Obtainium APK Download v for Android
| Developer | ImranR98 |
| Updated | September 2026 |
| Size | 24 MB (arm64 APK) |
| Version | 1.6.17 |
| Requirements | Android 8.0+ |
Description
An obtainium apk download gives you the smartest way to keep every app on your Android phone up to date — even the ones that never touch the Play Store. Obtainium is a free, open-source update tracker: point it once at an app’s official release page — on GitHub, GitLab, F-Droid, Codeberg, SourceForge, IzzyOnDroid or more than a dozen other sources — and it checks for new versions automatically, notifies you, and downloads and installs the APK with a single tap. No more bookmarking release pages, no more discovering that the app you sideloaded six months ago is three versions behind, and no more waiting weeks for a repository build queue to catch up. Whether you install privacy tools from GitHub, beta builds straight from a developer’s website, or indie apps from alternative stores, Obtainium keeps all of them fresh from the source, exactly as the developers published them.
In this guide you will find everything about Obtainium for Android: what makes it different from F-Droid and the Play Store, every key feature explained, an honest comparison with the alternatives, the official download button, a three-step installation walkthrough, practical tips for power users, and answers to the questions people ask most.
App Info
| App Name | Obtainium |
| Status | Active & Updated |
| Version | 1.6.17 |
| Size | 24 MB (arm64 APK) |
| Developer | ImranR98 |
| Category | Tools |
| License | Free & Open Source (GPL-3.0) |
| Rating Average | Not published (not on Google Play) |
| Number of Votes | N/A |
| Downloads | N/A (distributed via GitHub and F-Droid) |
| Requires | Android 8.0 and up |
| Updated | September 2026 |
What Makes Obtainium Different
Android apps are designed on the assumption that a store updates them. Install an APK from a developer’s GitHub page and that app will happily sit at version 1.0 forever — it has no built-in self-update mechanism, because on Android that job belongs to app stores. For one sideloaded app you might remember to check back; for twenty of them it is hopeless. Obtainium exists for exactly this gap: it automates the tedious job of watching each app’s release page, downloading the new APK, and installing it, so sideloaded apps get the same effortless updates that Play Store apps enjoy.
The key idea is tracking from the source, not from a mirror. Unlike updater tools that pull APKs from third-party mirror sites, Obtainium goes straight to the developer’s own release page. That means you get the file the developer actually signed, minutes after release, with no middleman in between and no risk of a tampered copy. It supports GitHub, GitLab, Codeberg, F-Droid, IzzyOnDroid, SourceForge, SourceHut, Huawei AppGallery and more — over a dozen sources in total — plus a fully customizable generic HTML source that can be tuned to extract APK links from almost any download page.
Then there is the level of control, which no store offers. Per-app filters let you pick exactly which APK variant to grab — arm64 versus universal builds, the F-Droid flavor versus the GitHub flavor — while skipping pre-releases, drafts, or architectures you don’t need. Recent versions added a minimum update age setting, so day-one releases that get a hotfix hours later never touch your phone prematurely. And if you prefer to stay in charge, “track only” mode notifies you about new releases without downloading anything, ideal for sensitive apps you update by hand.
Finally, you are not on your own when adding apps. There is a crowdsourced configuration site where the community shares ready-made source configs for hundreds of popular apps, so adding a well-known app often takes one tap instead of fiddling with URLs and filters. Your whole tracked-app list can be exported as JSON for backup or moved to a new phone in seconds. It is a small, transparent utility that solves one real problem extremely well.
Key Features Explained
1. Update Tracking Across 15+ Sources
Obtainium understands the release-page conventions of GitHub, GitLab, Codeberg, F-Droid, IzzyOnDroid, SourceForge, SourceHut, Huawei AppGallery and more. Add an app by pasting its releases URL and Obtainium figures out the versioning scheme, then watches for new releases on a schedule you control. For anything unusual, the generic HTML source can be customized with filters to find APK links on almost any page — a flexibility no store-based updater can match.
2. Automatic Background Checks and One-Tap Installs
Set a global check interval and Obtainium polls your tracked apps in the background, downloads new APKs when they appear, and lets you install each update with a single tap. Bulk-update flows handle a whole batch at once, so a phone with thirty sideloaded apps can be brought current in a minute. It turns release-watching from a weekend chore into something you never think about.
3. Smart APK Filters and Per-App Settings
Many releases ship multiple files — different architectures, universal builds, debug variants. Regex-based APK filters pick exactly the file you want, while toggles exclude pre-releases, drafts, or older version schemes. The minimum update age setting (added in v1.6.13) delays installation of brand-new releases by a configurable number of days, so you automatically skip the occasional broken day-one build. Each app can override the global defaults independently.
4. Track-Only Mode and Granular Notifications
Not every app should auto-update. Track-only mode watches a release page and simply notifies you when something new appears — perfect for banking apps, launchers, or anything you want to read the changelog for first. Notifications are per-app and per-category, so you can mute the noisy utilities and keep alerts only for the apps you actually care about.
5. Crowdsourced Configs and Easy Import/Export
The community site at apps.obtainium.imranr.dev hosts ready-made configurations for hundreds of popular apps — import one and the source URL, filters, and settings arrive pre-tuned. Your own list exports to a single JSON file, making phone migrations and backups trivial. It is the rare app where the community’s shared knowledge is a first-class feature rather than a forum thread.
6. Reproducible F-Droid Flavor with Verifiable Signatures
Obtainium ships in two flavors, and the F-Droid one is built reproducibly — the published APK is bit-for-bit identical to what anyone can build from the same source code. The developer publishes the SHA-256 hash of the signing certificate, so you can independently verify that the APK you downloaded is genuinely his. Very few Android apps offer this level of supply-chain transparency.
