IntelliJ IDEA 2017.1 Help

Generating an Unsigned Release APK

Running an Android application on an emulator does not require a digital signature, so you can use unsigned packages for this purpose. An unsigned package can be extracted only through an Android artifact definition with the Release unsigned package mode turned on.

Extracting an unsigned release Android application package

  1. Select File | Project structure from the main menu and click Artifacts in the left pane.
  2. Click the New button add.png and select Android Application from the context menu.
  3. In the popup menu, define the artifact contents by selecting one of the folloiwng options:
    • To create an empty layout definition, select Empty.
    • To include a module data in the artifact, select From module <module name>

    The general settings of the new artifact will be displayed in the Artifact Layout pane on the right.

  4. Specify the general settings of the artifact. In the Output directory text box, specify the location of the target package .apk file.
  5. Complete the artifact definition with the following steps:
  6. Switch to the Android tab tab and select Release unsigned from the Type drop-down list.
  7. To have IntelliJ IDEA obfuscate the application during packaging, select the Run ProGuard check box and specify the location of the proguard.txt configuration file. The file is generated on project creation and is stored in the project root. IntelliJ IDEA suggests this default location in the Config file path text box. Accept the suggestion or specify a custom configuration file by clicking the Browse button browseButton.png and selecting the required file in the dialog that opens.

See Also

Last modified: 18 July 2017