Hosting apk files - XPERIA X10 General

I may be opening a whole can of worms here but how do people host apk files. More specifically how do people take an app and make it into a downloadable apk file? Im sure its not as easy as 1, 2, 3 but wouldn't it be nice for non-rooted phones to be able to just keep all your fav apps stored on your sd card in this format? Does that even make sense

Get astro file manager.. Hit left button, backup then it saves it into ya sd card usually in backups folder, then just get dropbox app for easy uploading
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Related

Where does the market save the .apk files?

Where does the market save the .apk files I download?In which folder?
Sent from my HTC HD2 using XDA App
On HTC desire, I find market apk's in /sdcard/download/. Usually after a failed install, so I am guessing those files get deleted after install. Should be the same on HD2.
They used to be there in /sdcard/downloads, none of the latests builds I've used leave the APKs there tho, I used to be able to search this folder and install any apps stuck at 100% download or failed, but they dont go there anymore.
So dunno where they gioing now.
I cannot find em anywhere...I use the mdjs desire hd version 4.4 and i cannot find those files...
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nkos719 said:
Where does the market save the .apk files I download?In which folder?
Sent from my HTC HD2 using XDA App
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id love to know where they are!!!
i hate redownloading them each time i start a new build from scratch. UGH!! i have to find all those downloads again and updates.
use root explorer. open it up and you should be at the first dir, their is a folder called "data", tap it, now tap on a folder called "app". this should be all your market apps. tap and hold whatever app you want, choose copy and navagate back to first page and scrole down to your "sdcard", tap it and paste your app where-ever you want to copy it to. this is where i found my apps. hope that helps yall.
Let me see...
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Cannot find the .apk installation file.
Sent from my HTC HD2 using XDA App
The apps mite be in a different location on your Android build, but on my build BlueTopia HD Beta 2 by cmylxgo, this is where they are, and they are the install program. Copy one to where-ever you want it then tap on it while still in root explorer, it should ask if you want to install, view or cancel. I've found that there is one thing bad about doing this, Market don't see them as being installed and won't tell you if there is an update for that program if there is one.
Hmmmm....I use the jdms 1.6.2 and the mdeejays revolution hd 1.2 but still cannot locate them anywhere...
Sent from my HTC bravo using XDA App
They are saved in /data/system/app or /data/app
Use root explorer, it should be under /data/app. If you use ES file explorer, you will see an empty /data directory.
I'Ve installed JDMS 1.6.2 and found them in the same place as i said, they have the little green Android guy next to them. Those are the whole app. Tap on one and youll see, it'll ask if you want to install view or cancle. You have to use root explorer!
Another option is to use Titanium Backup from Market. It is free. You can back up your installation to your SD card and install again later or for a different Android build.
data/app/
data/app-private/
system/app/
if you have apps 2 sd, i dont recall the name of the folder.
what file browser are you useing? some wont show protected files.
All "apk" user installed end up in /data/app. system/app is just all the Android installed apk's for that build. data/app-private is normally empty. If you are just looking to save all the apps you have downloaded and installed, then you need to backup the "app" folder in the data folder. But remember this will not be visible unless you have root access.
Good work guys...thank you so much.
Sent from my HTC HD2 using XDA App
Copy my paid aps to my wife
Now I can copy my apps that I paid for and copy them to my wifes phone and now she has them too. Great way to make apps cheaper.
montecarlo5 said:
use root explorer. open it up and you should be at the first dir, their is a folder called "data", tap it, now tap on a folder called "app". this should be all your market apps. tap and hold whatever app you want, choose copy and navagate back to first page and scrole down to your "sdcard", tap it and paste your app where-ever you want to copy it to. this is where i found my apps. hope that helps yall.
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a good app you might want to look at then would be appmonster or appmonster pro. the free version will backup apps to SD card, restore apps from SD card, quick uninstall where as the pro version does multiple version backups, gives access to extended options like APP2SD, cache, permissions, scan SD card for install-files, batch install (i believe) & even shares app-links via Facebook, Twitter, eMail. i have created a little stock pile of about 1200 or so apk's in the past year or 2.
I know there are a ton of applications that do the same but i personally like this program & suggest it to a lot of ppl who own a android phone.
nkos719 said:
Cannot find the .apk installation file.
Sent from my HTC HD2 using XDA App
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I'd advise you to download "appmonster".
This makes a backup of all ur apps as .apk files! (folder:appmonster)
Works great!

