How to install APKs from Google Play Console generated from an Android App Bundle?

Question

I currently upload my app updates on the Google Play Console using the publishing format .aab. My problem is I cannot find a way how to download and install the right APKs generated from .aab.

When I download from the "Manage Releases" like many people suggested, it downloads an .aab. When I download a device specific APK, it gives me three APKs. (In my download case, base.apk, config.en.apk, and config.xxhdpi.apk).

The base APK is able to be installed but cannot launch. The other 2 APKs can't even be parsed. I suspect, these three should be installed as a bundle but I don't know how to do that.

How can I install these three APKs or download the single APK that I can install easily?

Answer 1

You can install these APKs using the adb install-multiple command:

adb install-multiple base.apk config.en.apk config.xxhdpi.apk

Other options you can use:

• The internal testing track,
• Deploy directly from Android Studio (select "Deploy APK from app bundle" in the Run Configurations.

Answer 2

You can use bundle tool to manipulate the app bundle file and install it on your device locally. First, download bundletool from here. app bundle (the .aab file). Then generate a set of APKs from it by running

bundletool build-apks --bundle=/MyApp/my_app.aab --output=/MyApp/my_app.apks

Note that the command above creates an APK set of unsigned APKs.

Then you can install this APK by running

bundletool install-apks --apks=/MyApp/my_app.apks

The .apks file contains all configurations. If you want to generate a set of APKs for a specific device, take a look at here.