SAI (Split APKs Installer)

SAI (Split APKs Installer) installs apps that are delivered as several APK files instead of one. Many apps on Google Play are built as Android App Bundles, and copies of them saved from Play or downloaded from APK sites come as a set: a base APK plus split APKs for your screen density, language and processor. Android can’t install such a set by tapping a file. SAI can, from .apks, .xapk, .apkm and .zip files.

It was written by a developer known as Aefyr, and it is no longer developed. The README says: “SAI is kinda dead cause I have no motivation for continuing its development.” The last release, 4.5, came out on 25 February 2021, issues are closed automatically after 60 days without activity, and we found no reply from the developer in recent ones. We host it because many guides still point to it and it doesn’t go online at all; for something maintained, see Universal Installer.

How it installs

From the code of version 4.5, SAI has three ways to install:

• Rootless, the default and the one SAI recommends. It uses Android’s own package installer session, so Android shows its usual install confirmation. You need to allow SAI to install unknown apps.
• Rooted, which runs Android’s pm installer through su.
• Shizuku, which runs the same pm commands through Shizuku, on Android 6.0 and later; version 4.4 added Sui, the Magisk-based variant.

Pro mode is on by default: before installing, SAI lists the parts of the set so you can leave out languages or screen sizes you don’t need. SAI calls it “experimental”.

Two warnings are built in. On MIUI, “a lot of SAI users have reported installations failing” and turning off MIUI optimizations in developer settings usually helps. For apps over 150 megabytes, SAI warns that a hung installation can leave space taken that you “won’t be able to reclaim without using root or doing factory reset”.

File formats

Backups

The Backup tab lists your installed apps and saves any of them as an .apks file in a folder you choose, named after the app, package and version by default. Only the APK files are saved, not data or OBB files, and SAI describes managed backups as “in beta”. You can also export a single part of an app as an .apk.

What goes online

Nothing. This F-Droid build doesn’t request internet access at all. In its source, the analytics switch is hidden because the F-Droid version doesn’t support data collection, and crash reporting is a stub (“No Crashlytics in fdroid version, oof”). F-Droid also strips the Google, Firebase and Play billing libraries before building. The only web addresses in the app, the licence, GitHub page and donation links, open in your browser when you tap them.

That is a real difference from the other SAI you may find. The GitHub and former Google Play build, com.aefyr.sai, contains Firebase Analytics and Crashlytics, and its analytics switch is on by default; its privacy policy lists device information, unique identifiers, “User gender, age and country” and app usage events.

Before you use it

• Leave “Sign APKs” off. This setting, off by default, re-signs apps before installing them with a key that comes inside SAI. We compared it: it is Android’s public AOSP test key, whose private half anyone can download. An app re-signed this way can’t be updated by the developer’s own releases, and the signature no longer tells you who made it.
• Other “SAI” apps on Google Play aren’t this one. The original Play listing is gone; users in the project’s issue tracker report rebranded copies by another publisher, with ads.
• Newer Android versions are untested by the developer. SAI targets Android 10, which is above the minimum that Android 14 (target 23) and Android 15 (target 24) require for installing an app, and the behaviour-change notes for Android 16 and 17 add no new minimum. Reports from users on Android 14 and later contradict each other, and we haven’t tried it ourselves.

About this file

• This is F-Droid’s build of version 4.5, compiled from the source and signed with F-Droid’s key. Its package name, com.aefyr.sai.fdroid, differs from the developer’s builds, so it installs next to them rather than over them. In the F-Droid build the donation-only theme is unlocked and the donation prompt is skipped.
• The 4.5 MB file runs on Android 5.0 and later and declares 6 permissions: storage access for its file picker and backups, installing and removing apps, a foreground service for backups, and Shizuku. There is no native code.
• SAI is licensed under the GPL-3.0. The third-party icons and font it bundles, Google’s Material icons and Roboto, are under the Apache License.
• The screenshots, from the project, date from early 2020, before version 4.0; the tab now called Backup still reads Export in them.

Shizuku API. Uses the Shizuku API, so it can do ADB-level work without root once Shizuku is running. (rikka.shizuku.-$$Lambda$Shizuku$6MxFi86n6dr3F1Td4am0IVU0YFE)

Versions currently kept in the F-Droid repository. We host and check only the newest one. Full changelog.