Android - Where do I find the minimum requirements for an app?

The theory is that you should not need to know. When the developer publishes an app there is a manifest.xml file that describes the required capabilities. These can be both hardware and firmware related. e.g. you need a minimum Android version or you need a specific hardware feature like GPS. Google Play then automatically filters which apps you can see and install based on these requirements. The developer can also impose geographic requirements and potentially carrier requirements as well as disallowing specific devices if they want to.

In your case the obvious thing to do is to first check if the developer has a website with any more information. If that's of no help try emailing them the filtering can be tricky and catches developers out. If the developer is at all responsive they should come back to you. It is in their interest to have the app work on as many devices as possible normally, so if there is no good reason for it to be incompatible with your device they should appreciate the opportunity to work out the issue. If there is a valid issue then your question may help prompt them to make the information available on a website or in the description.


As the other answers already state, requirements are stored in the .apk's Manifest. There are several tools available to help you analyze this file, as e.g. is described at StackOverflow's question How to view AndroidManifest .xml from APK file?. Examples given in the answers include:

  • android-apktool
  • aapt (as also explained by Dianne Hackborn)

Then there also are...

  • Manifest Explorer
  • axml2xml.pl
  • Android XML Parser

...and probably many more.


Goto apkpure.com they list this data at the bottom of the screen. No need to download tools.

As a consumer I needed to know the version because I wanted to know if my older kindle tablet could run some software or not.