Is there a way to get the source code from an APK file

Question

The hard drive on my laptop just crashed and I lost all the source code for an app that I have been working on for the past two months  All I have is the APK file that is stored in my email from when I sent it to a friend    Is there any way to extract my source code from this APK file

User · Answer

apktool will work  You don t even need to know the keystore to extract the source code  which is a bit scary   The main downside is that the source is presented in Smali format instead of Java  Other files such as the icon and main xml come through perfectly fine though and it may be worth your time to at least recover those  Ultimately  you will most likely need to re-write your Java code from scratch   You can find apktool here  Simply just download apktool and the appropriate helper  for Windows  Linux  or Mac OS   I recommend using a tool such as 7-zip to unpack them

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Step 1  Make a new folder and copy over the  apk file that you want to decode  Now rename the extension of this  apk file to  zip  e g  rename from filename apk to filename zip  and save it  Now you can access the classes dex files  etc  At this stage you are able to see drawables but not xml and java files  so continue  Step 2  Now extract this  zip file in the same folder  or NEW FOLDER   Download https   github com pxb1988 dex2jar releases tag 2 0   dex2jar-2 0 Now open command prompt and change directory to that folder  or NEW FOLDER   Then execute   d2j-dex2jar bat classes dex Download this decompiler http   java-decompiler github io  to decompile classes-dex2jar jar Step 3  Now open another new folder Put in the  apk file which you want to decode Download the latest version of apktool AND apktool  https   ibotpeaches github io Apktool install   install window  both can be downloaded from the same link  and place them in the same folder Open a command window Now run command like apktool if framework-res apk  if you don t have it get it here and next apktool d myApp apk  where myApp apk denotes the filename that you want to decode  now you get a file folder in that folder and can easily read the apk s xml files  Copycontents of both folders to a single folder Done

User · Answer

apktool is THE way to go  Online apktool service exists as well  http   www javadecompilers com apktool  Some limitations  obviously  exist due to the service    online nature     you may extract and research assets and the manifest file  but it is impossible to recompile the application at the moment   Still  this is a no-hassle way to  open  the android application

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While you may be able to decompile your APK file  you will likely hit one big issue    it s not going to return the code you wrote  It is instead going to return whatever the compiler inlined  with variables given random names  as well as functions given random names  It could take significantly more time to try to decompile and restore it into the code you had  than it will be to start over   Sadly  things like this have killed many projects  For the future  I highly recommend learning a Version Control System  like CVS  SVN and git etc   and how to back it up

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Android studio offers you to analyse any apk file   1 - From build menu choose analyse apk option and select apk file  2 - This will result in you the classes dex file and other files  3 - Click on classes dex which will give you the list of folders  packages  libraries and files  4 - From and android studio settings install a plugin called  Dex to Jar   5 - click on any activity file of your extracted project and choose dex to jar from the build menu   This will result in you the actual code of your java file   Cheers

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Simple way  use online tool https   www decompiler com   upload apk and get source code   Procedure for decoding  apk files  step-by-step method  Step 1   Make a new folder and copy over the  apk file that you want to decode   Now rename the extension of this  apk file to  zip  e g  rename from filename apk to filename zip  and save it  Now you can access the classes dex files  etc  At this stage you are able to see drawables but not xml and java files  so continue    Step 2   Now extract this  zip file in the same folder  or NEW FOLDER    Download dex2jar and extract it to the same folder  or NEW FOLDER    Move the classes dex file into the dex2jar folder   Now open command prompt and change directory to that folder  or NEW FOLDER   Then write d2j-dex2jar classes dex  for mac terminal or ubuntu write   d2j-dex2jar sh classes dex  and press enter  You now have the classes dex dex2jar file in the same folder   Download java decompiler  double click on jd-gui  click on open file  and open classes dex dex2jar file from that folder  now you get class files   Save all of these class files  In jd-gui  click File - gt  Save All Sources  by src name  At this stage you get the java source but the  xml files are still unreadable  so continue    Step 3  Now open another new folder  Put in the  apk file which you want to decode  Download the latest version of apktool AND apktool install window  both can be downloaded from the same link  and place them in the same folder  Open a command window  Now run command like apktool if framework-res apk  if you don t have it get it here and next  apktool d myApp apk   where myApp apk denotes the filename that you want to decode    now you get a file folder in that folder and can easily read the apk s xml files  Step 4  It s not any step  just copy contents of both folders in this case  both new folders  to the single one and enjoy the source code

