4 Free Ways to Run Android Apps on Your PC

Want to use Android apps on a PC? There are plenty of good, free ways to emulate Android right on your computer, including the Your Phone app, BlueStacks, Genymotion, and Android-x86. Let’s take a look.

Ever wish you could run an Android app or game on your PC so you weren’t relegated to a tiny phone screen? Or maybe you need to test a feature on Android, but don’t have an Android device handy. Here are four free ways to run Android (and its apps) on your computer.

Mirror Your Phone With Windows

For apps installed on your phone, you don’t need anything fancy to get Android on your PC. The Windows Your Phone app provides the ability to mirror the screen of many Samsung phones to your PC, with access to most of your apps through a simple desktop window. Just follow our instructions on connecting your phone to Windows, then choose the Phone Screen option in the sidebar to mirror your device.

Microsoft is working on expanding this feature even further, with the ability to pin Android apps on your taskbar and launch them individually, as long as your phone and computer are connected. At the time of writing, this feature is available in Windows 10’s Insider Previews and is slowly rolling out to the general public.

This isn’t always the ideal solution. If you’re looking to play games, this may come with some delay and graphical blurriness, and you won’t be able to easily share files from your PC directly to an app in Android. But for quick access to Android apps you already have installed, it definitely works in a pinch.

Run Your Favorite Apps With BlueStacks

If you’re just looking to run a couple apps and don’t need the emulator to look like Android, you should try BlueStacks. Over the years, it’s become the best Android app emulator around, and it’s packed with features that ensure your apps and games run smoothly. Since it uses virtualization to emulate Android, you’ll want to jump into your computer’s BIOS and enable Intel VT-x or AMD-V, if your computer supports it, for best performance.

Download and install BlueStacks as you would any other Windows or Mac application. It’ll take up about 2GB of space on your computer (plus any apps you download), and when it launches, you’ll be greeted with its customized home screen. It doesn’t mimic a traditional Android launcher, but you do get access to the Play Store to download any apps you want—they’ll appear on BlueStacks’ home screen and on your Windows desktop as their own shortcuts. Just double-click an icon to run the app in question.

BlueStacks is great for apps that don’t have corresponding desktop apps, but the emulator really shines when it comes to games. BlueStacks comes with built-in mappings for your mouse and keyboard, which you can customize to the touch controls you find on different Android games.

You can also adjust the resolution, DPI, FPS, and amount of CPU or RAM allocated to the emulator, ensuring you get the best balance between speed and graphical fidelity. (This is particularly useful given that BlueStacks is fairly resource-intensive, as many virtual machines are.)

BlueStacks does, unfortunately, come with some ads and clutter, but it’s not as intrusive as it once was, and it’s a small price to pay for the functionality you get—especially considering it uses Android 7.1 as its base, which is higher than most alternatives on the market.

Emulate Full Android Experience With Genymotion

If you’re looking to explore the Android operating system itself—rather than individual apps—Genymotion is a decent emulator. Its main product is designed for developers and costs money to use, but there is a free version of the software you can download for personal use; you just need to create an account on the website first.

Genymotion uses VirtualBox to emulate Android, so you’ll either need to have VirtualBox installed on your PC or download the version with VirtualBox bundled. Install it like you would any other Windows program, ensuring you select the version for «Personal Use» during the wizard. (And like BlueStacks, you’ll want to enable Intel VT-x or AMD-V from your computer’s BIOS if you have it.)

When you start Genymotion, it’ll present you with a list of device templates you can install—this determines the screen resolution, Android version, and resources allotted to the emulator. Install the template you want and double-click it to enter Android. You’ll be able to navigate around the home screen, launch apps, and emulate certain events like GPS location.

Note that you’ll start with a very barebones version of Android that doesn’t even come with many of Google’s apps or modern features, though you can add the Play Store by clicking the «Open Gapps» icon in the sidebar to install it. Also, no matter which template you choose, you won’t get any custom versions of Android—picking the Samsung Galaxy S10 template, for example, won’t get you Samsung’s One UI. It just determines the resolution and specs of the virtual machine. (Genymotion does support Android versions from 4.4 all the way up to 10.0, though.)

