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A few months ago one of my team members opted into this horrible app bundle scheme.

2 weeks ago we had a major incident, AAB file was crashing the app and the tested APK files were not. We had no way of testing until we discovered the extra few steps that is bundletool.jar, it was a nightmare to fix.

My question is, how do I opt-out of this system once we accidentally opted in? We'd prefer just simple APKs.

Tejas Pandya
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Oliver Dixon
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2 Answers2

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From Google Play Console

As they stated below , I don't think this is possible .

App Signing by Google Play Terms of Service Effective as of May 8, 2018

  1. Permanent Enrollment

3.1. It will not be possible to retrieve Your app signing key once it is provided to or generated by Google. Google may retain indefinitely a backup copy of the key(s) for disaster recovery purposes.

3.2. You can unpublish Your app and publish a new app with a new package name, without opting into the Service, at any time.

So In that case . you need to upload your apk with new package name and without opting into App bundle.

Community
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Tejas Pandya
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  • Changing the package name will require changes to lots of services around the app. Essentially impossible. Facebook login & firebase for example to name a few. Shame. – Oliver Dixon Mar 28 '19 at 10:10
  • @OliverDixon agree with you brother . new setup with firebase and its json files . and all that package name related stuff – Tejas Pandya Mar 28 '19 at 10:23
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    This answer is misleading. You cannot opt out of App Signing, but nothing prevents you from uploading APKs instead of App Bundles. – Pierre Mar 28 '19 at 17:47
  • @Pierre OP is clearly asking for `how do I opt-out of this system once we accidentally opted in` . And it is already mentioned in google play terms. I've just represented it . you're welcome to provide your answer but this is not misleading – Tejas Pandya Mar 28 '19 at 18:05
  • Most of the thread was about App Bundle not working for their app and that they'd prefer uploading an APK, so I suspect OP considers both App Signing and App Bundle as a single thing whereas they're actually decoupled and uploading an APK would fix OP's problem without having to create a new app. – Pierre Mar 28 '19 at 19:16
  • In other terms, there is no "enrolling in App Bundle". There is "enrolling in App Signing" (which is irreversible) and "uploading an App Bundle": the latter is completely optional, even after enrolling in App Signing – Pierre Mar 28 '19 at 19:17
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Only App Signing by Play is a one-way enrollment. You can still upload APKs if you prefer.

Edit: Just to clarify, enrolling in App Signing by Play and uploading App Bundles are decoupled: you can still upload APKs even when enrolled in App Signing by Play.

On a side-note, should you choose to try App Bundles again, I would recommend you to test your app using APKs generated from the App Bundle. You can do this using bundletool as you found out, but also directly from Android Studio. See this answer. Using the internal testing tracks from the Play Console also allows you to test exactly what will be delivered to your users.

Pierre
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