How Can I Rip .Apk Files From Games/Apps?

[benblb]

Can anyone explain to me in detail how to rip .apk files from games and apps that I have downloaded? My phone (Nexus One) is not rooted, and I am using a mac, but I can get ahold of a PC if needed. Thanks in advance!

 

[Kelmar]

What is your need for this? Your DL's are tied to your google account for easy and quick reinstallation.

 

[mzmartipants]

See my post on multiple google accounts. The backup process is described there.

 

[Sulfur]

What is your need for this? Your DL's are tied to your google account for easy and quick reinstallation.

Could be useful for going back to a prior version of a app if you don't like an update.

 

[lohpsch]

Just use Astro.
Tools / AplicationManager/Backup
Choose the App or Game, click on Backup and you will have the .apk in
\sdcard\backup\apps (unless you define another folder for backups).

Other File Managers and/or App Managers do the same thing.

 

[OstrichSaK]

Just use Astro.
Tools / AplicationManager/Backup
Choose the App or Game, click on Backup and you will have the .apk in
\sdcard\backup\apps (unless you define another folder for backups).

Other File Managers and/or App Managers do the same thing.

EStrong file manager creates files but there's two for each app and one is a text (?) and the other is a zip. How do I extract an apk from this? One use for me is a use an Augen tablet that has a broken Market because they didn't get license agreements from Google to use it. I guess they're hashing something out currently but in the meantime customers who already paid for the devices and are trying to use them are getting boned. This is one reason why being able to extract apk's from apps would be useful. I'm sure there are many more but that's one need for me.

 

[lohpsch]

EStrong file manager creates files but there's two for each app and one is a text (?) and the other is a zip. How do I extract an apk from this? One use for me is a use an Augen tablet that has a broken Market because they didn't get license agreements from Google to use it. I guess they're hashing something out currently but in the meantime customers who already paid for the devices and are trying to use them are getting boned. This is one reason why being able to extract apk's from apps would be useful. I'm sure there are many more but that's one need for me.

Just downloaded EStorng File Manager and checked that it does the same thing as Astro: Backup of a single X.apk to a default folder \\sdcard\backups\apps.

Only difference is that EStrong names the apk with the app original name and version (something like X_1.5.apk), while Astro names it like com.X.android-1.apk.

Where do your two files come from?

Anyway, the zip one is most probably the apk you need (just try to rename X.zip to X.apk and try it, apks are zip compressed packages) and you can easily find what the txt contains (the name and version of the app, most probably).

 

[OstrichSaK]

Just downloaded EStorng File Manager and checked that it does the same thing as Astro: Backup of a single X.apk to a default folder \\sdcard\backups\apps.

Only difference is that EStrong names the apk with the app original name and version (something like X_1.5.apk), while Astro names it like com.X.android-1.apk.

Where do your two files come from?

Anyway, the zip one is most probably the apk you need (just try to rename X.zip to X.apk and try it, apks are zip compressed packages) and you can easily find what the txt contains (the name and version of the app, most probably).

For the record my sdcard\backups\apps folder is empty. Then again, I think I may have typed incorrectly on my last post. I'm using Titanium Backup to back them up and then EStrong to find the files. That's why they're different. I can use EStrong to create apk's of my installed applications??

 

[lohpsch]

Yes you can: Menu, Manager, App Manager, choose the app and a menu pops out with options such as Uninstall, Backup, Shortcut.
Then the backups will be in \\sdcard\backups\apps unless you define another backup folder.

 

[OstrichSaK]

Yes you can: Menu, Manager, App Manager, choose the app and a menu pops out with options such as Uninstall, Backup, Shortcut.
Then the backups will be in \\sdcard\backups\apps unless you define another backup folder.

Cool! Thanks for the tip! This would have saved me LOTs of time setting up my new Augen because I manually searched the internet for each apk.

 

[xdmanalo]

I recently updated my HTC Aria with official ROM update. Now, apps (including paid) are missing from market. Wish I backed up manually before the update.

Yet another example of how relying on "the cloud" can go wrong.