aapt(1)

✨ NAME ✨

okay bestie, this is aapt (Android Asset Packaging Tool) 💖 aka the tool that packages up your Android resources so your app can actually use them 🎀

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🧚 SYNOPSIS 🧚

Here's the basic vibe for every command:

aapt command [ options ] files ...

Now let's check out each command, starting with list 👀

aapt l[ist] [-v] [-a] file.{zip,jar,apk}

Peek inside a Zip-compatible archive and see what's in there 🦋

aapt d[ump] [--values] WHAT file.{apk} [asset [asset ...]]

dump has a bunch of WHAT options, and each one gives you a different slice of the APK 💅

• strings — prints the contents of the resource table string pool inside the APK 🧵
• badging — prints the label and icon for the app declared in the APK 🏷️
• permissions — prints the permissions from the APK 🔐
• resources — prints the resource table from the APK 📦
• configurations — prints the configurations in the APK ⚙️
• xmltree — prints the compiled XMLs in the assets you give it 🌳
• xmlstrings — prints the strings of the compiled XML assets you give it 🍓

Now for package, which is the big main-character command 👑

aapt p[ackage] [-d] [-f] [-m] [-u] [-v] [-x] [-z] [-M AndroidManifest.xml]
               [-0 extension [-0 extension ...]] [-g tolerance] [-j jarfile]
               [--debug-mode] [--min-sdk-version VAL] [--target-sdk-version VAL]
               [--app-version VAL] [--app-version-name TEXT] [--custom-package VAL]
               [--rename-manifest-package PACKAGE]
               [--rename-instrumentation-target-package PACKAGE]
               [--utf16] [--auto-add-overlay]
               [--max-res-version VAL]
               [-I base-package [-I base-package ...]]
               [-A asset-source-dir] [-G class-list-file] [-P public-definitions-file]
               [-S resource-sources [-S resource-sources ...]]
               [-F apk-file] [-J R-file-dir]
               [--product product1,product2,...]
               [-c CONFIGS] [--preferred-configurations CONFIGS]
               [raw-files-dir [raw-files-dir] ...]
               [--output-text-symbols DIR]

This one packages up the android resources! It reads assets and resources supplied through the -M, -A, -S, or raw-files-dir arguments. The -J, -P, -F, and -R options decide which files get output 🎀

Next up, remove and add, which are basically your closet organizers for archives 🗑️➕

aapt r[emove] [-v] file.{zip,jar,apk} file1 [file2 ...]

Deletes the specified files from a Zip-compatible archive 🫠

aapt a[dd] [-v] file.{zip,jar,apk} file1 [file2 ...]

Adds the specified files to a Zip-compatible archive 💜

Now for the PNG preprocessing commands, crunch and singleCrunch 🖼️

aapt c[runch] [-v] -S resource-sources ... -C output-folder ...

Does PNG preprocessing on one or several resource folders and stores the results in the output folder ✨

aapt s[ingleCrunch] [-v] -i input-file -o outputfile

Does PNG preprocessing on a single file 🌸

Last but not least, version 🧾

aapt v[ersion]

Prints the program version. Simple, iconic, no notes 💅

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💖 DESCRIPTION 💖

okay so, the Android Asset Packaging Tool (aapt) takes your application resource files, like the AndroidManifest.xml file and the XML files for your Activities, and compiles them. It also produces an R.java so you can reference your resources from your Java code. literally so useful 😭🫶