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I ve been driving myself crazy for days trying to get dex2jar to work on a fedora 31 laptop against an apk that just wasn t going to work   This python 3 script did the trick in minutes and installing jd-gui made class files human readable     http   java-decompiler github io   https   github com Storyyeller enjarify  specifically  here s what I ran     i installed apktool before the rest of the stuff  may not need it but here it is   gt  cd  opt   gt  sudo mkdir apktool   gt  cd apktool    gt  sudo wget https   raw githubusercontent com iBotPeaches Apktool master scripts linux apktool   gt  sudo wget https   bitbucket org iBotPeaches apktool downloads apktool 2 4 1 jar   gt  sudo mv apktool 2 4 1 jar apktool jar   gt  sudo mv apktool   usr bin    gt  sudo chmod a x  usr bin apktool     and enjarify   gt  cd  opt   gt  sudo git clone https   github com Storyyeller enjarify git   gt  cd enjarify    gt  sudo ln -s  opt enjarify enjarify sh  usr bin enjarify    and finally jd-gui   gt  cd  opt   gt  sudo git clone https   github com java-decompiler jd-gui git   gt  cd jd-gui    gt  sudo   gradlew build    I made an alias to kick of the jd-gui with short commandline rather than long java -jar blahblahblah      gt  echo  jd-gui  java -jar  opt jd-gui build launch4j lib jd-gui-1 6 6 jar    gt  gt     bashrc   Now one should be able to rum the following to get class files     gt  enjarify yourapkfile apk   And to start jd-gui     gt  jd-gui   Then just open your class files

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There s an app for that and generally takes just a few clicks and you are done  https   github com Nuvolect DeepDive-Android   Select Apps  under  Installed Apps  select your app  If it is not there you can load the APK   Select  Extract APK   Select  Unpack APK  Select  Decompile with Jadx   This can take a few seconds or a few minutes depending  on the speed of your device   After that you can browse the source code  download it to another computer with elFinder or search through it using Lucene   In addition to Jadx it has CFR and Fernflower decompilers

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Use this tool http   www javadecompilers com   But recently  a new wave of decompilers has forayed onto the market   Procyon   CFR   JD   Fernflower   Krakatau   Candle   Here s a list of decompilers presented on this site   CFR -  Free  no source-code available  http   www benf org other cfr  Author  Lee Benfield  Very well-updated decompiler  CFR is able to decompile modern Java features - Java 9 modules  Java 8 lambdas  Java 7 String switches etc  It ll even make a decent go of turning class files from other JVM langauges back into java   JD -  free for non-commercial use only  http   jd benow ca  Author  Emmanuel Dupuy  Updated in 2015  Has its own visual interface and plugins to Eclipse and IntelliJ   Written in C    so very fast  Supports Java 5   Procyon -  open-source  https   bitbucket org mstrobel procyon wiki Java 20Decompiler Author  Mike Strobel  Fernflower -  open-source  https   github com fesh0r fernflower Author  Egor Ushakov  Updated in 2015  Very promising analytical Java decompiler  now becomes an integral part of IntelliJ 14   https   github com JetBrains intellij-community tree master plugins java-decompiler  Supports Java up to version 6  Annotations  generics  enums   JAD -  given here only for historical reason  Free  no source-code available  jad download mirror Author  Pavel Kouznetsov

