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
Select File | Project structure from the main menu and click Artifacts in the left pane.
Click the New button
and select Android Application from the context menu. -
In the popup menu, define the artifact contents by selecting one of the following 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.
Specify the general settings of the artifact. In the Output directory field, specify the location of the target package .apk file.
- Complete the artifact definition with the following steps:
Configure the artifact structure.
Add resources to the artifact.
Arrange the elements included in the artifact.
If necessary, specify additional activities to be performed before and after building the artifact in the Pre-processing and Post-Processing tabs.
Switch to the Android tab tab and select Release unsigned from the Type list.
To have IntelliJ IDEA obfuscate the application during packaging, select the Run ProGuard checkbox 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 Browse
and selecting the required file in the dialog that opens.