Generate an APK file from an AAB file (Android app bundle)

Is there a way to generate an APK file from an Android Application Bundle (AAB) via Terminal or using Android Studio?

By default, the IDE does not use app bundles to deploy your app to a local device for testing

Refer to the bundletool command.

For the debug APK command,

bundletool build-apks --bundle=/MyApp/my_app.aab --output=/MyApp/my_app.apks

For the release APK command,

bundletool build-apks --bundle=/MyApp/my_app.aab --output=/MyApp/my_app.apks
    --ks=/MyApp/keystore.jks
    --ks-pass=file:/MyApp/keystore.pwd
    --ks-key-alias=MyKeyAlias
    --key-pass=file:/MyApp/key.pwd

I have been using the following commands while testing my release build for AAB:

1. Download the bundletool JAR file from the GitHub repository (Latest release* → Assets → bundletool-all-version.jar file). Rename that file to bundletool.jar

2. Generate your AAB file from Android Studio, e.g.: myapp-release.aab

3. Run the following command:

   java -jar "path/to/bundletool.jar" build-apks --bundle=myapp-release.aab --output=myapp.apks --ks="/path/to/myapp-release.keystore" --ks-pass=pass:myapp-keystore-pass --ks-key-alias=myapp-alias --key-pass=pass:myapp-alias-pass
   

4. myapp.apks file will be generated

5. Make sure your device is connected to your machine

6. Now run the following command to install it on your device:

   java -jar "path/to/bundletool.jar" install-apks --apks=myapp.apks
   

If you need to extract a single .apk file from the .aab file, you can add a extra parameter, --mode=universal to the bundletool command:

bundletool build-apks --bundle=/MyApp/my_app.aab --output=/MyApp/my_app.apks \
    --mode=universal \
    --ks=/MyApp/keystore.jks \
    --ks-pass=file:/MyApp/keystore.pwd \
    --ks-key-alias=MyKeyAlias \
    --key-pass=file:/MyApp/key.pwd

And execute

unzip -p /MyApp/my_app.apks universal.apk > /MyApp/my_app.apk

This will generate a single /MyApp/my_app.apk file that can be shared an installed by any device app installer.