7. No Accounts, No Ads, No Tracking
Obtainium is free and open source under the GPL-3.0 license, built by ImranR98 with community contributors. There is no account to create, no analytics phoning home, and no ads anywhere in the interface. Your list of tracked apps lives on your device and nowhere else — the app has no server to send it to.
8. Organization Tools and Android TV Support
Categories and groups keep a long tracked-app list manageable, with collapsible groups and per-category views. The interface is translated into 74 languages, and the app officially supports Android TV, so the same update tracking works on your TV box or stick. Small touches, but they show a project that is maintained with unusual care.
Obtainium vs the Alternatives: An Honest Comparison
Start with F-Droid, the closest cousin. F-Droid is a curated repository with its own build pipeline and signing keys — excellent for discovering trustworthy apps, but new releases can take days or weeks to appear, and many apps never enter the repository at all. Obtainium tracks each developer’s own releases directly, so updates land the hour they are published, and it covers apps F-Droid would never host. The trade-off is trust: with F-Droid you rely on their build verification, while with Obtainium you rely on each developer’s own signature. Many power users run both — F-Droid for discovery, Obtainium for speed.
Against the Play Store and Aurora Store, the comparison is simpler: stores are unbeatable for mainstream apps with automatic updates, but they cannot help with apps Google won’t host — ad blockers, YouTube frontends, certain emulators, regional betas. Obtainium is the missing update layer for everything outside the stores. It does not compete with the Play Store; it covers the territory the Play Store ignores.
Compared with APK-mirror updater apps, the difference is the supply chain. Mirrors add delay and a trust hop — you wait for the mirror to fetch the file, and you trust the mirror’s copy. Obtainium downloads from the original source, so there is no waiting and no extra party to trust. The honest limitations: a few sources rely on web scraping, which can break when a site redesigns and may need an app or config update to fix; adding an app takes about a minute of setup (crowdsourced configs remove most of that); and Android still requires your tap to confirm each install, so it is one tap per update, not zero.
Download Obtainium for Android
Grab Obtainium from the developer’s official site below. The download page offers builds for every architecture — arm64 for most modern phones, plus arm and x86_64 variants and a universal build — alongside the reproducibly-built F-Droid flavor. Always download from the official source so you get the genuine signed APK.
How to Install the APK
- Download the APK for your device. Tap the Download Obtainium APK (Official) button above and pick the build matching your phone: arm64-v8a for most modern phones (about 24 MB), armeabi-v7a for older devices, x86_64 for a few tablets and emulators, or the universal build if you are unsure.
- Allow installs from your browser. When you open the downloaded file, Android will ask you to permit “Install unknown apps” for your browser (Chrome, Firefox, or whichever you used). Grant it once — this is the normal, expected step for any APK installed outside the Play Store.
- Open the APK and install. Tap Install, then open Obtainium and add your first app: paste a GitHub releases URL, or import a ready-made configuration from the crowdsourced site to skip the setup entirely.
Tips and Tricks
Start by importing crowdsourced configs from the community site instead of configuring URLs by hand — it turns a minute of setup into one tap. Set a per-app minimum update age for apps with a history of hotfixes, so you automatically skip buggy day-one releases. Use track-only mode for sensitive apps like banking or launchers, and full auto-updates for utilities where you just want the latest. Exempt Obtainium from battery optimization so background update checks run reliably on aggressive phone skins. And export your app list as JSON before switching phones — restoring your entire tracked setup on the new device takes seconds.
Frequently Asked Questions
Yes, Obtainium is completely free with no catch. It is open source under the GPL-3.0 license, built by ImranR98 with community contributors, and contains no ads, no analytics, and no tracking of any kind. It is safe because it downloads APKs directly from each developer’s own release page — you get exactly the file the developer published and signed. The F-Droid flavor is additionally built reproducibly, and the developer publishes the signing-certificate hash so the APK can be verified independently.
No — it is a companion, not a replacement. The Play Store and F-Droid remain the best way to discover and install apps, and F-Droid’s curated builds are great for trust. Obtainium covers the gap they leave: apps you installed from outside any store, which otherwise never update themselves. Most users run it alongside a store, letting each handle what it is good at.
Obtainium supports over a dozen sources out of the box, including GitHub, GitLab, Codeberg, F-Droid, IzzyOnDroid, SourceForge, SourceHut, and Huawei AppGallery. For anything else, a fully customizable generic HTML source can be tuned with filters to extract APK links from almost any download page, so even obscure developer sites can be tracked.
No. Tracking public repositories works without any account. A personal access token is only useful if you track a large number of GitHub apps and hit GitHub’s anonymous API rate limits — the app lets you add one in settings, but most users never need it. All other sources work without credentials entirely.
Most modern Android phones need the arm64-v8a build, which is about 24 MB. Older or budget devices may need the armeabi-v7a build, and a few tablets or emulators use x86_64. There is also a universal build (about 68 MB) that works everywhere if you are unsure. All variants require Android 8.0 or newer, and the builds are listed on the official download page.
Check three things. First, your per-app filters: pre-releases and drafts are excluded by default, and a minimum update age setting can delay brand-new releases. Second, the source itself: a few sources rely on web scraping, which breaks when a site redesigns its pages — updating Obtainium or re-importing the app’s configuration usually fixes it. Third, the check schedule: background checks only run as often as your interval setting allows.
Final Verdict
If you sideload even a handful of apps, Obtainium pays for itself in the first week. It turns the chore of watching GitHub releases into a background process you never think about, downloads from the developers’ own pages so there is no mirror in the middle, and stays honest about its limits with track-only mode and per-app filters. It is free, open source, light at 24 MB, and maintained with unusual care. The one honest caveat: it is a power-user tool, so expect about a minute of setup per app. For anyone living outside the Play Store, it is close to essential.
