The androiddeployqt Tool
Building an Android package involves many steps, so Qt comes with a tool which handles the work for you. The steps handled by the androiddeployqt tool are described in Deploying an Application on Android.
Prerequisites Before Running androiddeployqt
Before running the tool manually, you need to configure your project with CMake
or qmake
to generate Makefiles
and a JSON
file (i.e. android-<target_name>-deployment-settings.json
) containing important settings used by androiddeployqt
.
Note: It is not recommended to modify the androiddeployqt JSON file.
To prepare the environment for androiddeployqt, configure your project in a separate directory than your source directory. For more information on configuring your project, see Building Qt for Android Projects from Command Line.
Command Line Arguments
The only required command line arguments when running the tool are --input
and --output
. Other command line arguments are optional but useful. The list below is available by passing the --help
argument to androiddeployqt.
Syntax: androiddeployqt --output <destination> [options] Creates an Android package in the build directory <destination> and builds it into an .apk file. Optional arguments: --input <inputfile>: Reads <inputfile> for options generated by qmake. A default file name based on the current working directory will be used if nothing else is specified. --deployment <mechanism>: Supported deployment mechanisms: bundled (default): Includes Qt files in stand-alone package. unbundled: Assumes native libraries are present on the device and does not include them in the APK. --aab: Build an Android App Bundle. --no-build: Do not build the package, it is useful to just install a package previously built. --install: Installs apk to device/emulator. By default this step is not taken. If the application has previously been installed on the device, it will be uninstalled first. --reinstall: Installs apk to device/emulator. By default this step is not taken. If the application has previously been installed on the device, it will be overwritten, but its data will be left intact. --device [device ID]: Use specified device for deployment. Default is the device selected by default by adb. --android-platform <platform>: Builds against the given android platform. By default, the highest available version will be used. --release: Builds a package ready for release. By default, the package will be signed with a debug key. --sign <url/to/keystore> <alias>: Signs the package with the specified keystore, alias and store password. Optional arguments for use with signing: --storepass <password>: Keystore password. --storetype <type>: Keystore type. --keypass <password>: Password for private key (if different from keystore password.) --sigfile <file>: Name of .SF/.DSA file. --digestalg <name>: Name of digest algorithm. Default is "SHA-256". --sigalg <name>: Name of signature algorithm. Default is "SHA256withRSA". --tsa <url>: Location of the Time Stamping Authority. --tsacert <alias>: Public key certificate for TSA. --internalsf: Include the .SF file inside the signature block. --sectionsonly: Don't compute hash of entire manifest. --protected: Keystore has protected authentication path. --jarsigner: Deprecated, ignored. NOTE: To conceal the keystore information, the environment variables QT_ANDROID_KEYSTORE_PATH, and QT_ANDROID_KEYSTORE_ALIAS are used to set the values keysotore and alias respectively. Also the environment variables QT_ANDROID_KEYSTORE_STORE_PASS, and QT_ANDROID_KEYSTORE_KEY_PASS are used to set the store and key passwords respectively. This option needs only the --sign parameter. --jdk <path/to/jdk>: Used to find the jarsigner tool when used in combination with the --release argument. By default, an attempt is made to detect the tool using the JAVA_HOME and PATH environment variables, in that order. --qml-import-paths: Specify additional search paths for QML imports. --verbose: Prints out information during processing. --no-generated-assets-cache: Do not pregenerate the entry list for the assets file engine. --aux-mode: Operate in auxiliary mode. This will only copy the dependencies into the build directory and update the XML templates. The project will not be built or installed. --apk <path/where/to/copy/the/apk>: Path where to copy the built apk. --qml-importscanner-binary <path/to/qmlimportscanner>: Override the default qmlimportscanner binary path. By default the qmlimportscanner binary is located using the Qt directory specified in the input file. --depfile <path/to/depfile>: Output a dependency file. --builddir <path/to/build/directory>: build directory. Necessary when generating a depfile because ninja requires relative paths. --no-rcc-bundle-cleanup: skip cleaning rcc bundle directory after running androiddeployqt. This option simplifies debugging of the resource bundle content, but it should not be used when deploying a project, since it litters the 'assets' directory. --copy-dependencies-only: resolve application dependencies and stop deploying process after all libraries and resources that the application depends on have been copied. --help: Displays this information.
With a project_name
, to build the application package with androiddeployqt
without deploying it the device, run the following:
androiddeployqt --input <build_dir>/android-project_name-deployment-settings.json \ --output <build_dir>/android-build
To build and deploy the package to the device:
androiddeployqt --input <build_dir>/android-project_name-deployment-settings.json \ --output <build_dir>/android-build --install --device <device_serial_id>
Dependencies Detection
Qt comes with a number of plugins which are loaded at run-time when they are needed. These can handle anything from connecting to SQL databases to loading specific image formats. Detecting plugin dependencies is impossible as the plugins are loaded at run-time, but androiddeployqt tries to guess such dependencies based on the Qt dependencies of your application. If the plugin has any Qt dependencies which are not also dependencies of your application, it will not be included by default. For instance, in order to ensure that the SVG image format plugin is included, you will need to add Qt SVG module to your project for it to become a dependency of your application:
find_package(Qt6 REQUIRED COMPONENTS Svg) ... target_link_libraries(target_name PRIVATE Qt6::Svg)
If you are wondering why a particular plugin is not included automatically, you can run androiddeployqt with the --verbose
option to get the list of missing dependencies for each excluded plugin. You can achieve the same in Qt Creator by ticking the Verbose output check box in the Projects > Build Steps > Build Android APK > Advanced Actions.
It's also possible to manually specify the dependencies of your application. For more information, see QT_ANDROID_DEPLOYMENT_DEPENDENCIES CMake variable.
Note: androiddeployqt scans the QML files of the project to collect the QML imports. However, if you are loading QML code as a QString from C++ at runtime, that might not work properly because androiddeployqt won't be aware of it at deploy time. To remedy that, you can add a dummy QML file that imports such QML modules that are referenced at runtime.
Deployment in Qt Creator
Qt Creator uses androiddeployqt
under the hood, and provides easy and intuitive user interfaces to specify various options. For more information, see Qt Creator: Deploying Applications to Android Devices.
For more information about customizing and deploying a Qt for Android app, see Deploying an Application on Android.
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