What are ODEX files in Android?

Question

After some android apps installed, I found that it will change to odex file (not apk) in smartphone. How does it happens? Who can tea

Answer 1

This Blog article explains the internals of ODEX files:

WHAT IS AN ODEX FILE?

In Android file system, applications come in packages with the extension .apk. These application packages, or APKs contain certain .odex files whose supposed function is to save space. These ‘odex’ files are actually collections of parts of an application that are optimized before booting. Doing so speeds up the boot process, as it preloads part of an application. On the other hand, it also makes hacking those applications difficult because a part of the coding has already been extracted to another location before execution.