Gallery Problems

The picture folders take forever to load when I open gallery, does anyone else get this? seems slow creating previews of the pictures
i have the same issue
I went back to di18 and that problem was no more
Sent from my SPH-D700 using XDA App
only remedy I found was back out of the gallery, and re-enter it. It loads normal speed then
I had success a while back deleting all of my thumbnails, early on, in fixing this problem. (Thumbnails are regenerated upon launching after this). Id also check that u have the latest version of the galley that we're using. Check out the development section, and most of the roms there have that version that I haven't had probs with. I don't know what you're running (dk28.. cw3 ext4..?) If so, I'm usng the version in the Truly Epic rom, and also have used Quantum rom's.
Btw, I have a TON of image files on my sd. If you have certain directories that u don't want to appear in the gallery, u can manage them with a .nomedia file. Ask if u have questions about it.
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Exactly delete your android folder on the root of your sd card. It still re generate on the next boot and your gallery will be fixed.
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I use a alternative picture app, "QuickPic", it's so much faster then the stock gallery app.
Thanks for the tip guys, that fixed my problem
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decalex said:
I had success a while back deleting all of my thumbnails, early on, in fixing this problem. (Thumbnails are regenerated upon launching after this). Id also check that u have the latest version of the galley that we're using. Check out the development section, and most of the roms there have that version that I haven't had probs with. I don't know what you're running (dk28.. cw3 ext4..?) If so, I'm usng the version in the Truly Epic rom, and also have used Quantum rom's.
Btw, I have a TON of image files on my sd. If you have certain directories that u don't want to appear in the gallery, u can manage them with a .nomedia file. Ask if u have questions about it.
Sent from my SPH-D700 using Tapatalk
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Just rename the folder to x.nomedia?
I just put a bunch of stuff on my phone in different folders, but photosafe and videosafe need licenses to hide things so this would be a good thing to hide them from my less-tech savvy gf and allow me to actually take the security lock off lol
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A_Flying_Fox said:
Just rename the folder to x.nomedia?
I just put a bunch of stuff on my phone in different folders, but photosafe and videosafe need licenses to hide things so this would be a good thing to hide them from my less-tech savvy gf and allow me to actually take the security lock off lol
Sent from my SPH-D700 using XDA App
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hehe - in response to the first part:
no - don't rename the folder to that. basically, the .nomedia is a file the GOES into a directory that you don't want the media scanner to scan.
The .nomedia file basically says, "move along! nothin to see here!".
So, a .nomedia file would have to be in EACH of the directories you don't want to show up. Keep in mind.. this won't hide them, and in regards to ur gf... a .nomedia file won't have any affect on the history that a media player might keep... so keep that in mind
To create the nomedia file, you can either find one on your sd somewhere, and copy it (pasting into desired folders)
or
open Notepad on ur computer, save the blank file as "nomedia.txt"
Copy it to your SD, in Astro, rename it to .nomedia (with no extension). and you're set.

Apk Files

I was just clearing out my SD card when I noticed in a folder called "download" on the root of the card there was a lot of apk files called "downloadfile-1.apk" with different numbers in place of the 1. Does anyone know where these come from and if I'm ok to delete them? Thanks.
Sent from my Desire HD using XDA App
These are Android packages for the apps you have downloaded probably through some application.
These are safe to delete as your actual apps installed will live elsewhere. It is safe to say if your not noticing anything not installed and you don't know what they are, these can be deleted. If you need them again and you have paid for them, the market should have these information stored with your google account and can be downloaded again if needed.
If you really want to, you can transfer them to your home pc for backup. You can find out what they are using the android software development kit if you so wish, using a program called aapt.
Thanks for the advice. Very helpful.
Sent from my Desire HD using XDA App

[Q] A little understanding of APK required !!!!!!!

