password

User · Answer

IF you re able to build your app from a PC  but you don t recall the password  here s what you can do to retrieve the password   Method 1   In your build gradle  add println MYAPP RELEASE KEY PASSWORD as below   signingConfigs       release           if  project hasProperty  MYAPP RELEASE STORE FILE                  storeFile file MYAPP RELEASE STORE FILE              storePassword MYAPP RELEASE STORE PASSWORD             keyAlias MYAPP RELEASE KEY ALIAS             keyPassword MYAPP RELEASE KEY PASSWORD             println MYAPP RELEASE KEY PASSWORD                     After that  run cd android  amp  amp    gradlew assembleRelease    Method 2    Run keytool -list -v -keystore your  lt  keystore file path gt  e g  keytool -list -v -keystore   app my-app-key keystore   It will ask for you to Enter keystore password  Just press enter key here  and you will be able to find  mapped to Alias name   Then  run grep -rn   lt your alias name gt     in your terminal and you will be able to see your signing json file as below     app build intermediates signing config release out signing-config json   The file will have your password in json format with key  mKeyPassword     lt  your password

User · Answer

Fortunately  I found my lost password along with the keystore path and alias name from my Android studio logs   if you are running linux   Unix based machines    Navigate to Library Logs directory  cd   Library Logs    in there if you remember your android studio version which you used to build the last release APK  Navigate to that Directory  ex   cd AndroidStudio1 5   In there you will find the log files  in any of the log files  idea log  you will find your keystore credentials  example   -Pandroid injected signing store file  Users myuserid AndroidStudioProjects keystore keystore jks   -Pandroid injected signing store password mystorepassword   -Pandroid injected signing key alias myandroidkey   -Pandroid injected signing key password mykeypassword    I hope this helps for Android Studio users

User · Answer

In my case I had upgraded my Android Studio from 2 3 to 3 0 1  When I trying to generate a signed apk for a new update I got  Keystore was tampered with  or password was incorrect  error  I had my previous Keystore and I was absolutely sure of the password  using them I had updated the app before a couple of times  After searching a lot none of the solutions worked for me  Here is what I did    Opened another project  Imported my project using File New Import Project Once Gradle was built I tried to generate a signed apk  Build Generate signed APK Clicked on  Choose Existing  and provided the path to my Keystore  typed in my key store password selected the key alias typed in my key password  In my case both key store password and key password are the same  Clicked next and provided a path for the new Apk and checked both checkboxes   New APK got generated successfully     Hope this helps anyone

User · Answer

Just encountered this problem myself - luckily I was able to find the password in some Gradle s temporary file  Just in case anyone lands here  try looking for this file   Project  gradle 2 4 taskArtifacts taskArtifacts bin  or   gradle 3 5 taskHistory taskHistory bin  gradle 5 1 1 executionHistory executionHistory bin  gradle caches 5 1 1 executionHistory executionHistory bin  gradle 5 1 1 executionHistory executionHistory bin  gradle 3 5 taskHistory taskHistory bin  gradle 2 10 taskArtifacts taskArtifacts bin  and search for storePassword  It was there in cleartext  In general  if you do remember at least a part of your password  try searching for a file containing this substring and hopefully you will fish out something  Wanted to throw it out here  maybe it will eventually help someone   Edit   Added new insight from comments  just to be more visible  Edit 2   Added some more locations reported in comments  Thanks to Vivek Bansal  Amar Ilindra and Uzbekjon for these

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I feel I need to make it an answer because this could not be just in comments   Like  ElDoRado1239 says in his answer  dont forget to upvote his answer      Looks for   Project  gradle 2 4 taskArtifacts taskArtifacts bin in my case was in   Project  gradle 2 2 1 taskArtifacts taskArtifacts bin because I use gradle 2 2 1 Then look for storePassword like  Moxet Khan says in comments   in my case was at line signingConfig storePassword     t my forgoten password   signingConfig keyAlias   Hope help somebody else

User · Answer

Finally i found the solution after spending two days     Follow these steps    Go to project In  gradle find your gradle version folder in my case it was 4 1  Refer pic  expand the 4 1 folder and then in taskHistory folder you will find taskHistory bin file  Open taskHistory bin file in android studio itself  Search for   storePassword     That s it you got your keystore password    This really worked to me   Try this and happy coding

User · Answer

If Nothing work try these line  Move to the path where  jks is stored  Run this command in command prompt  It will ask for password  ignore that and press enter     keytool -list -keystore sample jks

User · Answer

You can contact Google Play Console Support with this issue and they will be able to reset the keystore for you to a new keystore  Then you will be able to publish future updates without having to to change the package name  and therefore you will be able to continue to be able to update the same app  In the play console click the help button at the top  gt  Scroll down to heed more help and click  quot Contact Us quot   gt  Type in you need help with a Keystore Reset  gt  Click  quot next step quot   gt  Click  quot Upload key reset request quot   gt  Click  quot Contact Google Play Developer Support quot   gt  Then choose a contact method to contact them to reset it for you

User · Answer

In my case I was getting the alias name wrong  even though I stored the correct password  So I thought it was the wrong password  using ionic package  so i used this command to get the alias name  keytool -list -v -keystore   And I was able to use the keystore again

User · Answer

Open taskHistory bin and search for storePassword

User · Answer

After spending almost a day in researching the possible options for recovering the lost keystore password in Android Studio  I found the following 4 possible ways to do it    Use AndroidKeystoreBrute to retrieve your password  This method is quite useful when you partially forgot your password means you still have some hints of your password in your mind   You can also retrieve it through Android Studio log files if you have  previously released the app for which you finding the keystore password  with the same machine  Refer to the following directory   Mac OSX       Library Logs AndroidStudio idea log 1   Linux  Possible Location       home user name AndroidStudio system log   Windows  Possible Location      C  Users user name AndroidStudio system log   and search for Pandroid injected signing key password inside the file  You gonna see the password if you have previously signed the app with the same Android Studio version in which you are looking currently   You can also retrieve the password through  gradle directory of your project  Look for the following path     project directory  gradle 2 4 taskArtifacts taskArtifacts bin       Note  This doesn t seem to work for newer versions of Gradle  2 10 and above     If none of the above solutions works then you can try this one but for this one also you must have Android Studio IDE app or It s preferences in which your project keystore password have been saved earlier  Using the Remember password option at the time of signing the app   You can get the IDE preferences from the following path   Mac OSX       Library Logs AndroidStudio idea log 1   Linux  Possible Location       home user name AndroidStudio   Windows  Possible Location      c  user username  AndroidStudio   Just use the older Android Studio IDE if you have or import the preferences of the old IDE into new IDE and also put the keystore file in the same path where it was previously when you had signed it and save the password last time    In this way once you open the project and try the Build- Generate Signed APK and select the keystore file from the older location  It will automatically retrieve the password and continue to generate the signed APK for release   Once the release APK generates successfully you can follow the option 2 mentioned earlier to check your password from you log file for the recently generated release APK

[android] How to handle a lost KeyStore password in Android?

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