Does anyone know if the F-Droid app saves the APKs on non-rooted Android?

[Arlen Holder]

Does anyone know if the F-Droid app can be set to save the APK
(on non-rooted Android)?

I was looking at the three main repositories to see how they saved APKs
o Google Play <== I don't think this saves the APK directly for you
o Aurora Store <== this saves the APK in a user-settable folder
o F-Droid <== Can F-Droid be set to save the APK upon download?

Googling, I found only these two related threads on Usenet:
o What method you use to backup & share your installed apps on Android?
<https://groups.google.com/g/comp.mobile.android/c/FsRRoQbdKeo>
o Is there a way to get Google Play to cough up the .apk file?, by T
<https://groups.google.com/g/comp.mobile.android/c/-XsfPuMqopY>

On the Internet, this was a pretty detailed thread for finding APKs
o Does Android keep the .apk files? if so where?
<https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2507960/does-android-keep-the-apk-files-if-so-where>

Notice that thread intimates _all_ the APKs exist on the phone.
o Although some people said you had to be rooted to see them.

Anyway, my main question for now is simply how to get F-Droid to
automatically save the APKs when you download & install the apps.

Does anyone know if the F-Droid app saves the APKs where we can get them?

[Arlen Holder]

> Does anyone know if the F-Droid app saves the APKs where we can get them?

I should have clarified in the OP that I'm asking about using _only_ the
F-Droid app (and not a web browser pointed to the F-Droid web site).

I know that if I separately point a web browser to the F-Droid web site, I
can download any app APK directly that way (and then install that app
separately using that downloaded APK); but that's not what this thread is
asking about.

This thread is asking if the F-Droid app can, itself, do what Aurora does,
which is automagically save the APK at the time that any given app found on
F-Droid is downloaded & installed (using _just_ the F-Droid app itself).
--
Note that you can back up APKs automatically even if you only use Google
Play but you need a third-party app backup program (which abound).

[kelown]

> Anyway, my main question for now is simply how to get F-Droid to
> automatically save the APKs when you download & install the apps.
>
> Does anyone know if the F-Droid app saves the APKs where we can get them?

F-Droid isn't specifically relevant for saving installed apks.

[Arlen Holder]

On Fri, 20 Nov 2020 10:39:09 -0600, kelown wrote:

>> Does anyone know if the F-Droid app saves the APKs where we can get them?
>
> F-Droid isn't specifically relevant for saving installed apks.

Hi kelown,

Thanks for your purposefully helpful advice on F-Droid saving of APKs.

As you noted, I clicked almost every button on the F-Droid app and didn't
see any way to just tell F-Droid to _save_ the APK once it downloaded it.

It seems like such a shame that it must be _deleting_ the APK, since it has
to download it first... so why not just _save_ it and _not_ delete it?

F-Droid has a switch to "Keep cached apps", which it can keep "forever"
o But I have no idea in what _format_ F-Droid keeps those cached apps in.

The reason I asked the question was that it would be "nice" to have all the
APKs saved automatically when the app is downloaded off of the repository.

Aurora Store (which is really just a shell around Google Play) does that.
o And, of course, if I use a web browser, F-Droid "can" do that (manually).

In addition, I have the last known good version of the freeware named
o App Backup & Restore <mobi.infolife.appbackup) version 4.1.9 (79)
(not to be confused with newer revisions with _lower_ version numbers!)
Which automagically saves every APK of all apps & versions I install.

But, given the Aurora Store already saves all my APKs, I end up saving them
twice for Google Play apps, but only once for F-Droid apps...

... Which is why I was hoping we could set F-Droid app to automagically do
what the Aurora Store automagically does, which is simply not delete the
APK once it downloads it!

If anyone knows how to get F-Droid to automatically not delete the APK...
o That would be a wonderful addition to our Android efficiency work path

[Arlen Holder]

On Fri, 20 Nov 2020 18:42:23 -0000 (UTC), Arlen Holder wrote:

> As you noted, I clicked almost every button on the F-Droid app and didn't
> see any way to just tell F-Droid to _save_ the APK once it downloaded it.

Tentative potential workaround!

I found a workaround to the fact that the F-Droid app doesn't specifically
seem to have a switch to automagically save the newly installed app's APK!
o WORKAROUND === Aurora Droid <com.aurora.adroid>

My problem set was that I already had the Aurora Store saving APKs, but
since I couldn't get the F-Droid app to autosave APKs, I had to set up an
app backup in the background to save _all_ installed app's APKs.
o That resulted in autosaving the APKs only once for F-Droid apps
o But it also resulted in saving the APKs twice for Google Play apps :(

As you well know, I hate inefficiency on a computer like you can't believe.
o Where saving half of my installed apps twice was just silly (IMHO).

Well, by experimenting a bit, I found a better solution
o Which, interestingly, is a "shell" around the F-Droid app repository!

Just like the Aurora Store is simply a better shell around Google Play,
apparently "Aurora Droid" is a better shell around F-Droid (AFAICT).
o Aurora Droid, An alternative to the default F-Droid app
<https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.aurora.adroid/>

My testcase was simple:
1. I created a download path in /sdcard0/data0/apk/auroradroid
(I originally created a path on sdcard1; but see below how that failed.)
2. I turned off the switch to auto-delete APKs post install:
Change from:
AuroraDroid:Settings > Installations > Delete apk post-install = Yes
Change to:
AuroraDroid:Settings > Installations > Delete apk post-install = No

Note: If it matters, I also have this settings, but it may not matter:
AuroraDroid:Settings > Installations > Auto install APKs post-download = No
3. I selected the default APK download directory that I created earlier:
AuroraDroid:Settings > Downloads > Download path = /sdcard0/data0/apk/auroradroid

Note: The path apparently must already exist.
Worse: I couldn't get it to accept a path on the external sdcard.
Dunno why? (If you can get around that, let me know how you did it.)

