Android and windows in one laptop

Use apps from your Android device on your PC

With Your Phone apps, you can instantly access the Android apps installed on your mobile device right on your PC. Using a Wi-Fi connection, Apps allows you to browse, play, order, chat, and more – all while using your PC’s larger screen and keyboard. You can add your Android apps as favorites on your PC, pin them to your Start menu and taskbar, and open them in separate windows to use side-by-side with apps on your PC – helping you stay productive.

Note: For the best experience, we recommend making sure your Android device and PC are on the same Wi-Fi network and band. Some Wi-Fi networks offer different connection bands, like a 5 GHz or 2.4 GHz band. Make sure both your devices are connected to the same one. Learn more about how to do that in our Wi-Fi troubleshooting help.

How do I interact with apps?

You can use your PC’s mouse, trackpad, keyboard, pen or touch-enabled screen to open, type, scroll, and interact with apps. A few tips for using your mouse and keyboard:

Single click will behave the same as any single touch/tap interaction

Right click anywhere on your phone screen to navigate to the previous page

Click and hold will behave the same as a tap/hold interaction

Click and hold and drag to select content

Mouse scroll to move between pages vertically or horizontally

Some games and apps might not work with a mouse or keyboard. You’ll need to use a touch-enabled PC to interact with them.

If you’re encountering issues using Apps, our troubleshooting tips may help.

How do I know I’m using the multiple apps experience?

The requirements for using multiple apps are:

A PC running the Windows 10 May 2020 Update or later. For best performance, we recommend having at least 8GB of RAM.

An Android device running Android 11.0.

On your Android device, you need Link to Windows version 2.1.05.6 or higher, or Your Phone Companion version 1.20104.15.0 or higher.

Your Phone versions 1.20104.20.0 or higher.

How do I pin Android apps into Windows?

You can pin your Android apps to the Windows Start menu, taskbar, or add it to Your Phone app favorites.

To pin an app on your PC:

Open the Your Phone app

Right click on the app icon you want to pin or add to your favorites

How do I remove pinned Android apps from my Windows taskbar or Start menu?

If you’ve pinned an app to your taskbar, just right-click the app icon and select Unpin from taskbar.

If you’ve added an app to your Windows start menu, you’ll need to uninstall the app from your apps list. Go to Windows Settings > Apps & features, search for your app in the list. Select it, then select Uninstall.

Are the apps from my Android device now installed on my PC?

No, apps you open will be running from your Android device. The Your Phone app is mirroring apps from your Android device to your PC, meaning you’ll see the same thing on your PC that’s being displayed on your Android device.

Can I access Android apps without linking my device?

No, you need to connect your Android device to your PC via the Your Phone app in order to use this experience. Learn more about how to set up Apps here.

Can I open multiple apps at the same time?

If you have Android 11 on your Android device and one of select Samsung devices, yes. For most other Android devices, you can only open one Android app at a time.

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How to run Android apps in Windows

When it comes to app selection, few platforms rival Android. Unfortunately, using your Android phone and tablet apps isn’t normally possible on Windows. There are ways to use your apps on a full screen if you know how to run Android apps in Windows, though. This way, you can enjoy the best Android apps and the best Android games on the big screen.

If you’re running a Chromebook, we’ve also put together a dedicated guide on how to install Android apps on Chrome OS.

Emulating Android on Windows

The easiest way to run Android apps on Windows is through an emulator. We have two different emulators, both with different focuses. If you’re interested in development, Google offers Android Studio, which includes an Android emulator. It’s really only for developers, though, while our two recommendations focus on end users.

Bluestacks

The Bluestacks App Player is one of the most popular and robust Android emulators around, allowing you to run 32-bit and 64-bit games and apps for Android 7.1.2 (Nougat) on your Windows desktop.

It’s free to use, and you can easily toggle emulation settings and launch apps using the custom-designed interface. “Layercake” technology uses hardware accelerators to improve the performance of Android games running on Windows-based machines.

If you have a Twitch or similar account and a PC with more than 8GB of RAM, you can even broadcast Android apps and games using the Bluestacks “stream mode” and OBS Studio. However, users may want to enable AMD-V or Intel VT-x within the BIOS for optimal performance, if available.

Bluestacks offers an optional subscription ($4 per month or $40 per year) that enables premium support, disables advertisements, includes wallpapers, and more. It’s also now compatible with the Galaxy Store, allowing you to use and play apps purchased through Samsung’s app store.

