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.
3 Easy Ways To Decompile Android Apk?
Decompiling an Android APK is known as Reverse Engineering an 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 which 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.
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.
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