Pulling an APK from AAB for sideloading?

Help Requests
1

Hey guys. My 10 year-old son wants to try creating a standalone app. Before jumping through hoops for a developer license from Google, I’d like to just sideload his apk so he can see how it works on a phone/tablet.

I created the AAB file and then used BundleTools from github to extract APK’s. I tried using the “universal” flag, and also tried the shotgun approach - extracting all the available APK’s. Neither attempt left me with a workable file to install.

Any suggestions on how to get a usable file for sideloading? Appreciate the help!

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2

@JR01 summoning (he has knowledge about this I believe)

3 Likes
3

I honestly haven’t got the abb to apk to work last I tried…
The best thing to do is upload the abb to the play store to get a downloadable test game.

It’s actually mostly simple and easier to get a playstore license, it’s just $25.
Though I suggest creating a separate email to help filter the emails and navigation on the google play store.

I’m going to look more into getting abb files to convert to apk on Flowlab, and possibly make a post about it later if I ever get it to work.

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4

Hey,

Sorry - I just saw this. If you have bundletool, you can make and install an apk like this:

bundletool build-apks --bundle=./android.aab --output=./app.apks
bundletool install-apks --apks=app.apks
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