adb install: downloaded apkm file from ApkMirror.com doesn't end with .apk

Question

I'm attempting to install, via adb, Chrome Beta 104.0.5112.55 downloaded from APKMirror.

The filename is com.chrome.beta_104.0.5112.55-511205534_5lang_7feat_fdd8ce962abf141ecf575852ba260e4f_apkmirror.com.

However, when I run

adb install -r com.chrome.beta_..._apkmirror.com

it complains,

adb: usage: filename doesn't end .apk: com.chrome.beta_..._apkmirror.com

I tried changing the filename by appending an .apk but got

adb: failed to install com.chrome.beta_..._apkmirror.com.apk: Failure [INSTALL_PARSE_FAILED_UNEXPECTED_EXCEPTION: Failed to parse /data/app/vmdl1212970952.tmp/base.apk: AndroidManifest.xml]

Answer 1

Most Android apps are today no longer shipped as a monolithic APK file that can be installed on every flavor of an Android device.

Instead Android apps are shipped as bunch of APK files the app is split into. The file you have downloaded from apkmirror contains such a bunch of APK file. For your convenience they are ZIPed into one file so you don't have to download half a dozen APK files.

For installing such an APK zip bundle (some times called app-bundle) you first need to unzip the downloaded file and then install the APK files using the adb command install-multiple and then list all the APK files you have extracted.

adb install-multiple base.apk filex.apk filey.apk ....

On Windows you have to manually provide all the file names.

On Linux/MacOS (assuming all extracted APK files are located in one directory) you can just use

adb install-multiple *.apk 

and leave the resolving of the wildcard to your shell (e.g. bash).