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Exporting a universal APK from an AAB

Abstract

With Bitrise's Export Universal APK Step you can export a universal APK from the App Bundle, sign it with a keystore (or debug keystore), and deploy the APK to your test device before releasing the app to the Google Play Store.

You can test an Android app on a test device even if the generated artifact is an App Bundle (.aab). With the Export Universal APK Step you can export a universal APK from the App Bundle, sign it with a keystore (or debug keystore), and deploy the APK to your test device before releasing the app to the Google Play Store.

Configuring this Step is super simple:

  1. Insert the Export Universal APK Step after the Android Build Step in your Workflow.

  2. The Android App Bundle path input field is automatically filled out by the output of the previous build Step.

  3. The Keystore URL is automatically filled out based on the uploaded keystore file on the Code Signing tab.

  4. If you have already uploaded a keystore file to the Code Signing tab, the Keystore alias, Keystore password, and Private key password inputs are already populated with secret Environment Variables.

  5. You can override the default Bundletool version if you need a specific one but make sure you use the correct version.

  6. Run your Workflow.

The Export Universal APK Step exports the APK to the $BITRISE_APK_PATH Environment Variable which the next Steps can pick up, or the Ship add-on if the Deploy to Bitrise.io Step is included in your Workflow.

In this section:

A Step is a block of script execution that encapsulates a build task on Bitrise: the code to perform that task, the inputs and parameters you can define for the task, and the outputs the task generates.

A Workflow is a collection of Steps, Environment Variables, and other configurations. When Bitrise starts a build, it runs one or more Workflows according to the configuration defined in the bitrise.yml file.