Howto downgrade any app to the previous version without losing data on android oreo?

4 votes

3 answers

10180 views

                          Howto downgrade any app to the previous version without losing data on android 8.1 ?

EDIT 0 : Nota Bene : Here, Fairemail is given as an example, my question is not app specific but Android specific. I'm actually asking how to downgrade any app to it's **previous release** having already downloaded the apk.

Here is the information of the package eu.faircode.email  I want to push to downgrade :


    $ du -h eu.faircode.email_1036.apk
    13M	eu.faircode.email_1036.apk
    $ aapt2 dump badging eu.faircode.email_1036.apk | egrep '^$|package|[s]dkVersion:|application-label:|native-code:'
    package: name='eu.faircode.email' versionCode='1036' versionName='1.1036' platformBuildVersionName='' platformBuildVersionCode='' compileSdkVersion='29' compileSdkVersionCodename='10'
    sdkVersion:'21'
    application-label:'FairEmail'
    native-code: 'arm64-v8a' 'armeabi-v7a' 'x86' 'x86_64'

I tried to reinstall this app without data-loss :



    $ adb install -r -d eu.faircode.email_1036.apk
    Performing Streamed Install
    adb: failed to install eu.faircode.email_1036.apk: Failure [INSTALL_FAILED_VERSION_DOWNGRADE]

but it didn't work, so I tried the un-installation of this app without data loss and it worked :

    $ adb uninstall -k eu.faircode.email
    The -k option uninstalls the application while retaining the data/cache.
    At the moment, there is no way to remove the remaining data.
    You will have to reinstall the application with the same signature, and fully uninstall it.
    If you truly wish to continue, execute 'adb shell cmd package uninstall -k'.
    $ adb shell cmd package uninstall -k eu.faircode.email
    Success

But then the installation of eu.faircode.email_1036.apk didn't :

    $ adb install eu.faircode.email_1036.apk
    Performing Streamed Install
    adb: failed to install eu.faircode.email_1036.apk: Failure [INSTALL_FAILED_VERSION_DOWNGRADE]
    $ adb install -d eu.faircode.email_1036.apk
    Performing Streamed Install
    adb: failed to install eu.faircode.email_1036.apk: Failure [INSTALL_FAILED_VERSION_DOWNGRADE]
    $ echo $?
    1

It seems adb install -d is only use-able with debuggable packages only according to this :

    $ adb | grep downgrade
          -d: allow version code downgrade (debuggable packages only)


Can you help me ?
                        

Asked by SebMa (177 rep)

Mar 24, 2020, 02:01 PM
Last activity: Apr 21, 2022, 09:23 PM

Howto downgrade any app to the previous version without losing data on android oreo?

Related Questions