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based on your condition  if your android apk   Condition1  NOT harden  by Tencent Legu Qihoo 360       Choice1  using online service  such as    using www javadecompilers com  goto    http   www javadecompilers com apk   Note  internally using Jadx    to auto decode from apk to java sourcecode  steps   upload apk file   click Run   wait some time   click Download to get zip   unzip -   sources com  yourCompanyName   yourProjectName   is your expected java source code  Choice2  decompile crack by yourself  use related tool to decompile crack by yourself   use jadx jadx-gui convert apk to java sourcecode  download jadx-0 9 0 zip then unzip to got bin jadx  then    command line mode    in terminal run  jadx-0 9 0 bin jadx -o output folder  path to your apk your apk file apk output folder will show decoded sources and resources   sources com  yourCompanyName   yourProjectName  is your expected java sourcecode   GUI mode   double click to run jadx-0 9 0 bin jadx-gui  Linux s jadx-gui sh   Windows s jadx-gui bat   open apk file it will auto decoding -  see your expected java sourcecode save all or save as Gradle project    eg     Condition2  harden  by Tencent Legu Qihoo 360       the main method of 3 steps    apk app to dex dex to jar jar to java src   detailed explanation   Step1  apk app to dex  use tool  FDex2 DumpDex  dump hook out  one or multiple  dex file from running app  steps   prepare environment   a rooted android   real phone or emulator   here using Chinese Nox App Player              install your android apk   to the phone or emulator  installed Xposed Installer     install FDex2 DumpDex into XPosed and enable it    Note  need restart Xposed to make FDex2 work FDex2 download address  Chinese         FDex2-CSDN       https   pan baidu com s 1lTF8CN96bxWpFwv7J174lg      3e3t   install your android apk to phone emulator   dump out dex from running app   run FDex2 then click your apk name to enable later to capture hook out dex      in phone emulator  run your app find and copy out the dump out whole apk resources in  data data com yourCompanyName yourProjectName   in its root folder normally will find several dex file     Step2   dex to jar  use tool  dex2jar  convert  the specific  containing app logic  dex file to jar file  download dex2jar got dex-tools-2 1-SNAPSHOT zip  unzip got dex-tools-2 1-SNAPSHOT d2j-dex2jar sh  then  sh dex-tools-2 1-SNAPSHOT d2j-dex2jar sh -f your dex name dex  eg   dex-tools-2 1-SNAPSHOT d2j-dex2jar sh -f com xxx yyy8825612 dex dex2jar com xxx yyy8825612 dex - gt    com xxx yyy8825612-dex2jar jar   Step3  jar to java src  use one of tools    Jadx Procyon   GUI tool based on procyon     Luyten Bytecode Viewer   CRF JD-GUI some others    Krakatau Fernflower Cavaj    convert jar to java src  for from jar to java src converting effect    Jadx   Procyon   CRF    JD-GUI  so recommend use  Jadx jadx-gui  steps    double click to run jadx-gui open dex file File -  save all   eg     exported java src       More detailed explanation can see my online ebook Chinese tutorial                 tutorial s source code on github  crifan android app security crack

User · Answer

1  Extracting the source from a native Android application The source code of a native Android application is not difficult to obtain  but it does require extra tools that are compatible with Windows  Mac  and Linux  My personal favorites when it comes to tools are dex2jar and JD-GUI  If you   re unfamiliar with these tools  dex2jar will read Dalvik Executable files and convert them to the standard JAR format  JD-GUI will read JAR files and decompile the class files found in them  To make the extraction process easier to understand  let   s start by creating a fresh native Android project  android create project --target 19 --name TestProject --path   --activity TestProjectActivity --package com nraboy testproject  The above command will leave you with an Android project in your current command prompt path  Since our project has an Activity class already included  lets jump straight into the build process  You can give me a hard time all day long about using Ant instead of Gradle or Maven  but for this tutorial I   m going to stick with it  ant debug  The above command will create a debug build typically found at bin TestProject-debug apk  Using your favorite unzip tool  extract the APK file  7-zip is a popular tool  but if you   re on a Mac you can just run the following from the Terminal  unzip TestProject-debug apk  This will leave us with a bunch of files and folders  but one is important to us  Make note of classes dex because it contains all of our source code  To convert it into something readable we need to run dex2jar on it  You can use dex2jar on Mac  Linux  and Windows  but I   m going to explain from a Mac perspective  With the classes dex file in your extracted dex2jar directory  run the following from the Terminal    dex2jar sh classes dex  Open the JD-GUI application that you downloaded because it is now time to decode the JAR and packaged class files  Open the freshly created classes dex2jar jar file and you should see something like the following   See how easy it was to get to the source code of your native Android APK  Now what can you do to better protect yourself  The Android SDK ships with Proguard  which is a obfuscation module  What is obfuscation you ask  Obfuscation via Wikipedia   Obfuscation  or beclouding  is the hiding of intended meaning in communication  making communication confusing  willfully ambiguous  and harder to interpret   While obfuscation will not encrypt your source code  it will make it more difficult to make sense of  With Proguard configured  run Ant in release mode and your code should be obfuscated on build  2  Extracting the source from a hybrid Android application The source code of hybrid applications are by far the easiest to extract  You don   t need any extra software installed on your computer  just access to the APK file  To make things easier to understand  lets first create a fresh Apache Cordova project and then extract it  Start by doing the following  cordova create TestProject com example testproject TestProject cd TestProject cordova platform add android  During the project creation process you are left with the default Apache Cordova CSS  HTML  and JavaScript templates  That is fine for us in this example  Let   s go ahead and build our project into a distributed APK file  cordova build android  You   re going to be left with platforms android ant-build CordovaApp-debug apk or something along the lines of platforms android ant-build  -debug apk  Even though this is a debug build  it is still very usable  With 7-zip or similar installed  right click the APK file and choose to extract or unzip it  In the extracted directory  you should now have access to all your web based source files  I say web based because any Java files used by Apache Cordova will have been compiled into class files  However  CSS  HTML  and JavaScript files do not get touched  You just saw how depressingly easy it is to get hybrid application source code  So what can you do to better protect yourself  You can uglify your code  which is a form of obfuscation  Doing this will not encrypt your code  but it will make it that much more difficult to make sense of  If you want to uglify your code  I recommend you install UglifyJS since it is pretty much the standard as of now  If you prefer to use a task runner  Grunt and Gulp have modules for UglifyJS as well

