Kiwix for Android
Kiwix is an offline reader for Web content. One of its main purposes is to make Wikipedia available offline. This is achieved by reading the content of a file in the ZIM format, a highly compressed open format with additional metadata.
This is the version for Android, with support versions ranging from 7 to 13.
Important Note: Starting from Android 11, the ZIM file picker
feature has been restricted in the Play Store
variant
due to Play Store policies. This means that users running Android 11
and above will not be able to load ZIM files from internal/external
storage directly within the app if they have downloaded Kiwix from the
Google Play Store. This restriction is in place to comply with the
Play Store policies. The Play Store variant of Kiwix does not require
the MANAGE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE
permission anymore, which is necessary
to scan storage and access ZIM files at arbitrary locations.
Therefore, the storage scanning & file picking functionalities are not
available in this variant anymore. To use the full version of Kiwix
and benefit of the ZIM file picker feature, you can download it
directly from the official
repository or use
F-Droid. We understand that this
restriction may cause inconvenience, but it is necessary to comply
with the Play Store policies and ensure a smooth user experience. We
recommend using the official version of the app available on our
website to access the complete set of features.
Kiwix Android is written in Kotlin
To build Kiwix Android, clone this repository and import (not open) the project with Android Studio.
If you prefer to build without Android Studio you must first set up
the Android SDK and then run the command: ./gradlew build
from the
root directory of the project. The project requires Java 11
to run,
Therefore set the Gradle JDK
to Java 11
.
Kiwix Android is a multi-module project, in 99% of scenarios you will
want to build the app
module in the debug
configuration. If you
are interested in our custom apps, they have their own repo
kiwix-android-custom.
Before contributing be sure to check out the CONTRIBUTION guidelines.
We currently have a series of automated Unit & Integration tests. These can be run locally and are also run when submitting a pull request.
Available communication channels:
For more information, please refer to https://wiki.kiwix.org/wiki/Communication.