Here’s how to install Bluestacks to your computer:

Step 1: Download the installer from the official Bluestacks website.

Step 2: Launch the install application and choose the storage location for the app and data files. Unfortunately, you can’t change the Bluestacks directory — it will install on your boot drive by default.

Step 3: Once Bluestacks installs, launch it and enter your Google and/or Samsung account credentials. You’ll need this info to log in to the Google Play Store and Galaxy Store and access your Android app library.

Genymotion

While Bluestacks is focused on apps and games, Genymotion provides the full Android experience (though at the cost of performance). Genymotion offers several paid emulation modes, including an option to run Android emulation from the cloud. There’s a free version for personal use.

The app runs with Virtual Box, so you’ll need to download that beforehand. Otherwise, Genymotion supports templates for basically every popular Android device in existence, and you can emulate the experience with different devices using different versions of Android.

Here’s how to get started:

Step 1: Download VirtualBox for Windows.

Step 2: Download Genymotion for personal use.

Step 3: Open Genymotion and select Create Account. After you’re done setting up your account, activate it, and log in with your credentials.

Step 4: Click the Plus icon and select a device you want to emulate. You can also emulate a custom device.

And that’s it! Like Bluestacks, you’ll want to enable AMD-V or Intel VT-x in your BIOS before getting started. Genymotion can emulate Android 4.4 onward. Keep in mind that it’s focused on developers, so it’s not as user friendly as Bluestacks.

Dual booting

There’s an alternative to emulation that gives you newer versions of Android, but the setup is a bit more involved. It’s called “dual booting,” and it effectively transforms your Windows computer into an Android device. You’ll gain the option to boot into Android when you switch on your computer, and Android will work just like it does on your smartphone or tablet.

However, getting started is not as simple as installing native Android. Because computer hardware — processors, graphics cards, and hard drives — must be added to Android by a third-party developer, you’ll need to find a custom distribution that supports your machine.

Android-x86

Android-x86 brings Android to x86-based PCs with AMD and Intel processors. What’s interesting about this project is that users can install any flavor of Android, whether it’s the now-stale Donut (v1.6) or the more recent Pie (v9). The project even offers builds of LineageOS (cm-x86) that can run on x86-based processors.

For those seeking a more recent Android build, Android-x86 9.0-r2 was the latest release at the time of this publication. Based on Android-9.0.0_r54, it fixed an audio issue on the Surface 3 and another one regarding booting into UEFI mode. Contributors have released more builds since, though for earlier versions of Android.

Though customizations to the Android operating system are minimal, the Android-x86 team did add some meaningful tweaks to give your Android install a desktop-like interface. It comes with features like a new Taskbar launcher and the ability to launch apps in resizable windows rather than just full-screen.

Android-x86 also lets you customize Android to your liking. You can install third-party themes, home screens, and more without having to worry about whether or not they will play nicely together.

To use Android-x86, your PC must have:

• An AMD or Intel processor.
• 2GB or more RAM.
• 4GB or more disk space.
• An available USB port.

If your PC meets the requirements, you will need these three tools:

• A blank USB drive.
• Android-x86 downloaded to your PC
• UNetbootin downloaded to your PC.

Now let’s get started:

Kevin Parrish/Digital Trends

Step 1: Find and open UNetbootin and click the Three Dots button to the far right of Diskimage.

Step 2: Locate and select the downloaded ISO file.

Step 3: At the bottom next to Type, select USB Drive from the list, and then click OK.

Wait for UNetbootin to copy and install Android-x86 to your flash drive.

Step 4: Reboot your computer. This may require you to hit a specific key to prevent Windows 10 from loading, like ESC or F12. A screen should appear allowing you to select Boot to the Boot Device Selection.

Step 5: Select your flash drive.

Step 6: From the UNetbootin menu, select Install Android-x86 to Hard Disk.

Step 7: Select the partition — or location — to which you want to install Android-x86. The program will ask if you plan to format the disk. If you’re unsure, don’t.

Step 8: Select Yes to install GRUB and then select Yes again.

Step 9: A prompt asks if you want to “make system r/w,” which enables Android-x86 to read and write data to your hard drive. Select Yes.

Step 10: Reboot your computer for the second time. Once installed, use the Google Play Store to install Android apps as you wish.

Link to Windows

Microsoft’s Your Phone app allows Android phone owners to send and receive texts from their Windows PC without using their mobile devices. Users can also access their phone’s photos from Windows 10 and see phone-related notifications in the Action Center.

Samsung takes this cool relationship one step further with Link to Windows. This technology now provides two services: Phone Screen and Apps. With the former, you’re essentially streaming a Samsung phone’s screen to an interactive window on your PC. With Apps, you’re streaming individual apps rather than mirroring the phone’s entire screen.

However, all Android apps remain on the Samsung phone. Moreover, this method requires the Windows 10 PC and Samsung Android phone to be on the same local network. Microsoft provides a list of compatible Samsung phones here — not all Samsung phones support Link to Windows.

Finally, this method requires the Windows 10 November 2019 update (at the very least) to work properly. All Samsung phones must have Android 9 or newer.

Step 1: Open the Your Phone app or download it from the Microsoft Store if it’s not installed.

Step 2: Sign in to your Microsoft Account.

Step 3: Move to the Samsung phone. Swipe down on the Quick Panel and tap Link to Windows. If it doesn’t appear in the Quick Panel, download it from the Google Play Store — it’s typically integrated into newer Samsung phones.

Step 4: If other Microsoft apps are already signed in, you won’t need to do it again on your phone. If not, sign in manually.

Step 5: Allow permissions when prompted.

Step 6: The Samsung phone and Windows 10 should begin synchronizing. When complete, tap the blue Allow button on the Samsung phone’s screen to allow the pairing.

If successful, the Samsung phone will display a switch that’s toggled on — tap it to disconnect at any time. The screen also lists the connected PC’s name and the Microsoft Account login name.

Step 6: With the Your Phone app open in Windows 10, click the Gear (settings) icon in the bottom-left corner.

Step 7: Verify that the Display My Phone Screen option is on.

Step 8: Select the Phone Screen or Apps option on the left to begin.

Surface Duo and Microsoft’s Emulator

The Surface Duo is a high-tech piece of equipment that first came out on September 10. This dual-screen device is a folding Android smartphone that operates on a Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 SoC.

It supports the same Link to Windows program that many Samsung devices do, and you can use the official Google Android Emulator with it, too.

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Tutorial: Get started with the Android Subsystem on Windows 11 — Sideload APKs and even enable Google Play Services

Earlier this week, Microsoft released the first version of Windows Subsystem for Android (WSA) to Insiders in the Beta and Release Preview channels. Though originally meant for Insiders to test out, any compatible Windows 11 install can get WSA up and running in no time.

Microsoft offers WSA through the Amazon Appstore. However, this currently works only with PCs set to the US region and with an Amazon US account. The good news is that you do not actually need the Amazon Appstore to run WSA.

In this tutorial, we will show how to get WSA and up and running without an Amazon Appstore and sideload many popular Android apps via ADB. We also take things a step further and show how you can enable Google Play Services and use the Play Store with some command line magic.

The Beginnings: Project Astoria

Microsoft’s fascination with Windows and Android interop is not really new. Back during the Windows Phone era, Microsoft toyed with the idea of running Android apps on Windows 10 Mobile via a tool called Windows Bridge for Android. Called Project Astoria, this was seen as a way to get Android developers to reuse code for easily porting apps to devices running Windows 10 Mobile.

Windows 10 Mobile, though a very capable OS, didn’t have a well-populated, worthy-enough app store. Adding insult to injury was the bitter face-off between Google and Microsoft that led to non-availability of popular Google services for Windows Phone users.

Though it seemed great on paper and in the few demos that Microsoft showed off back then, Project Astoria never really took off. Microsoft dumped the idea and instead said it would rather focus on Windows Bridge for iOS and Xamarin.

But that was more than five years ago. Today, the Windows Subsystem for Android is a reality and is available for anyone running a compatible Windows 11 PC.

What is the Windows Subsystem for Android?

Just like the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) 2, the Windows Subsystem for Android (WSA) is a virtual machine running in Hyper-V that enables users to run Android binaries on Windows 11. The WSA layer enables on-the-fly translation between Android and Windows calls.

This is made possible via Intel’s Bridge Technology, a runtime post-compiler that allows ARM code to run on x86 processors. That being said, WSA can be run on AMD and Qualcomm-based Windows-on-ARM devices as well.

With WSA, Android apps get a first-class experience on Windows 11. They can make use of native Windows 11 notifications, new window controls including Snap, and other platform-specific features. However, given that Microsoft cannot use Google Mobile Services (GMS), WSA is based on the Android Open Source Project (AOSP) and leverages Amazon’s Appstore to deliver apps that don’t rely on GMS.

In the current testing phase, about 50 Android apps are being made available via the Amazon Appstore on Windows 11 with more slated to arrive in the coming days.

Install WSA on Windows 11: Official method

Let’s now get down to installing WSA on Windows 11. Before moving on, make sure your PC meets the minimum requirements for running WSA, and note that these are somewhat different from the baseline requirements for the Windows 11 OS alone.

A PC with at least an Intel Core i3 8th gen, AMD Ryzen 3000 series, or a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8c processor along with a minimum of 8 GB RAM and an SSD is required. You should also have the Virtual Machine Platform optional feature enabled in the Turn Windows features on or off settings.

Microsoft is likely to change these requirements based on feedback received during testing. Check out Microsoft’s page for more information.

Once these requirements are met, enroll your PC in the Windows Insiders Program either in the Beta or Release Preview channels. Be sure not to opt into the Dev channel as Microsoft is now flighting very early and buggy builds that would form part of the next release of Windows codenamed Nickel (Windows 11’s codename is Cobalt).

Once enrolled, you should be seeing a landing page for the Amazon Appstore Preview on the Microsoft Store. If not, just manually search for Amazon Appstore and click on the Install button in the first entry that comes up.

Installing the Amazon Appstore automatically downloads the required binaries for the Windows Subsystem for Android. Once done, open the Amazon Appstore, login with a US-based Amazon account and you should be good to go.

Install WSA without Amazon Appstore: Unofficial method

While the Amazon Appstore route is the recommended method by Microsoft, it requires certain criteria such as being enrolled into the Insiders program and having an Amazon US account. For those who would like to test out WSA without having to worry about the aforementioned requirements, there is a workaround possible.

1. Open a browser and navigate to https://store.rg-adguard.net/.
2. In the first drop down, select «ProductID». In the text field, enter 9P3395VX91NR and select Slow or RP in the next dropdown and click on the checkmark.
3. Navigate to the last result, which is an MSIXBUNDLE installer for WSA. It should be about 1.2 GB in size. Click on the link to download the file and save it to a location of choice.
4. Right click on the downloaded MSIXBUNDLE and select Copy as Path.
5. Now, open an elevated PowerShell prompt and type Add-AppPackage -Path

. Since we’ve performed Copy as Path before, simply right click after the -Path switch to automatically insert the file path, and press Enter. PowerShell will deploy the MSIXBUNDLE and the Windows Subsystem for Android entry will be available in the Start menu.

If you have winget installed, you can reduce many of the above steps by simply typing winget install 9p3395vx91nr -s msstore from an elevated command prompt.

Note that the Amazon Appstore Preview app comes as part of the default WSA package.

Exploring the Windows Subsystem for Android

Now that we have WSA installed, it’s time to have fun with apps. Open the Windows Subsystem for Android entry from the Start menu to access the settings. Here, you can access the Android file system, set WSA resources, and enable Developer Mode. Enabling Developer Mode allows sideloading Android apps via the Android Debug Bridge (ADB).

Sideload APKs via ADB

The Amazon Appstore Preview has a paltry selection of apps for now, but that need not deter you from trying your favorite apps. Using ADB, we can easily sideload Android Packages (APKs) into WSA. The sideloaded APKs behave in the same manner and have access to the same platform features as do ones downloaded via the Amazon Appstore. Here’s how you can accomplish this:

1. Visit the Android SDK Platform Tools release notes page and click on «Download SDK Platform-Tools for Windows».
2. Save the ZIP file to your drive and extract it to an easy location, such as C:\ADBKit, for example.
3. Open the WSA app from the Start menu and enable Developer Mode. This will start the actual WSA hypervisor.
4. Once Developer Mode is enabled, you will see that it allows connecting ADB to the WSA instance via an IP address.
5. Now, open a command prompt and change to the directory where you have unzipped the ADB tools.
6. Connect to the running WSA instance by typing adb connect localhost:58526. It should connect to the WSA instance right away. If for some reason it fails to connect, you can also connect to the IP address mentioned separately in the WSA Settings app. In any case, make sure there is no firewall rule blocking the private network.
7. After the connection is established, you can start sideloading apps. In this example, we will sideload a file transfer app called Sweech that is useful for the next section.
8. Download the Sweech APK from a reputable APK repository such as APKPure, for example, and save it to the ADB tools directory (in this case, C:\ADBKit).
9. In the command prompt, execute adb install sweech.apk. ADB will now stream the bits to WSA and install the package. You should now be able to see the app in the Start menu.
10. Repeat this process for any APK that you would like to sideload. Apps that do not rely on GMS should install and work without issues. Note that you need to connect ADB to WSA only once during a session.

