Sign an apk using keytool

Question

I want to sign an apk file using keytool , I have a public certificate .cer file and a private key .pem I used to use the android studio wizard to sign apk , now I have no idea how to do it.

Answer 1

You can't sign an APK with keytool.

You can use jarsigner (doc) or apksigner (doc).

I highly recommend you sign with the latter (apksigner), since it has additional protections, is faster and is the recommended approach by the Android team.

apksigner is distributed via the SDK Build tools which you can download using the SDK Manager.

Then, the command line is:

apksigner sign --ks keystore.jks app.apk

where:

• "keystore.jks" is the path to your keystore.
• "app.apk" is the path the APK you want to sign.

You'll be prompted to enter the key alias from the keystore, then the password of the keystore and the password of the key. You can also enter those values on the command line if need be, e.g.

apksigner sign --ks keystore.jks --ks-key-alias AndroidDebugKey --ks-pass pass:android app.apk