Change Android app icons in APK?

Question

Is it possible to change the app icon in an APK in Android apps? I have a tablet running Android 2.2 and the icons are too low-res, so I want to replace them. I tried unzipping the APK, changing the icon and re-zipping, but it didn't work. Is there any way I can change the icon, even programmatically, to reflect the higher-res icon?

Answer 1

APK files are actually nothing more than zip files. If you just want to replace images, then the easiest way is to open the apk file in 7-zip or winrar and replace the png files in there with your own. Just drag your new files to the 7-zip window.

Note that I said "open" and not "unzip". Once you decompress it, the signature will no longer be valid.

Another option is to use APKManager to do it. This way you do not need to install it in /system/app:

1. Download APK Manager
2. Put the .apk in "place-apk-here-for-modding"
3. Run the script.bat and extract it.
4. Drop the new PNG files in /res/drawable-?dpi overwriting the old ones.
5. Run ZIP .apk and select option 2 Regular APK
6. Sign the APK
7. Install