Genymotion works well for exploring Android’s settings and other built-in features, though I wouldn’t necessarily use it to run individual apps, as it just doesn’t integrate as well with your PC as something like BlueStacks. If Genymotion doesn’t suit your needs, Google’s official Android software development kit also comes with an Android emulator, though setup is a bit more complex, so I wouldn’t recommend it for most users.

Run Android Directly on Your PC With Android-x86

If you’re looking for something a bit more full-featured, the Android-x86 project gets you as close as you can get to true Android on your PC. Android-x86 is an open-source project that ports Android to the x86 platform, allowing you to run it on your computer instead of an ARM-based phone or tablet.

To run Android-x86, you have a couple of options. If you want to run Android on its own, as a desktop operating system for your PC, you can download it as an ISO disc image and burn it to a USB drive with a program like Rufus. Then, insert that USB drive into the PC in question, reboot, and enter the boot menu (usually by pressing a key like F12 during the boot process).

By booting from your Android-x86 USB drive, you’ll either be able to run Android in a live environment—without having any effect on your PC—or install it to your PC’s hard drive for permanent usage (and better performance).

Alternatively, if you want to run Android-x86 on top of your existing operating system, you can download the disc image and run it inside VirtualBox. This is, again, a bit more advanced if you aren’t familiar with VirtualBox, but our guide to running Windows on a Mac can get you acquainted with the process.

The official site has some tips for getting Android-x86 up and running in a virtual machine as well. It’s more work than using something like BlueStacks, but it’s also closer to pure Android, which is a nice perk.

How to Run Android Apps on Your Windows PC

Android’s application ecosystem has proven to be versatile and developer-friendly after a bit of a slow start. You are free to develop an app for Android and publish it to the Play Store with Google’s restrictions, or you can distribute it yourself outside the Play Store. This has led to a plethora of really cool Android apps, some of which aren’t available on iOS or other platforms. Even in this age of giant phones, you might occasionally want to use those apps on a bigger screen, like the one connected to your Windows PC. Fortunately, with a little leg work, you can run Android apps on a PC. There are a few different ways to go about it, each with their own strengths and weaknesses.

Android Studio

One popular way to get Android apps running on a PC is to go through the Android emulator released by Google as part of the official Android Studio. The emulator can be used to create virtual devices running any version of Android you want with different resolutions and hardware configurations. The first downside of this process is the somewhat complicated setup process.

You’ll need to grab the installer from Google’s site and run through the setup process to download the platforms you want — probably whatever the most recent version of Android happens to be at the time (7.1 at the time of publishing). Google has some pre-configured emulation options available in the menu for Nexus/Pixel devices, but you can set the parameters manually, too. Once you’ve booted your virtual device, you’ll need to get apps installed, but the emulator is the bone stock open source version of Android — no Google apps included.

Since there’s no Play Store, you need to do some file management. Take the APK you want to install (be it Google’s app package or something else) and drop the file into the tools folder in your SDK directory. Then use the command prompt while your AVD is running to enter (in that directory) adb install filename.apk . The app should be added to the app list of your virtual device.

The big upside here is that the emulator is unmodified Android right from the source. The way apps render in the emulator will be the same as they render on devices, and almost everything should run. It’s great for testing app builds before loading them onto test devices. The biggest problem is that the emulator is sluggish enough that you won’t want to make a habit of running apps in it. Games are really out of the question as well.

BlueStacks

If you’re looking to get multiple apps and games up and running on your computer with the minimum of effort, BlueStacks is your friend. BlueStacks presents itself as just a way to get apps working, but it actually runs a full (heavily modified) version of Android behind the scenes. Not only that, but it has the Play Store built-in, so you have instant access to all of your purchased content. It actually adds an entry to your Google Play device list, masquerading as an Android device.

The BlueStacks client will load up in a desktop window with different app categories like games, social, and so on. Clicking on an app or searching does something unexpected — it brings up the full Play Store client as rendered on tablets. You can actually navigate around in this interface just as you would on a real Android device, which makes it clear there’s a lot more to BlueStacks than the “App Player” front end. The main screen in BlueStacks with the app categories is just a custom home screen, so replacing it makes BlueStacks feel almost like a regular Android device.