Hello!
I am new to android and need to know a little bit about the .APK files.
Now I don't know about the users of other phones, but Xperia PLAY users can now download a couple of EA games for free, using the Xperia PLAY app. When we click on a particular game, say Worms for instance, they take us to a webpage where from we download an .APK file.
This file later installs the app or the game in the phone. My question is what happens to this .APK file. I mean I can assume that the .APK was downloaded in SD because we are talking about androids which don't have much internal space. But the real question is; are we supposed to delete these .APK files, as we do in Windows' computers with the .exe files or are they deleted on their own?
Jack Shepard said:
Hello!
I am new to android and need to know a little bit about the .APK files.
Now I don't know about the users of other phones, but Xperia PLAY users can now download a couple of EA games for free, using the Xperia PLAY app. When we click on a particular game, say Worms for instance, they take us to a webpage where from we download an .APK file.
This file later installs the app or the game in the phone. My question is what happens to this .APK file. I mean I can assume that the .APK was downloaded in SD because we are talking about androids which don't have much internal space. But the real question is; are we supposed to delete these .APK files, as we do in Windows' computers with the .exe files or are they deleted on their own?
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.APK files don't just act as an executable installers but they also act as the main executable of the application itself. when you install an application off your sd card, a copy of the .APK file is moved to /data/app/. You are then free to delete the .APK file from the download directory on your SD Card
So u r telling me that all the applications I hav downloaded so far (both which hav been uninstalled and which are still installed) have their apk's filling up ny de memory.
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Jack Shepard said:
So u r telling me that all the applications I hav downloaded so far (both which hav been uninstalled and which are still installed) have their apk's filling up ny de memory.
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No when you uninstall an app the .APK is deleted from /data/app/
Ok but what about the apk of installed and uninstalled apps in the sd card? Do I hav to delete them manually?
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Jack Shepard said:
Ok but what about the apk of installed and uninstalled apps in the sd card? Do I hav to delete them manually?
Sent from my R800i using XDA App
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Yeah once you install an app, if you want to save space you have to delete the .APK off your SD Card manually
Jack Shepard said:
Ok but what about the apk of installed and uninstalled apps in the sd card? Do I hav to delete them manually?
Sent from my R800i using XDA App
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It will be removed when you uninstall.
consegregate said:
It will be removed when you uninstall.
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I think he means the .APK he used to install the app, .APK's are no longer held in the android_secure folder

