Tool

dex2jar

Java toolkit that converts Android DEX bytecode, including DEX inside APKs, into JVM .class files packed as a jar for Java decompilers and bytecode tools. It also reads and writes DEX through an ASM-like API, disassembles and assembles smali with its own implementation, converts jars back to DEX and ships helpers such as d2j-decrypt-string.

Targets: App
Category: Android tools
Relationship: Foundation tool
Sources reviewed: 2026-10-19

Requirements & limits

The latest release, v2.4 of 2023-10-03 with the note “bugfix”, is the reviewed 2.x head, and no commits have followed it. Its download is dex-tools-v2.4.zip, while the README build steps still name a 2.1-SNAPSHOT archive. The README lists GitHub as the project's home after earlier Google Code, Bitbucket and SourceForge hosting.
Everything runs on Java: the build targets Java 8 with the Gradle 6.9.1 wrapper, ASM 9.5 and ANTLR 4.9.3, which d2j-smali keeps because newer ANTLR versions need Java 11+. The d2j-* commands are generated as shell and batch launchers. The CI workflow runs gradle check and distZip on JDK 8 for pushes, pull requests and release tags.
Input is a .dex or .odex file, or an APK or zip containing DEX, from the user's own app; the reader accepts DEX versions 035 to 040 and tries others with a warning. Output is a jar of class files rather than Java source, so reading code still needs a separate Java decompiler. Test resources hold small DEX and zip samples, and dex-translator/libs carries an Android dx 30.0.2 jar.
Apache-2.0, with copyright notices in LICENSE.txt and NOTICE.txt.

About this entry

The description was reviewed against primary sources.

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Primary sources

README.md GitHub · pxb1988/dex2jar · Revision b5bda4f
build.gradle GitHub · pxb1988/dex2jar · Revision b5bda4f
d2j-smali/build.gradle GitHub · pxb1988/dex2jar · Revision b5bda4f
dex-tools/src/main/bin_gen/class.cfg GitHub · pxb1988/dex2jar · Revision b5bda4f
dex-reader/src/main/java/com/googlecode/d2j/reader/DexFileReader.java GitHub · pxb1988/dex2jar · Revision b5bda4f
.github/workflows/gradle.yml GitHub · pxb1988/dex2jar · Revision b5bda4f
gradle/wrapper/gradle-wrapper.properties GitHub · pxb1988/dex2jar · Revision b5bda4f
LICENSE.txt GitHub · pxb1988/dex2jar · Revision b5bda4f
NOTICE.txt GitHub · pxb1988/dex2jar · Revision b5bda4f
https://github.com/pxb1988/dex2jar/releases/tag/v2.4

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