User · Answer

These two articles describe how to combine the use of apktool and dex2jar to take an APK file and create an Eclipse project that can build and run it      http   blog inyourbits com 2012 11 extending-existing-android-applications html      http   blog inyourbits com 2012 12 extending-existing-android-applications html   Basically you    Use apktool to get the resource files out of the apk Use dex2jar to get a jar file that contains the classes in a format that Eclipse will like  Create an Eclipse project point it at the resource files and the new jar file Open the jar file with a zip utility and delete the existing resources Open the jar file with JDGui to view the source code Take whatever source code you need from JDGui  stick it in a class inside Eclipse and modify it Delete that class from the jar file  so you don t have the same class defined multiple times  Run it

User · Answer

Below ONLINE tool    http   www javadecompilers com apk   it do ALL by one click  decompiled  java files   resources   xml  in one  zip file  with very good decompiler  jadx return java code in places functions  where other compiles return comments inside function like  unable to decompile  or some android assembler machine code

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Apktool for reverse engineering 3rd party  closed  binary Android apps    It can decode resources to nearly original form and rebuild them after making some modifications    It makes possible to debug smali code step by step  Also it makes working with an app easier because of project-like file structure and automation of some repetitive tasks like building apk  etc   http   ibotpeaches github io Apktool

User · Answer

This site https   www apkdecompilers com  did it automatically   I tried the site mentioned in the accepted answer first but that didn t work for me

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There is also a new application on the Play Store with which it is possible to decompile an apk  system applications too  and view the source code right on your smartphone  It saves the files to your SD card so you can view it on your computer too  It does not require root or something else    Just install and have fun  I think this is the easiest way to decompile an app

User · Answer

The simplest way is using Apk OneClick Decompiler  That is a tool package to decompile  amp  disassemble APKs  android packages    FEATURES   All features are integrated into the right-click menu of Windows  Decompile APK classes to Java source codes  Disassemble APK to smali code and decode its resources  Install APK to phone by right-click  Recompile APK after editing smali code and or resources  During recompile  Optimize png images Sign apks Zipalign   REQUIREMENTS  Java Runtime Environment  JRE  must be installed   You can download it from this link Apk OneClick Decompiler  Enjoy that

User · Answer

apktool is the best thing you can try  I have saved some xml with it  but honestly I don t know how it will work with the  java code   I would recommend you to have a code repository even if your are the only coder  I ve been using Project Locker for my own projects  It gives you free svn and git repos

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There are lots of applications and methods in the market to decompile the apk file into java class but if the app is compiled with ProGuard rule then you are in a big trouble because this rule will shrink all the dex files into a small character name and then you can not trace back the implementation  see https   developer android com studio build shrink-code for mode clarification  Happy Coding

