Lost my keystore for uploaded app on android market

Question

I don't know how to solve my issue. We published an android app on the Android market. After fixing a few issue, we are not able to release it as a next version of the app in marketplace because we have lost the private key used to sign that build. If the update version is not signed by same key, android is not accepting the build.

For this application, few users have already purchased it on the market. If we upload the same application with different package name, purchased users will be unable to get the updated version. How can I solve the issue ? Any suggestions regarding this ?

Thanks in advance...

Solution 1

There's no way to recover your key. I once accidently deleted mine and faced the same problem. I ended up emailing the few users who had already purchased my app about my mistake and told them to let me know who they are and that I would refund their purchase of the app again, if that's what they wanted. Since then, I've made several copies of my key. Once again, there is no way to recover this.

On the other hand, you could try doing a system restore, on your computer, to a previous date in which you haven't misplaced or deleted your key yet.

Solution 2

We had the same problem once. As stated above there's no way to recover your key. But you could try brute force to recover it.

This thread was particularly helpful: Forgot Keystore password, thinking of Brute-Force detection. will it corrupt the keystore?

You should at least have a small idea of what your key should be. Lets say you know that the key have android, app and 2012. The scripts will try every combination of these three words plus others. In our case we recovered it in our first attempt.

Good luck.

Comments

[Admin]

It's fine. But, the app already 500 plus people purchased. It's very worth to me.

[Suyog Gunjal]

Once the keystore is lost. You cannot update the application. Create a new keystore with the application with different package name and version and publish as a new application. I once suffered from this. The best learning I got is that to secure the keystore, better approach will be to email it to yourself.

[shobhan]

I have pushed to beta version , but I lost my keystore file , can I create a new one ??

[Maveňツ]

What if I lost the keystore file itself?

[Sanjay Chaudhary]

I have a kestore file. But i forgot password and alias name. So what should i do for that? Please give some suggestion.

[Juan Carlos]

This silly issue does not happen on Windows Store...

[james]

"What if I lost the keystore file itself? " then you will be thinking twice before you generate the apk in future to not to do the same mistake :)

[GMX]

Nice answer just don't use System Restore of windows, the files will not be recovered anyways. You can try with Recuva or some sw like that to recover deleted files.