Android Manifest Exported Extractor

A CLI tool to extract exported and enabled components and intent filters from AndroidManifest.xml files. This tool helps security researchers and developers identify potentially vulnerable Android components that are exposed to other applications.

Features

• ✅ Extracts components with android:exported="true"
• ✅ Extracts components with intent filters (implicitly exported)
• ✅ Supports all component types: Activities, Services, Receivers, and Providers
• ✅ Generates clean AndroidManifestExported.xml output
• ✅ Verbose mode for detailed analysis
• ✅ Easy to use CLI interface

Installation

Using npm

npm install -g android-manifest-exported-extractor

Using yarn (recommended)

yarn global add android-manifest-exported-extractor

Usage

Basic usage

android-manifest-extractor AndroidManifest.xml

This will create an AndroidManifestExported.xml file containing only the exported components.

Custom output file

android-manifest-extractor AndroidManifest.xml -o MyExportedComponents.xml

Verbose mode

android-manifest-extractor AndroidManifest.xml -v

This will show detailed information about each exported component found:

📖 Reading AndroidManifest.xml from: AndroidManifest.xml
🔍 Searching for exported components...
  📱 Activity: com.example.MainActivity
  🔧 Service: com.example.BackgroundService
  📡 Receiver: com.example.BootReceiver
  🗄️  Provider: com.example.DataProvider
✅ Found 4 exported components
📝 Output written to: AndroidManifestExported.xml
✅ Exported components extracted to AndroidManifestExported.xml

Command Line Options

| Option | Short | Description | Default | |--------|-------|-------------|---------| | --output | -o | Output file path | AndroidManifestExported.xml | | --verbose | -v | Show verbose output | false | | --help | -h | Show help | | | --version | -V | Show version | |

Security Analysis

This tool is particularly useful for:

• Security Research: Identifying attack surfaces in Android applications
• Penetration Testing: Finding exported components that might be vulnerable
• Code Review: Ensuring components are properly protected
• Compliance: Verifying that sensitive components are not exported

What gets extracted?

1. Explicitly exported components: Components with android:exported="true"
2. Explicitly enabled components: Components with android:enabled="true"
3. Implicitly exported components: Components with intent filters (which are exported by default in older Android versions)

Component types analyzed:

• Activities: User interface components
• Services: Background processing components
• Receivers: Components that respond to system or app events
• Providers: Components that manage shared app data

Examples

Example AndroidManifest.xml input:

<manifest>
  <application>
    <activity android:name=".MainActivity" android:exported="false"/>
    <activity android:name=".ExportedActivity" android:exported="true">
      <intent-filter>
        <action android:name="android.intent.action.VIEW"/>
        <category android:name="android.intent.category.DEFAULT"/>
      </intent-filter>
    </activity>
    <service android:name=".BackgroundService" android:exported="false"/>
    <receiver android:name=".BootReceiver" android:exported="true">
      <intent-filter>
        <action android:name="android.intent.action.BOOT_COMPLETED"/>
      </intent-filter>
    </receiver>
  </application>
</manifest>

Generated AndroidManifestExported.xml output:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<manifest>
  <application>
    <activity android:name=".ExportedActivity" android:exported="true">
      <intent-filter>
        <action android:name="android.intent.action.VIEW"/>
        <category android:name="android.intent.category.DEFAULT"/>
      </intent-filter>
    </activity>
    <receiver android:name=".BootReceiver" android:exported="true">
      <intent-filter>
        <action android:name="android.intent.action.BOOT_COMPLETED"/>
      </intent-filter>
    </receiver>
  </application>
</manifest>

License

MIT License

Security Notice

This tool is designed for legitimate security research and development purposes. Always ensure you have proper authorization before analyzing Android applications that you do not own.