storage/emulated/0/

can someone please explain to me why, since updating to 4.2, I have what looks like a duplicate of my SD card contents in a sub folder called storage/emulated/0/?
all my gallery apps, Gallery, DroidIris etc. see duplicates of all my pictures now?
And If I save a pic from a browser It points to the folders in storage/emulated/0/, not the SD card ones?
deleting any file in one folder effects the other, so it is probably not a true duplicate thats taking up space is it?
I assume this has to do with the multi user addition to 4.2, but I have not set up a second user at all.
Does this just occur to people upgrading, or to people who installed a fresh version as well?
Cheers.
CarsnGadgets said:
can someone please explain to me why, since updating to 4.2, I have what looks like a duplicate of my SD card contents in a sub folder called storage/emulated/0/?
all my gallery apps, Gallery, DroidIris etc. see duplicates of all my pictures now?
And If I save a pic from a browser It points to the folders in storage/emulated/0/, not the SD card ones?
deleting any file in one folder effects the other, so it is probably not a true duplicate thats taking up space is it?
I assume this has to do with the multi user addition to 4.2, but I have not set up a second user at all.
Does this just occur to people upgrading, or to people who installed a fresh version as well?
Cheers.
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I think this has been added as part of the multi-user feature and is where the data/content is stored for other users. It has been mentioned on the forum somewhere else, cant remember where I seen it though.
I also wondered this but then thought logically.
Two users using the same SD card wouldn't be a good idea.
So they sort of virtualise the SD card, and then when a new user is created a sort of partition is created for the user.
I was wondering what that was in ASTRO I thought it was something I did wrong and yes if you delete one file it will end up deleting both of them so be careful luckily I deleted some old downloads I didn't need anymore GOD BLESS YOU GUYS
Sent from my Nexus 7 using xda app-developers app
thats all fine, thanks guys,
but now, if I download a new pic from dolphin browser to the /emulated/0/pictures folder, the gallery sees my SD/pictures as well as the /emulated/0/pictures folder, the original has 99 files in, and the new one 1 file in, both are called "pictures".
the "save picture as" action opens up its own file explorer, and it wont let me go back far enough in the file tree to access the SD/pictures folder so I can only save in the new /emulated/0 folder and its sub folders?
cheers.
I can't find the folder on my pc. I am trying to run a backup app and it stores it there. I try to replace the backup location to downloads for example and it won't work. It's driving me mad.
The linked directories are linked to look like separate directories but they link to what is called a mount point that the actual physical storage and the actual file. What you do in any of folders will be done in all the folders.
I'm still wrapping my mind and this and my Linux knowledge it's weak. So I'm not going to try to suggest how to deal with these folders. As much as possible I'm letting the app handle the files.
Sent from my Nexus 7 using xda premium
CarsnGadgets said:
can someone please explain to me why, since updating to 4.2, I have what looks like a duplicate of my SD card contents in a sub folder called storage/emulated/0/?
all my gallery apps, Gallery, DroidIris etc. see duplicates of all my pictures now?
And If I save a pic from a browser It points to the folders in storage/emulated/0/, not the SD card ones?
deleting any file in one folder effects the other, so it is probably not a true duplicate thats taking up space is it?
I assume this has to do with the multi user addition to 4.2, but I have not set up a second user at all.
Does this just occur to people upgrading, or to people who installed a fresh version as well?
Cheers.
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Same for me. Music player, gallery and other apps now show two copies of files. Any solution to fix this yet?
algus said:
Same for me. Music player, gallery and other apps now show two copies of files. Any solution to fix this yet?
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I think you are confusing a symlink'd directory with a second copy.
No one - so far - has reported a real problem related to duplicate file - so don't be expecting a fix.
Spend the time reading up on Linux directory structures instead.
rmm200 said:
No one - so far - has reported a real problem related to duplicate file - so don't be expecting a fix.
Spend the time reading up on Linux directory structures instead.
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This.
It's not broken do don't expect a fix. It only 'looks' like you have duplicate files. A change you make in any single place will show up in all locations. Delete a file in one place it will be gone everywhere. The whole file system is an optical illusion. Layers on layers of naming parts of the file system.
For instance /sdcard is actually /data/media/0 if you created another user on your tab they would get /data/media/1 but they would find their files under /sdcard in a file manager.
Sent from my Nexus 7 using xda premium
I understand that it is a link. As I said problem is that applications show two copies of all files put in /sdcard folder. Because applications treat each link as a separate file. This is exactly what the original poster and I wrote in our posts.
So far I fixed this problem for myself by deleting all files from /sdcard (they disappeared from other linked locations as well) and saving them back straight to /storage/emulation/0 (they appeared in other linked locations, including /sdcard, but this time the gallery and other apps show single copy of each file in their collections).
This is not confortable for a typical user to learn about all these linked folders and I consider it as a drawback of Jelly Bean.
algus said:
I understand that it is a link. As I said problem is that applications show two copies of all files put in /sdcard folder. Because applications treat each link as a separate file. This is exactly what the original poster and I wrote in our posts.
So far I fixed this problem for myself by deleting all files from /sdcard (they disappeared from other linked locations as well) and saving them back straight to /storage/emulation/0 (they appeared in other linked locations, including /sdcard, but this time the gallery and other apps show single copy of each file in their collections).
This is not confortable for a typical user to learn about all these linked folders and I consider it as a drawback of Jelly Bean.
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I am trying to understand what you are seeing.
On my device, the gallery app only shows pictures in my user: emulated/0. This is from selecting a picture and then asking for info on it.
What apps are showing duplicates, other than a file explorer that you would expect to show symlinks?
I should add - are you copying pictures directly to /sdcard from somewhere else?
Well I had a problem...because of all the multiuser crap I was unable to restore a titanium backup cause of all the emulated directories that another user makes...I had to delete every /0 directory that it made cause if you install another Rom it makes a new /0 directory inside the other /0 directory so after flashing CM10, MIUI and slim bean I finished with a directory like this: sdcard0/0/0/0.
Sent from my GT-I9300 using xda app-developers app
restoring backups seems to be a problem too in cwm. Hmm how to fix it
Sent from my Nexus 4 using xda app-developers app
I ran into this problem with Titanium Backup and my Nexus 7. I was trying to copy the titanium backup folder on the Nexus 7 to my windows PC (also tried mac too) as it was taking up a lot of space on the Nexus but Windows and Mac wouldn't have any of it. It just copied the folder and not the contents. Android file Transfer manager on mac just keeped crashing. I did not try adb pull folder with WugFresh toolkit, so that may work. I ended up copying from the nexus 7 to a USB drive using an OTG cable.
I been looking into this too, this is what I find so far I did a fresh install after I installed my Rom I wipe storage on my N7 so I have a clean storage nothing on it about 27.80gb after I installed one game that is 2gb and its show on both storage emulated and 0 n after my available space is 23.72gb. So I think its does create a duplicate that take space. But Im not sure.I going to run some more tests. If this is true this kinda suck cus then my 32gb n7 is only 16gb then.
Ps. Also if u reboot ur n7 and u go to storage there is another folder under emulated with 0 with the same files you can deleted this folder is save you won't loose anything but if you reboot and go back to storage the file reappear and you can delete but once u reebot again it will reappear again and over again.
Sent from my EVO using xda premium
No way are there 2 copies of files (unless you are auto backing up, which I do). My free space was 3.9gb before and after 4.2. Have all the extra meaningless folders.
You could think of the emulated storage locations like a shortcut. You could place multiple shortcuts to your 'My Documents' folder on your desktop without creating multiple copies of 'My Documents'.
Same problem with Galaxy Nexus
I have the same problem with my Galaxy Nexus and Android 4.2.1
In my Windows Explorer i dont see the same files like in my Phone with Total Commander on my Storage.
This is not funny.

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