Exporting Android Apps in UE5

One of our toughest challenges was transforming Unreal Engine projects into apk files. We found a lot of different tutorials and suggestions with different results. Therefore we try to explain one solution, that worked for us in this post.

We will divide the following instructions into 3 chapters

1. Visual Studio
2. Android Studio
3. Unreal Engine

1. Visual Studio

Download Visual Studio Community (https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/de/vs/community/). Run the execution File. After installation open the Visual Studio Installer and click on the button "change"

In Workloads under Gaming check Game Development with C++ and check the following components under "optional"

After that switch to the tab "Individual Components" and check the following components

MSCV v142 - VS 2019 C++-ARM-Buildtools (neueste)
MSCV v142 - VS 2019 C++-ARM-Bibliotheken mit Spectre-Entschärfungen (neueste)

Please keep the directories as they are. Otherwise, you might encounter some problems. Then hit download.

2. Android Studio

Then download Android Studio (https://developer.android.com/studio). When starting Android Studio click on More Actions > SDK Manager.

Please check show Package Details (bottom right corner)
As SKD Plattforms please download
Android 14.0 & 13.0 & 12.0 & 8.0 & 5.0 & 4.4

As SDK Build Tools 35-rc2 please download
34.0.0 & 33.0.2 & 30.0.3 & 29.0.3 & 29.0.2 & 28.0.3

As NDK please download

• 25.1.....
• 21.4.....
• 21.1....

Please also Download

• Android Emulator
• Android Emulator hypervisor driver
• Android SDK PLatform-Tools
• Google Play Licensing LIbrary
• Intel x86 Emulator Accelerator (HAXM installer) - Deprecated

Click apply and download.

3. Unreal Engine

Inside Unreal Engine open Edit > Project Settings

3.1. Project

• Define the Default GameMode and the DefaultMap

• open the Advanced tab
• check the boxes as above
• add your Map to the List of maps to be included in a package build

3.2 Plugins

3.3 Plattforms

• Define your paths, they will differ from my locations

3.4 Keystore Configuration

1. please run the following command in cmd and follow the instructions

keytool -genkey -v -keystore Example.keystore -alias Example_Key -keyalg RSA -keysize 2048 -validity 10000

2. copy the Example.keystore file to Project/Build/Android
3. Assign the attributes in UE5 accordingly

3.5 Start the Export

After changing all your Project Settings you can export your application. If you see a grey warning triangle, click refresh "platform Status". Define your config as indicated by the red arrows below.