apkeep - A command-line tool for downloading APK files from various sources

Installation

Precompiled binaries for apkeep on various platforms can be downloaded here.

To install from crates.io, simply install rust and run

cargo install apkeep

Or to install from the latest commit in our repository, run

cargo install --git https://github.com/EFForg/apkeep.git

If using on an Android platform, termux must be installed first. Upgrade to the latest packages with pkg update, then install the apkeep precompiled binary as described above or run pkg install apkeep to install from the termux repository.

Docker images are also available through the GitHub Container Registry. Aside from using a specific release version, the following floating tags are available:

• stable: tracks the latest stable release (recommended)
• latest: tracks the latest release, including pre-releases
• edge: tracks the latest commit

Usage

See USAGE.

Examples

The simplest example is to download a single APK to the current directory:

apkeep -a com.instagram.android .

This downloads from the default source, APKPure, which does not require credentials. To download directly from the google play store, you will first have to obtain an AAS token. Then,

apkeep -a com.instagram.android -d google-play -e 'someone@gmail.com' -t aas_token .

For more google play usage examples, such as specifying a device configuration, timezone or locale, refer to the USAGE-google-play.md document.

To download from the F-Droid open source repository:

apkeep -a org.mozilla.fennec_fdroid -d f-droid .

For more F-Droid usage examples, such as downloading from F-Droid mirrors or other F-Droid repositories, refer to the USAGE-fdroid.md document.

Or, to download from the Huawei AppGallery:

apkeep -a com.elysiumlabs.newsbytes -d huawei-app-gallery .

To download a specific version of an APK (possible for APKPure or F-Droid), use the @version convention:

apkeep -a com.instagram.android@1.2.3 .

Or, to list what versions are available, use -l:

apkeep -l -a org.mozilla.fennec_fdroid -d f-droid

Refer to USAGE to download multiple APKs in a single run.

All the above examples can also be used in Docker with minimal changes. For example, to download a single APK to your chosen output directory:

docker run --rm -v output_path:/output ghcr.io/efforg/apkeep:stable -a com.instagram.android
/output

Specify a CSV file or individual app ID

You can either specify a CSV file which lists the apps to download, or an individual app ID. If you specify a CSV file and the app ID is not specified by the first column, you'll have to use the --field option as well. If you have a simple file with one app ID per line, you can just treat it as a CSV with a single field.

Download Sources

You can use this tool to download from a few distinct sources.

• The Google Play Store (-d google-play), given an email address and AAS token
• APKPure (-d apk-pure), a third-party site hosting APKs available on the Play Store
• F-Droid (-d f-droid), a repository for free and open-source Android apps. apkeep verifies that these APKs are signed by the F-Droid maintainers, and alerts the user if an APK was downloaded but could not be verified
• The Huawei AppGallery (-d huawei-app-gallery), an app store popular in China

Usage Note

Users should not use app lists or choose so many parallel APK fetches as to place unreasonable or disproportionately large load on the infrastructure of the app distributor.

When using with the Google Play Store as the download source, a few considerations should be made:

• Google may terminate your Google account based on Terms of Service violations. Read their Terms of Service, avoid violating it, and choose an account where this outcome is acceptable.
• Paid and DRM apps will not be available.
• Using Tor will make it a lot more likely that the download will fail.

License: MIT