Apktool recompile options

Question

I want to find out a solution for a little issue I have when using apktool I decompile an apk no issues with that, apktool d name.apk an original folder is created with the original AndroidManifest.xml and the META-INF folder.

The problem is when I try to do a cosmetic change, for example changing the "apk name" on the AndroidManifest.xml file but later when I recompile the apk (apktool b -c name.apk) forcing apktool to copy the META-INF then the original AndroidManifest.xml file is copy as well obviously without the cosmetic changes I did. Any solution? thank you!

apktool d name.apk - apktool b -c name

Answer 1

First, if you only want to modify resources, I would stringly recommend to use the --no-src option when decompiling an APK. This will save you a lot of time and disk space as well as prevent potential problems when rebuilding the APK.

App names are usually not loaded from AndroidManifest.xml because it only contains one non-localized version.

Better search for the app name in the localized strings. So my guess is that recompile works but the outcome is different than you expect as Android simply ignores your modified attribute.

If you want to make sure a modification AndroidManifest.xml was recompiled into the APK, open the rebuilt APK in Jadx-Gui and look if the modification is visible or not.