Wiki:How to edit an APK

Here you will find an explanation on how to edit APK files.

You'll need:

• JRE 1.6 (Java Runtime Environment) : https://cds.sun.com/is-bin/INTERSHOP...-CDS_Developer
• Android APK-TOOL : http://code.google.com/p/android-apk...l1.3.2.tar.bz2 and
  
  • (LINUX) http://code.google.com/p/android-apktool/downloads/detail?name=apktool-install-linux-2.2_r01-1.tar.bz2
    
  • (MACOSX) http://code.google.com/p/android-apk..._r01-1.tar.bz2
  • (WINDOWS) http://code.google.com/p/android-apktool/downloads/detail?name=apktool-install-windows-2.2_r01-3.tar.bz2
  
  

Install the JRE and unpack the apktool1.3.2.tar.bz2 and the apktool-install-(your os)-....tar.bz2 in a directory of your choice.
Then copy the apk you want to edit into that directory too.

Now your ready to decode your apk. To do that you open your terminal, commandline, etc tool
and navigate to the folder where you unpacked apk-tool.
If you're there, you type
where filename is the name of the apk in the apktool directory you want to edit
and then press ENTER.

Now you should see something like this
and when the process finished successfully you can find a folder named after the apk in the apktool directory.

there you can find all the resources like images, xmls, etc which you can now edit.

After you finished editing the files, you have to rebuild the apk.
You do that by typing
where foldername is the name of the folder in the apktool directory you edited the files in
and newfilename is the name for the apk being generated
and then press ENTER.

After a short time you'll find the newfilename.apk in the apk-tool directory!