How to install XAPK packages on Android 4.4 (API 19)?

Question

There is an Android 4.4 (KitKat, API version 19) device, that should get some external programs with XAPK packages. These XAPK packages does not contain any OBB files, they just have a "main" .apk, then a lot of configuration APKs.

How to install that mentioned XAPK files? If I install the APKs manually, then the app simply fails to launch. The XAPK Installer app, which could handle this, is available from Android 5+, so also not an option.

Updating or upgrading that device is also not an option. So, no need the comments like "that is outdated" etc.

Hi, please try the solutions on How to install xapk, apks, or multiple-apks via adb? and let us know if it helps. Thanks. — Andrew T., May 22 '21 at 13:29
Thanks @AndrewT., can You please let me know, how to use the adb on Linux? — A.V., May 22 '21 at 15:22

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered May 22 '21 at 14:40

An XAPK package is basically ZIP files containing the different split APK files. Before trying to make an app work on your device I strongly recommend to you to extract the base APK files from the XAPK package and check the minSdkVersion in it's AndroidManifest.xml. You can do so easily by opening the main APK file e.g. in Jadx or any other tool that can decode and display the AndroidManifest.xml. If this entry is 19 or lower there may be a chance to install the app on your device.

If I remember correctly the possibility to install multiple APK files as one app was introduced with Android 5, therefore the XAPK installer is limited to Android 5+. Also installing multiple APK files as one app via adb will not work. The only option I can see is building an universal APK from those multiple APK files inside the XAPK package. See section Re-Building an universal APK from my answer Creating universal APK form multiple APKs without having *.aab:

On the Internet you can find a tool named "SAP (Split APKs Packer)" which seems to allow to combine multiple split APK files into one universal APK file (if you have all the necessary split APK files)

This "SAP" tool is available for Linux and Windows, however it is closed source and contains a lot of binaries. I am not sure if it is really trustworthy - I would not recommend to execute it outside of a protected environment (e.g. a virtual machine).

The following blog post describes the SAP tool and provides download links.

How to install XAPK packages on Android 4.4 (API 19)?

1 Answers1