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There are a few ways to do this    Use the  Profile or Debug APK  feature in Android Studio 3 0   It allows you to open and explore APKs in Android Studio  Classes are decompiled into smali  Resources are not extracted and things like  Go to Definition    Find All References  and debugging don t work without the source code  android studio 3 0 canary 9   Some additional smali features might work with smalidea        Use jadx   Jadx decompiles the code in a given APK to java source files    Use apktool   Apktool is a command line tool which extracts resources and decompiles code into smali for a given apk  You can recompile using apktool also  Here s an example of it in action     apktool d test apk I  Using Apktool 2 2 4 on test apk I  Loading resource table    I  Decoding AndroidManifest xml with resources    I  Loading resource table from file  1 apk I  Regular manifest package    I  Decoding file-resources    I  Decoding values     XMLs    I  Baksmaling classes dex    I  Copying assets and libs    I  Copying unknown files    I  Copying original files      apktool b test I  Using Apktool 2 2 4 on test I  Checking whether sources has changed    I  Smaling smali folder into classes dex    I  Checking whether resources has changed    I  Building resources    I  Building apk file    I  Copying unknown files dir

User · Answer

I personally recommend Show Java Android App to get the source code  You can download it from play store or from here

User · Answer

May be the easy one to see the source   In Android studio 2 3  Build - gt  Analyze APK - gt  Select the apk that you want to decompile  You will see it s source code   Link for reference  https   medium com google-developers making-the-most-of-the-apk-analyzer-c066cb871ea2

User · Answer

I found the following as the simplest method    Rename your app apk to app zip  Change extension from apk to zip  Extract the zip file into a folder Use JADX tool to read the source code  present in classes dex file

User · Answer

I ll show you other way to decompile the  apk files   You can follow the first 2 steps from  prankul garg   So you have another opportunities   Step 3    Download the  JD-GUI   thats easy to found this one  Open your  jar file in  jd-gui exe    File   Open file    found your  jar file    After this procedure  you can save all resources in a  zip file   So    1st - You have to rename the  apk file to  zip  2nd - You have to decode  dex file  if you want  decode the  apk file to dex2jar  that s possible   3rd - You have to decode  jar file with JD-GUI

User · Answer

Yes  it is possible   There are tons of software available to reverse engineer an android  apk file   Recently  I had compiled an ultimate list of 47 best APK decompilers on my website  I arranged them into 4 different sections    Open Source APK Decompilers Online APK Decompilers APK Decompiler for Windows  Mac or Linux APK Decompiler Apps   I hope this collection will be helpful to you   Link  https   www edopedia com blog best-apk-decompilers

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I developed a Tool - Code Analyzer  it runs in iPhone iPad Mac  to analyze Java Android files  https   decompile io

User · Answer

You can try DexPatcher  It even integrates with Android Studio  It uses Apktool and Dex2Jar internally  You can use those tools independently as well  Apktool decompiles apk  and extracts  dex files  which can further be converted to jar using Dex2Jar  Jar can be decompiled by using JD-GUI  You can see the Java code with the help of that tool  Although the similarity of decompiled code to the actual code cannot be guaranteed  There are some advanced code obfuscation tools available in the market  which mess up the code to make it difficult to decompile    understand  eg  Proguard

User · Answer

This is an alternative description - just in case someone got stuck with the description above  Follow the steps    download apktool bat  or apktool for Linux  and apktool  lt version gt  jar from  http   ibotpeaches github io Apktool install   rename the jar file from above to apktool jar and put both files in the same folder open a dos box  cmd exe  and change into that folder  verify that a Java Environment is installed  for Linux check the notes regarding required libraries as well  Start  apktool decode  apk file   Intermediate result  resource files  AndroidManifest xml unzip APK file with an unpacker of your choice Intermediate result  classes dex download and extract dex2jar-0 0 9 15 zip from http   code google com p dex2jar downloads detail name dex2jar-0 0 9 15 zip amp can 2 amp q  drag and drop classes dex onto dex2jar bat  or enter  lt path to gt  dex2jar bat classes dex in a DOS box  for Linux use dex2jar sh  Intermediate result  classes dex2jar jar unpack classes dex2jar jar  might be optional depending on used decompiler  decompile your class files  e g  with JD-GUI or DJ Decompiler  Result  source code    Note  it is not allowed to decompile third party packages  this guide is intended to recover personal source code from an APK file only  finally  the resulting code will most likely be obfuscated

[android] Is there a way to get the source code from an APK file?

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