To begin analyzing an Android APK in IDA Pro, the process differs slightly depending on what layer of the application you intend to reverse engineer.
Static analysis (just reading code) is limited. For dynamic analysis, use IDA Pro's . ida pro android apk
Here is the standard professional workflow: To begin analyzing an Android APK in IDA
Android APKs are essentially compressed archives containing compiled bytecode (DEX files) and often native libraries (ELF files). While tools like are used for unpacking and examining resources, IDA Pro is preferred for: Here is the standard professional workflow: Android APKs
Do not try to load the .apk directly into IDA Pro (you can, but it is clumsy). Instead:
Here is the standard methodology when using IDA Pro for Android APK analysis.
If your goal is to reverse engineer an entire APK (not just native libraries), IDA Pro is overkill and misaligned. Here is the correct toolkit for each layer: