Open android with mac

Running Android on a Mac

Android is a popular mobile operating system that has a wide library of apps, some of which are useful on the desktop. Luckily, because Android is open source, it can be run on just about any device, including a Mac.

In order to run a full install of Android on a Mac, you’ll need to set up and install an Android virtual machine.

And though there’s a ton of virtualization software available for the Mac, I’ll you how to create an Android virtual machine using Virtualbox, a free open-source piece of virtualization software by Oracle.

Installing Android on a Mac

To start, download Virtualbox for OS X, free of charge, and open the downloaded image. Run the Virtualbox.pkg package and follow the on-screen prompts to install the app on the Mac.

Download Android for x86, a modified version of Android that’s developed to run on Intel-based computers. Do this by navigating to the Android for x86 website and finding the version of Android you’d like to install from the list of ISOs.

I’ll be installing the Android 4.4 for x86 RC2 in this tutorial because it is, at the time of writing this tutorial, the most recent version of Android for x86.

Setting Up an Android Virtual Machine

Navigate to the Applications folder and launch Virtualbox. Look towards the upper left-hand corner of the application and click on the blue New button.

Giving the new virtual machine a name and selecting its type.

You will be prompted to give the new virtual machine a name, and to select the type of virtual machine, and its version of software.

Name the machine whatever you’d like, select Linux from the Type drop-down menu, and select Other (32-bit) from the Version drop-down menu.

Click the Continue button from the lower right-hand side of the menu to continue the installation process.

Choose how much memory you’d like to allocate by using the slider that is located towards the center of the window or by typing it into the text-box located on the right-hand side of the window. Keep in mind that the virtual machine will run like a stand-alone Android device, so it’s best to allocate 1GB or more of memory to the virtual machine.

Look towards the center of the Hard Drive menu and select the radio button that’s located to the left of the Create a virtual hard drive now button and click the Create button from the lower right-hand-corner of the menu.

Make sure the VDI radio button is selected from the Hard drive file type menu and click the Continue button.

Select the the Fixed Sized button from the bottom of the Storage on a physical hard drive window and click Continue to continue to the virtual hard drive section of installation.

Sizing and naming the Android virtual machine’s drive.

The virtual hard drive will be used to store the Android operating system and all content downloaded to the VM, so size the virtual drive accordingly. I recommend sticking somewhere between 8-10GB for light use, though you can make it bigger if you’d like.

Size the drive using the slider towards the center of the center of the window and click the Create button. When creating the virtual hard drive, it is normal for the Mac to beach ball for a few seconds.

Installing Android to the Virtual Machine

Look towards the left-hand side of the Virtualbox window, click on the new Android virtual machine, and click the green Start button from the top of the window.

Selecting the Android ISO you’d like to install to the newly created virtual machine.

At the bottom right-hand corner of the window and click on the yellow folder button. Select the Android ISO from the pop-up menu and click the Open button from the lower right-hand corner of the screen. The virtual machine will now boot into Android’s installer.

Note: When you first click the mouse pointer into the new virtual machine, you’ll be notified that your mouse is about to be used to control the virtual machine, and that to use your mouse and keyboard to control the Mac, you must tap the Host key on the keyboard. By default, the host key is the left Command key.

Creating a new partition on the virtual hard drive.

Select the Install Android-x86 To Harddisk option that’s located towards the bottom of the window using the arrow keys on the keyboard.

From the next window, click on the Create/Modify partitions button and look towards the bottom of the screen at the list of partition options.

Select the New button to create a partition and press the Return key twice to make it the primary partition as well as allow it to use the entirety of the virtual drive’s space.

Select the Write button from the list of partition options and the installation will fail (this is a good thing).

Selecting the partition you’d like to format.

Use the arrow keys to select the Quit button from the list of options, and you’ll be redirected back to the Choose Partition window.

Select the sda1 Linux Swap drive and press the Return key on the keyboard where you will be brought to a list of format types. Key down to the ext3 option and press the Return key on the keyboard.

The installer will then prompt you to install boot loader GRUB and ask you if you’d like to install /system directory as read-write. Respond Yes to both of these prompts.

From the final screen of the Android installer, select the Reboot button. Once the Android installation restarts, look towards the upper left-hand-corner of the virtual machine’s window and click the red X menu button and, from the drop-down menu, select the Power-off button.

Removing the Android ISO from the storage tree.

Now, open the Virtualbox window and click into the Android virtual machine from the menu bar on the left-hand side of the screen.

Towards the center of the Virtualbox window, click the Storage header. From the storage tree located towards the center of the window, select the option that’s labeled the same as the Android ISO you downloaded earlier.

Towards the right-hand side of the window, click on the small CD icon and select the Remove disk from virtual drive option from the drop-down menu.

Using Android on the Mac

Boot the virtual machine by clicking the green Start button from the top of the Virtualbox window. Your new virtual machine will then boot into Android.

Using Android on the Mac is simple. Clicking into the Android window will let you control the Virtual Machine using the keyboard and mouse and the back, menu, and home buttons are available for use from the bottom of the screen. To exit the VM and use your keyboard and mouse to control the Mac, tap the left Command key on the Mac’s keyboard.

When controlling the Android virtual machine, you can use your trackpad or mouse to control Android as you would on a touch screen. For example, to scroll through menus, just click and drag, and to tap a button, click on it.

Disabling mouse integration in Virtualbox.

Note: If you have issues getting the mouse clicks to register in Android, click on the Machine button from the toolbar and select Disable Mouse Integration from the drop-down menu. Click back into the Android window and press the Capture button from the pop-up window.

Upon first boot, Android will greet you with a few setup screens. Follow the prompts on these screens, setting up your language settings, Google account, and other information.

Note: Skip the Wi-Fi setup process as the Android virtual machine will use the Mac’s existing network settings to access the internet.

Accessing the app drawer in the Android VM.

To access all pre-installed apps on the Android virtual machine, click on the App Drawer button that’s located towards the bottom of the menu to pull up the Android app launcher.

If you installed the Android 4.4 ISO I noted earlier in the tutorial, you can download new apps and content to the Android VM using the included Google Play app. To do this, launch Google Play from the app drawer and search the store for new apps.

Unfortunately, because the Android Virtual Machine is running on an Intel chipset, it will have compatibility issues with certain applications on Google Play. Finding apps that support x86 is hit or miss, so make sure you put your favorite x86-compatible app in the comments.

Enjoy Using Android on a Mac

In this tutorial I’ve shown you how to install and use Android on a Mac.

Aside from some app incompatibility issues, the new virtual machine can be used to do just about anything you’d do on a standard Android device: from browsing the web to editing documents in Google Drive.

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How to Use an Android Smartphone With Your Mac

Year upon year, Android has proven its value as an alternative to Apple’s iOS. Android’s 79-per cent marketshare worldwide means a fair number of Mac users also use Android phones. This tutorial covers what it’s like to be in that camp, and what apps and services are available to help make these obverse devices work together.

Managing Files

Early in Android’s iterations, working with files was on an Android device from a Mac was next to impossible. You’d have to hope against odds that either the phone’s manufacturer had built a specialized driver or the phone would be recognized as a storage medium by the generic driver included with Android’s developer toolset.

More recently, Android File Transfer has become a handy tool for interfacing with your phone from your Mac. It’s very basic, but it allows reliable access to the files on your Android device from your Mac and the ability to drag-and-drop files from your computer to the phone. It does require that your phone be on Android 3.0 (Honeycomb) or newer.

It’s no iTunes, but the Android File Transfer tool can provide a basic interface between your Android phone and Mac computer.

Because Android does not come with an all-in-one application to manage your media and data in the way that Apple does, Android File Transfer serves an important role. It’s a decent way to do things like add music or other media files or backup your phone’s contents by copying its files to a folder in Finder.

Once the files are on your Mac, you can use the respective format-friendly apps to modify or save them (ex. iPhoto for photos, iTunes for music, etc.) or move them to a different device.

Pictures, Wired

Understandably, dragging folders from your phone to computer, then importing them manually into iPhoto is not exactly a beautiful solution. Thankfully, if you are running Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich or newer, iPhoto should automatically recognize your phone as a camera when connecting via USB; it just requires changing a USB setting on the phone.

If you are on Android 4.0+, check your settings menu for the USB protocol or USB computer connection. If you choose Camera (PTP), iPhoto should recognize it automatically.

When you connect an Android 4.0+ device (Ice Cream Sandwich) to your computer, it typically defaults to Media Transfer Protocol (MTP), the Windows equivalent of the Android Transfer Tool.

Change that USB connection to Picture Transfer Protocol (PTP)—either in the Settings > USB computer connection or by selecting it from the status bar while connected to the computer—and iPhoto should open automatically with a prompt to import the images shot from your phone as it does when recognizing a camera.

Tip: This may not work on all stock Android builds as the default camera application uses a naming convention for image files that is not recognizable by iPhoto. Most manufacturers have remedied this in their builds. Alternatively, you can use a different camera app as a workaround.

Pictures, Wireless

If you don’t have a USB cable handy, Dropbox is your best bet. The service’s Android app offers the option to automatically upload photos taken on the device to the cloud every time the phone connects to a Wi-Fi network.

Set the Dropbox app up on your Mac as well, and you have a consistent folder from which to import into iPhoto. There is even a (mostly) painless way to have Automator regularly tap into the Dropbox folder to do the importing for you.

Dropbox for Android has an option to allow automatic Camera Upload over Wi-fi. This can be useful as a wireless way to get your photos onto your Mac desktop, if you already use Dropbox for Mac.

iTunes, Meet Google Music

You can use Android Transfer Tool to drag music to your phone, but assuming you have a data plan, you’d probably be better suited using Google Music Manager. Google freely offers the ability to upload up to 20GB of music to the cloud for access anywhere via your Mac or your Android phone.

The Google Music app makes it easy to navigate your library, and songs can even be made available offline.

Google Music Manager can make moving your music to your Android phone an easy process. It allows for up to 20gb of free song storage and can even automatically upload newly added songs.

Tip: This will not work with older DRM-protected music. If that affects a lot of your library, follow this tutorial about using iTunes Match to remove the DRM.

Bon Voyage, iCloud

If you choose an Android device, you can give up on using iCloud for most-everything except Find My Mac.

You will, however, find alternative solace in Google’s ecosystem for most of iCloud’s functionality, and Apple has largely added Google services to its two core productivity apps: Apple Mail and Calendar.

You can sync each app to Google’s services—by adding Gmail and Google Calendar as new accounts within the app—and in doing so, can live in relative harmony amidst your competing platforms.

To do so, click the respective app’s menu, then click Accounts. and choose Google. After adding your account, if you add an event using Apple Calendar, it is immediately added to the calendar app on your phone and vice-versa. In mail, deleting an email from your Android device will move it to the Trash on your Apple Mail app. It’s refreshingly un-tedious.

Sync your Google Mail and Calendar with your Mac’s Apple Mail and Calendar by adding your Google credentials in the Accounts area of each app.

Web Browsing

It may seem obvious, but if you’re using an Android phone, you should use Google’s Chrome browser on both your Mac and your Android phone (the default Android browser is not Chrome). Doing so unlocks a few features that can make your life easier between ecosystems.

First, your bookmarks, browsing history, and autofill passwords will automatically sync between devices.

Second, you can use the Chrome to Mobile extension to push websites directly to your mobile device from your computer.

Chrome to Mobile is an innovative Chrome extension that can push webpages directly from your Mac desktop to your Android smartphone.

The Future of Cross-Platform Bliss

Apple has recognized the Google users among its customer base and made strides to support them. Using an Apple computer and an Android phone will likely never offer the seamless experience as using an iPhone, but it’s now easier than ever.

Moving forward, be wary of the apps where you plan to invest your time to ensure each has a cross-platform mentality. Some popular ones include Dropbox, Google Drive, Evernote, Simplenote, Wunderlist, and Google Chrome. Hopefully, the future continues toward platform-agnostic apps so users can switch their OS at will. Until then, use this guide to make your Android more collaborative with your Mac.

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