3 Easy Ways To Decompile an Android APK

Did you ever want to understand how your favorite android app works? Well, I was very interested in a particular app and wanted to know what are the codes look like. So, I decompiled that Android APK to understand more about that app. It was very fascinating to see those complex java codes. So, if you ever wanted to see the same, you can follow my guide to decompile any Android APK. So that you can view its source code.

Note: This Guide is for education purposes only. You cannot use any material from the decompiled APK. This will be considered a copyright violation.

Decompiling an Android APK is known as Reverse Engineering APK.

I have tried various methods to decompile an android app. I found 3 easy ways that are the best to do this process.

1. Decompile APK in WinRAR Extraction

WinRAR will extract files from an Android APK. Just Extract the .apk file using WinRAR.

If you cannot find WinRAR as an option to Extract the .apk file, Open the WinRAR application, Select your file and click on Extract.

2. Decompile APK Using Online APK Decompiler

There are various online Android App decompilers that you can use to extract the files of an APK.

Go to Javadecompilers.com and upload your .apk file and wait for decompilation to finish. Download the .zip file and extract it on your PC to see all the files.

3. Decompile APK with Android Studio

Android Studio is specifically used to build apps for android. But you can also use it to analyze insides of an APK file.

Go to Build option> Analyse> select the .apk file. You will be able to see all the files and assets of the APK.

Note: In all the above most of the android APK files will have classes.dex or class.dex. All the important codes are in that dex file. You can not just open the dex file. You have to convert the     .dex file into .jar file in order to see the codes.

Accessing .dex file with Profile or Debug APK option

You can also see the package contents of an APK file in android studio. It will show the classes.dex file and other package items as well. Follow the steps below to find .dex file of an APK in Android Studio.

1. Close the Project if you have any and go to the Android Studio “Home” Dialog Box.
2. Choose the option to profile or debug an APK file.
3. Select the APK file from the directory where you have the APK file.
4. Click on “Open”.

This shows you all the package contents as well as the .dex file of the app.

Converting dex file into jar file to view Source Code

The class.dex file which you will see after extracting the apk file contains all the juicy codes. But we have to convert the dex file into a jar file to be able to read the java code.

Go to Decompiler.com and upload your dex file. It will start converting your dex file into a jar file. After converting, download the zip file and extract it on your PC. Now you will be able to see all java codes present in that dex file.

This is one of the easiest ways to decompile an android apk and convert dex into a jar file.