Build android release apk on Phonegap 3.x CLI

This is for Phonegap 3.0.x to 3.3.x. For PhoneGap 3.4.0 and higher see below.

Found part of the answer here, at Phonegap documentation. The full process is the following:

  1. Open a command line window, and go to /path/to/your/project/platforms/android/cordova.

  2. Run build --release. This creates an unsigned release APK at /path/to/your/project/platforms/android/bin folder, called YourAppName-release-unsigned.apk.

  3. Sign and align the APK using the instructions at android developer official docs.

Thanks to @LaurieClark for the link (http://iphonedevlog.wordpress.com/2013/08/16/using-phonegap-3-0-cli-on-mac-osx-10-to-build-ios-and-android-projects/), and the blogger who post it, because it put me on the track.


In PhoneGap 3.4.0 you can call:

cordova build android --release

If you have set up the 'ant.properties' file in 'platforms/android' directory like the following:

key.store=/Path/to/KeyStore/myapp-release-key.keystore
key.alias=myapp

Then you will be prompted for your keystore password and the output file (myapp-release.apk) ends up in the 'platforms/android/ant-build' directory already signed and aligned and ready to deploy.