Extract text from Android applications (APK)
To convert APK apps to another format, you need Android OS or other Executable software.
To convert other file formats to the "Mobile Application Package" file type, you need software like Android OS or a similar tool.
The .APK (Android Package Kit) is the standard file format used by the Android operating system for distributing and installing mobile apps. It acts as the executable installer for Android devices, containing all the application's code, resources, assets, and security certificates. Less commonly, it is also used as the package manager format for Alpine Linux.
To run an .APK on a desktop, you cannot simply open it; you must use an emulator like BlueStacks or the Windows Subsystem for Android. Because an .APK is fundamentally a standard ZIP archive, you can also inspect it using compression utilities like 7-Zip or WinRAR.
Users often seek to "convert" an .APK file into an IPA (for iOS) or an EXE (for Windows). This is practically impossible. Cross-platform apps require entirely different architectures, programming languages, and system runtimes (like Android's ART).
Instead of converting the app itself, the best approach is to extract its internal contents. By renaming the extension to ZIP, you can extract embedded PNG icons, binary XML layout files, and compiled DEX executables. Modern Android developers may also need to convert older .APK formats into the newer AAB (Android App Bundle) standard for Google Play publishing.
Because an .APK is a compiled software package, reverse-engineering it back to human-readable Java or Kotlin source code requires specialized decompilers like Apktool. Standard online converters fail to process this compiled logic. Just drag and drop your file to identify the format, view it, and convert it when possible on convert.guru. If our analysis detects the supported underlying ZIP structure, viewing embedded assets or extraction may still be possible.
Convert.Guru analyzes your APK file, detects the exact format, and lets you read the text inside.
Users also converted XAPK, IPA, ZIP, EXE, APKM, IPK, PDF, APPLICATION, APK 2, APP, APKS, GAME and TXT files.
If you want to convert APK file to IPA, IOS, PDF, ZIP, TPK, AAB, IPK, EXE, MSI, APP, DMG or DEB, you can use Android OS or similar software from the "Android App Installation Package" category. In the File menu, look for Save As… or Export….
To convert JAR, APP, SCR, IPA, COM, AAB, PS1, DMG, VBS, EXE, XAPK or MSI files to APK, try Android OS or another comparable tool in the "Android App Installation Package" category.
The history of Convert.Guru began over 25 years ago in California with Tom Simondi’s file-format database. A former contributor to Space Shuttle development and a software pioneer of the 1980s, Simondi established a trusted resource for file type analysis that was even referenced by Microsoft Windows XP. Today, we use modern technology to process and convert thousands of file formats while continually improving our APK converter.