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🎀 OPTIONS 🎀

Here's a summary of the options, bestie 🌈

• -a — prints Android-specific data (resources, manifest) when listing 📋
• -c — picks which configurations to include. The default is all configurations. The value is a comma-separated list of configuration values, and locales can be a language or a language-region pair. Some examples:

en
port,en
port,land,en_US

The special locale zz_ZZ can go on the list too! It does pseudolocalization on the default locale and modifies all the strings so you can spot the ones that missed the internationalization process 🙈 For example:

port,land,zz_ZZ

• -d — one or more device assets to include, separated by commas 📱
• -f — force overwrite of existing files 💥
• -g — specifies a pixel tolerance to force images to grayscale. Default is 0 🩶
• -j — specifies a jar or zip file containing classes to include 🫙
• -k — junk the path of any file(s) you add 🗑️
• -m — makes package directories under the location specified by -J 📁
• -u — updates existing packages (adds new, replaces older, removes deleted files) 🔄
• -v — verbose output, for when you want ALL the tea ☕
• -x — creates extending (non-application) resource IDs 🧩
• -z — requires localization of resource attributes marked with localization="suggested" 🌍
• -A — an additional directory where raw asset files can be found 🗂️
• -G — a file to output proguard options into 🧹
• -F — specifies the apk file to output 📦
• -I — adds an existing package to the base include set ➕
• -J — specifies where to output the R.java resource constant definitions 🧮
• -M — specifies the full path to the AndroidManifest.xml to include in the zip 📜
• -P — specifies where to output the public resource definitions 🌐
• -S — a directory where resources can be found. Multiple directories get scanned, and the first match found (left to right) takes precedence 👑
• -0 — specifies an additional extension for which those files will not be stored compressed in the .apk. An empty string means not to compress any files at all 🫧

Now for the long options, the ones with the big energy ✨

• --debug-mode — inserts android:debuggable="true" into the application node of the manifest, making the application debuggable even on production devices.

⚠️ bestie, this one is a real caveat! Because it makes the app debuggable even on production devices, use it carefully 💀

• --min-sdk-version — inserts android:minSdkVersion into the manifest. If the version is 7 or higher, the default encoding for resources will be UTF-8 🔤
• --target-sdk-version — inserts android:targetSdkVersion into the manifest 🎯
• --max-res-version — ignores versioned resource directories above the given value 🙅‍♀️
• --values — when used with "dump resources", also includes resource values 💎
• --version-code — inserts android:versionCode into the manifest 🔢
• --version-name — inserts android:versionName into the manifest 🏷️
• --custom-package — generates R.java into a different package 🎁
• --extra-packages — generates R.java for libraries. Separate libraries with ':' 📚
• --generate-dependencies — generates dependency files in the same directories for R.java and the resource package 🕸️
• --auto-add-overlay — automatically adds resources that are only in overlays 🪄
• --preferred-configurations — like the -c option for filtering out unneeded configurations, but it only expresses a preference. If there's no resource available with the preferred configuration, it won't be stripped 💁‍♀️
• --rename-manifest-package — rewrites the manifest so its package name is the one given here. Relative class names (for example .Foo) get changed to absolute names with the old package, so the code doesn't have to change 🪪
• --rename-instrumentation-target-package — rewrites the manifest so all of its instrumentation components target the given package. It's super useful alongside --rename-manifest-package to fix tests against a package that got renamed 🧪
• --product — specifies which variant to choose for strings that have product variants 🛍️
• --utf16 — changes the default encoding for resources to UTF-16. Only useful when the API level is set to 7 or higher, where the default encoding is UTF-8 🫠
• --non-constant-id — makes the resource IDs non-constant. This is required to make an R java class that doesn't contain the final value, but is used to make reusable compiled libraries that need to access resources 🔓
• --error-on-failed-insert — forces aapt to return an error if it fails to insert values into the manifest with --debug-mode, --min-sdk-version, --target-sdk-version, --version-code, and --version-name. Insertion typically fails if the manifest already defines the attribute 🚨
• --output-text-symbols — generates a text file containing the resource symbols of the R class in the specified folder 📝
• --ignore-assets — assets to be ignored 🙈

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🦋 AUTHOR 🦋

aapt was written by The Android Open Source Project. the real MVPs 👑🫶

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That's the whole tea, bestie! 💖 This page is for aapt(1) and it was last updated October 15, 2014 🌸✨