If sideloading each app is not your cup of tea, using third-party app stores such as Aurora or F-Droid may help. Aurora is an excellent repository of free, popular Android apps while F-Droid focuses squarely on open-source ones. Download and sideload the Aurora app store and all subsequent app installs can be directly performed and updated from within Aurora if available in the repository.

Working with the Android filesystem

An important point to consider here is that, unlike WSL 2 that allows seamless navigation between Linux and Windows filesystems, WSA’s filesystem cannot be accessed from within Windows. So, although you can open the Files app from WSA, you cannot drag and drop files or use the file picker UI to import files into WSA. Hopefully, Microsoft will enable this feature in a future WSA update.

For the moment, we can use popular file sharing apps on Android to work our way around this limitation. We have installed Sweech in the earlier step just for this purpose. Of course, you can also try other popular apps such as ShareMe as well.

1. Open the Sweech app that we have installed in the previous section, from the Start menu.
2. Press the big Play button in the middle of the app. This opens a port that allows file transfers. This is similar to how file transfer happens between a PC and an Android phone via Wi-Fi except that the Android phone here is WSA.
3. Open a web browser in Windows and navigate to the IP address shown in Sweech. This will reveal the Android filesystem.
4. To upload a file, just navigate to a folder and press the blue upload icon towards the bottom right edge.
5. Similarly, just click on any file you need to directly initiate a download.

Note that the free version of Sweech does not use HTTPS, so be sure to turn off file sharing after use.

Enable Google Play Services in Windows Subsystem for Android

The main draw of Android is the integrated Google Mobile Services (GMS) that allows access to the Play Store and popular Google apps such as YouTube, Gmail, etc. However, custom AOSP ROMs do not come with GMS and the same holds true for WSA as well. Microsoft has also made it increasingly difficult to enable root access to the base Android image, so using fastboot or installing custom recovery such as TWRP is not possible.

GMS can be installed via the OpenGApps project, but that requires flashing a system image using a recovery environment. While there are tools such as Flash Gordon that do not require root access for flashing OpenGApps, they don’t seem to work well with WSA.

Custom install WSA with root access and GMS

But Android being Android and Windows being Windows, it is only a matter of time before some enthusiast finds a workaround, and it’s here already. Thanks to the efforts of developer ADeltaX on GitHub, it is now possible to install and run GMS, Google Play, and more in WSA. Though it does require a few extra steps, the end result works surprisingly well.

The prerequisites for this procedure include having WSL 2 with any Linux distro of choice installed along with a handy file archiver such as 7-zip. You will also need scripts from ADeltaX’s WSAGAScript GitHub repo. In the WSL 2 distro, you will need to install the lzip, unzip, and dos2unix tools.

The entire process is well-detailed in the embedded video below, so we are not reproducing them again. Broadly, the steps include:

1. Removing the app signature from the MSIXBUNDLE that we had downloaded from Adguard
2. Modifying the Android partitions that are part of the WSA image
3. Integrating GApps into the system partition and applying root and SELinux
4. Unmounting and copying the Android partitions back into the WSA install folder
5. Replacing the default kernel with the one from the GitHub repo folder
6. Installing this homebrew WSA via PowerShell

There’s one more step.

After installing the modified WSA image via PowerShell, the Play Store app should be visible in the Start menu. However, it does not allow signing in to a Google account just yet. As a workaround, enabling sign in requires temporarily disabling SELinux.

1. Go to your ADB folder and connect to the WSA instance by launching a command prompt and using adb connect .
2. Access the shell by typing adb shell.
3. Type su to get root access.
4. At the root prompt, enter setenforce 0 to disable SELinux
5. Now you can sign in to the Play Store and setup your account just like how you would do an Android phone.

Now that we are done with the need for a rooted kernel, it is important to replace the rooted kernel with the default one that comes with WSA. Assuming you’ve followed the video instructions above,

1. Turn off WSA from the WSA Settings app
2. Navigate to the C:\WindowsSubsystemAndroid folder where the WSA package was extracted earlier and enter the Tools directory.
3. Rename the current kernel as kernel_root and rename the original kernel_bak back to kernel. You can reuse the rooted kernel whenever root access is needed.
4. Restart WSA and enjoy the Play Store.

A word of caution, though. Modifying UWP apps outside the sandbox environment presents a security risk, so we recommend not downloading other homebrew WSA packages. Only use this method locally with a legit original package from Microsoft.

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