Note: Other perhaps related settings, if they matter, are:
Download apps in internal storage = No (I don't even understand this)
(But if you set that to "Yes", then you lose the download path option.)

Then I ran a search for these F-Droid apps and installed each of them:
o Alarmio, Simple alarm clock design, readability, and Internet radio
<https://f-droid.org/en/packages/me.jfenn.alarmio/>
I put it in my "*Time*" homescreen folder.
o DiskUsage, Disk usage explorer with a great graphical display
<https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.google.android.diskusage/>
I put it in my "*Storage*" homescreen folder.
o Trail Sense, Sensors to assist in wilderness treks orientation
<https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.kylecorry.trail_sense/>
I put it in my "*Maps*" homescreen folder.
o Fennec F-Droid, Browse the web with a Firefox light (Fenix) browser
<https://f-droid.org/en/packages/org.mozilla.fennec_fdroid/>
I put it in my "*Browse*" homescreen folder.
o Pocket Paint, Advanced Paint
<https://f-droid.org/en/packages/org.catrobat.paintroid/>
I put it in my "*Pics*" homescreen folder.
o NewPipe, Lightweight YouTube frontend
<https://f-droid.org/en/packages/org.schabi.newpipe/>
I put it in my "*Vids*" homescreen folder.
o Metro, Retro Music with Google Play API removed & all pro features
<https://f-droid.org/en/packages/io.github.muntashirakon.Music/>
I put it in my "*Audio*" homescreen folder.
o UUID 0xFD6F Scanner, Scan for BluetoothLE Beacons with UUID 0xFD6F
<https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.emacberry.uuid0xfd6fscan/>
I put it in my "*Sensors*" homescreen folder.
o Device Connect, Similar to KDE Connect to communicate with a desktop PC
<https://f-droid.org/en/packages/net.dcnnt/>
I put it in my "*Telecom*" homescreen folder.
o TrebleShot, Send and receive files over available connections
<https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.genonbeta.TrebleShot/>
I put it in my "*Network*" homescreen folder.
o Loop Habit Tracker, Track your habits and long-term goals
<https://f-droid.org/en/packages/org.isoron.uhabits/>
I put it in my "*Todo*" homescreen folder.
o Autostarts, See what launches at boot & block autostarts
<https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.elsdoerfer.android.autostarts/>
I put it in my "*System*" homescreen folder.
o App Manager, A full-featured open source package manager for android.
<https://f-droid.org/en/packages/io.github.muntashirakon.AppManager/>
I put it in my "*Apk*" homescreen folder.
o ownCloud, Your Private Cloud, Your Data, Your Way, Your LAN!
<https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.owncloud.android/>
I put it in my "*Cloud*" homescreen folder.
etc.

Oddly enough, I had two relatively minor problems with saving APKs:
1. The APKs weren't saved "exactly" where I had expected.
They were, instead, saved to "/sdcard0/apk/auroadroid:"
(note the colon!)
(The directory I created was empty "/sdcard0/apk/auroradroid")
(So I had two directories, one empty.)

2. I couldn't get Aurora Droid settings to select the external sdcard.
If you know why or how I can select the external sdcard,
that would be nice.

In summary, the Aurora Droid shell around the F-Droid repositories has a
setting to automagically save the APKs when the app is installed; but it
has a couple of minor problems I'd like to ask your help & advice on.
--
On Usenet, people can work out a solution which then everyone can then use.

[Arlen Holder]

On Fri, 20 Nov 2020 03:30:58 -0000 (UTC), Arlen Holder wrote:

> On the Internet, this was a pretty detailed thread for finding APKs
> o Does Android keep the .apk files? if so where?
> <https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2507960/does-android-keep-the-apk-files-if-so-where>

Update regarding:
o How do you find the unique app package real name on your Android device?
<https://groups.google.com/g/comp.mobile.android/c/4TcwyAcSPqM>

ClassyShark seems to not only also nicely report the full unique app name:
o ClassyShark3xodus checks for known trackers & shows location of APK
<https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.oF2pks.classyshark3xodus/>

It's based, apparently, on this app (and then improved):
<https://github.com/google/android-classyshark>
"ClassyShark is a standalone binary inspection tool for Android
developers. It can reliably browse any Android executable and show
important info such as class interfaces and members, dex counts and
dependencies. ClassyShark supports multiple formats including libraries
(.dex, .aar, .so), executables (.apk, .jar, .class) and all Android
binary XMLs: AndroidManifest, resources, layouts etc."

What's nice is it also seems to report the full path to the APK that is
saved by the Android operating system for almost every app you installed.

Note this APK path is (apparently) quite _different_ from one you may have
personally manually or auto-archived, either via an app backup & restore
utility, or a shell around either F-Droid or Google Play that manually or
automatically saves the app in the visible filesystem.

These system-created APKs are _not_ in the user-visible file system.
o So while you now know where they are, and what they're called
(You still can't easily view them unless you're rooted.)
--
I think adb can copy these APKs over to the desktop (based on this thread):