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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-05-28T17:25:55+00:00

I am building a release version of my app using ant and proguard. The

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I am building a release version of my app using ant and proguard. The release version of my app is built successfully, however, the only portions of the code that get obfuscated are local variables. Methods and class variables are all retaining their exact names. Adding to my confusion is the fact that the mapping.txt file gets generated every time I build, and I see methods and class variables being mapped to something else. However, when I use Dex2Jar to deconstruct my .apk file, I don’t see any of the mappings.

I recently upgraded ADB to r16. Before this update, I was using a version of ADB that was pre-r14. Using the pre-r14 version of ADB, I had been successfully obfuscating my app for about a year. I was able to verify that these pre-r14 .apks were completely obfuscated by deconstructing them as well.

Can someone tell me why the method names and class variables are not being obfuscated? I have included my build files down below. Though the structure of some of the build files is a bit different after upgrading to r16, I am essentially following the same steps that I used to follow when using the pre-r14 ADB, so I don’t understand why I’m getting different behavior.

proguard.cfg:

-optimizationpasses 5
-dontusemixedcaseclassnames
-dontskipnonpubliclibraryclasses
-dontpreverify
-verbose
-optimizations !code/simplification/arithmetic,!field/*,!class/merging/*
-renamesourcefileattribute SourceFile
-keepattributes SourceFile,LineNumberTable

-keep public class * extends android.app.Activity
-keep public class * extends android.app.Application
-keep public class * extends android.app.Service
-keep public class * extends android.content.BroadcastReceiver
-keep public class * extends android.content.ContentProvider
-keep public class * extends android.app.backup.BackupAgentHelper
-keep public class * extends android.preference.Preference
-keep public interface com.android.vending.licensing.ILicensingService

-keepclasseswithmembernames class * {
    native <methods>;
}

-keepclasseswithmembernames class * {
    public <init>(android.content.Context, android.util.AttributeSet); 
}

-keepclasseswithmembernames class * {
    public <init>(android.content.Context, android.util.AttributeSet, int); 
}

-keepclassmembers enum * {
    public static **[] values();
    public static ** valueOf(java.lang.String);
}

-keep class * implements android.os.Parcelable {
  public static final android.os.Parcelable$Creator *;
}

build.xml:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE project [ <!ENTITY add-proguard-release SYSTEM "add-proguard-release.xml">]>
<project name="MyApp" default="help">

&add-proguard-release;

<property file="local.properties" />

<property file="ant.properties" />

<loadproperties srcFile="project.properties" />

<fail
    message="sdk.dir is missing. Make sure to generate local.properties using 'android update project' or to inject it through an env var"
    unless="sdk.dir"/>

<!-- Custom Android task to deal with the project target, and import the
         proper rules.
     This requires ant 1.6.0 or above. -->
<path id="android.antlibs">
    <pathelement path="${sdk.dir}/tools/lib/anttasks.jar" />
    <pathelement path="${sdk.dir}/tools/lib/sdklib.jar" />
    <pathelement path="${sdk.dir}/tools/lib/androidprefs.jar" />
</path>

<taskdef name="setup"
    classname="com.android.ant.SetupTask"
    classpathref="android.antlibs" />

<import file="${sdk.dir}/tools/ant/build.xml" />

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    Initially I was confused by your build.xml’s references to “add-proguard-release”. Now I see that these references were once necessary to add Proguard support to the build process. However, proguard support is now built into the master SDK_DIR/tools/ant.xml itself. (I think it came in before r16 in fact)

    In short – you don’t need these references, just the proguard.cfg file to be present. I’d just create the sample project from the command line as described in the dev guide and use the generated build.xml as the basis for your project’s build.xml. It will probably work right ‘out of the box’. It certainly does for me. My release builds which are built using Ant (you’ll need Ant version 1.8) from the command line have their methods obfuscated OK.

    P.S. You also need to have the line: proguard.config=proguard.cfg in the project.properties file.

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