[HOW-TO] Decompile ICS and above apk and jar files MANUALLY

---

With the number of ICS ROMs that are popping out, I imagine the majority of people are spending their time on ICS rather than Gingerbread or Froyo. With that in mind, here's a little guide on how to decompile ICS .apk and .jar files (such as the troublesome SystemUI.apk) with ease so that you can mod them to your heart's content. I assume this method will work for other versions of Android as well. Just so we understand each other, this just helps you decompile the classes.dex. If you want to decompile an entire app or jar file there are other guides for that.

NOTE: We will NOT be using ApkTool, Apk Manager, or StudioAndroid to do this. Mainly because I have had trouble in the past using those applications to decompile certain files. So, here is an ALL MANUAL way.

What you need:

• Deodexed .apk/.jar file
• smali.jar
• baksmali.jar
• 7zip or Betterzip (whether you are on Mac, Linux, or Windows)
• terminal/cmd (depending on what you're running)

You can get the smali.jar and baksmali.jar files from here: http://code.google.com/p/smali/downloads/list

Download these files:

baksmali-1.3.3.jar
smali-1.3.3.jar

and rename them to:

baksmali.jar
smali.jar

Now that you have both files, place them somewhere you'll remember (like a folder on your Desktop). For the purposes of this guide, my files will be in .../Desktop/ICS

Ready? Okay, here we go.

1. Open up your desired ICS .apk or .jar file with 7zip or Betterzip and extract the classes.dex and move it into the directory where you have baksmali.jar and smali.jar (For example, I move the classes.dex file to .../Desktop/ICS)
2. Open up terminal or cmd
3. cd to your directory
   Example:
   

   cd .../Desktop/ICS

4. Type the following:
   

   java -jar baksmali.jar -o classout/ classes.dex

   This will decompile the classes.dex file and create a folder inside .../Desktop/ICS called classout where all of your smali files will be located.
   
5. Go into the classout folder and make your smali edits
6. Compile your classout folder into new-classes.dex by typing this into terminal:
   

   java -Xmx512M -jar smali.jar classout/ -o new-classes.dex

7. Rename new-classes.dex to classes.dex
8. Take your newly compiled classes.dex and put it into your ICS .apk or .jar using 7zip or Betterzip
9. Profit

Have fun

Nice to have a write up on this in the Inc forums instead of having to hunt it down all the time. I've found it best to use smali and baksmali too, the apk aps were just too flaky for me.

Originally Posted by kzoodroid

Nice to have a write up on this in the Inc forums instead of having to hunt it down all the time. I've found it best to use smali and baksmali too, the apk aps were just too flaky for me.

Yeah I've had similar experiences as well. This method was the only one that worked flawlessly for me. Hopefully it works for you and everyone else who needs to modify ICS files.

I've used it in GB to do some of the modifications to the status bar, like hide the clock. Took the better part of a day googling to actually find a write up on how to use baksmali and smali as I couldn't get apkTool or apkManager to decompile or compile classes.dex properly. Now I know where to find the instructions when I need them again.

thank you for this nice write up. It did really help me

Man you are just awesome for posting this, I have been googling how to decompile and recompile .apk's and .jar's for a couple of days and nothing has worked. This worked great the first time around and was very simple to follow. I just hope that once I am done making my editsI do not have any troubles re compiling the .jar I am working with lol.

You know it is so ironic that I found your guide here on XDA. It seems like everytime i want to learn how to do something like this I can google all day without much success on finding something that works. But when I do find something that works around 90% to 95% of the time it is here on XDA. You have got to love XDA...

Originally Posted by T-Macgnolia

Man you are just awesome for posting this, I have been googling how to decompile and recompile .apk's and .jar's for a couple of days and nothing has worked. This worked great the first time around and was very simple to follow. I just hope that once I am done making my editsI do not have any troubles re compiling the .jar I am working with lol.

You know it is so ironic that I found your guide here on XDA. It seems like everytime i want to learn how to do something like this I can google all day without much success on finding something that works. But when I do find something that works around 90% to 95% of the time it is here on XDA. You have got to love XDA...

Yeah XDA does seem to be the go-to place for everything lol. Glad to know it worked for you

Note that you still need apktool in order to decompile/recompile XMLs and PNGs in apk files.

Originally Posted by kong

Note that you still need apktool in order to decompile/recompile XMLs and PNGs in apk files.

Are there no other standalone command line tools for those tasks?

Originally Posted by SifJar

Are there no other standalone command line tools for those tasks?

I would like to know that as well...