Having full Play Store access means you won’t be messing around with sideloading apps, and BlueStacks manages to run apps pretty well (and better if you have a CPU that supports hardware virtualization). Most games are playable, but keep in mind you’ll have trouble operating many of them with a mouse. If your PC has a touch screen, you can still use apps and games that rely on more than one touch input. BlueStacks can essentially make a Windows tablet PC into a part-time Android tablet.

The only real issue with BlueStacks is that it’s not running a standard Android build. All the alterations the company made to get apps working on a PC can cause issues — some apps fail to run or crash unexpectedly. This customized environment is also of little value as a development tool because there’s no guarantee things will render the same on BlueStacks as they might on a real Android device without all the back-end modifications. It’s also a freemium service with a $2 pro subscription, or you can install a few sponsored apps.

Samsung Link to Windows

Samsung’s latest high-end phones have enhanced support for Microsoft’s Your Phone Windows 10 client, offering access to your messages, notifications, photos, and yes, apps. The apps aren’t technically running on the PC — they’re mirrored from your phone. However, this system is very fleshed out and officially supported. Everything else we’ve talked about is a bit of a hack or not for regular users, but you can be up and running with Link to Windows in a few minutes.

You will need a Samsung phone that works with the latest Your Phone features. As of this writing, that’s just the Note20 family. The feature will expand to more Samsung phones in the coming months, though.

First, make sure you’ve got the Your Phone app on your Windows PC. Next, launch the Link to Windows client on your Samsung phone — it should be accessible under Advanced Features and from the quick settings. You’ll have to scan a QR code on your computer with the phone and sign into your Microsoft account. And that’s it.

Your app list appears in the Your Phone app, and you can launch any of them. Your phone doesn’t need to be plugged in, but Wi-Fi is recommended. Currently, you can only run a single app, but multi-app support is coming in late 2020.

So What’s the Best Way?

If you need to test something with the intention of putting it on other Android devices, the emulator is still the best way. This is best suited to developers as the configuration and management of apps is complicated. It’s slow, but you’ll be able to see how things will work on the real deal. If you’re interested in getting more than a handful of apps running on your PC so you can actually use and enjoy them, BlueStacks App Player is the best solution for most people. It’s easy, has Play Store access, and works on multitouch Windows devices.

If you happen to have a Samsung phone compatible with Microsoft’s latest Your Phone features, that’s by far the easiest way to get Android apps on your PC. These phones are expensive, so it’s not worth buying one just for this single use case. However, if you’re due for an upgrade and running Android apps on a PC is on your list of priorities, this might influence your decision.

How to Run Android on Your PC: The Best Android Emulators

By Melanie Pinola 16 June 2015

You no longer need a dedicated Android phone or tablet to experience the 1.4 million apps available in Google Play. Android emulators make it easy to run Google’s mobile OS side by side with Windows, so you can always access your favorite mobile messaging apps, games and more on the PCs you already own — and take advantage of your larger monitor, hardware keyboard and other peripherals. Here are the best ways to run Android on your computer.

How Android Emulators Work

Emulators are programs that basically mimic or act like the hardware and operating system of other machines. When you install an emulator, you get a virtual console in which you can install other apps and play around with the system. Whether you want to check out Android before you buy a device, develop and test your own Android apps, expand Windows’ paltry app selection, or sync apps between your Android phone or tablet and your PC, you have a number of utilities to choose from.

AMIDuOS

Of all the Android emulators we tested, AMIDuOS performed the best. On AnTuTu benchmarks, AMIDuOS scored 45,611, compared to BlueStacks’ score of 28,311 and Andy’s showing of 31,299. AMIDuOS pulls off this impressive performance by running Android apps natively on your computer’s x86 processor whenever possible, rather than emulating Android devices’ less powerful ARM processors. AMIDuOS ran the performance-demanding Google Earth smoothly (and was able to find my location), detected and followed my «OK, Google» Google Now voice commands, and even allowed for copying and pasting text between Android and Windows.

The fast performance comes at a price — $10 for a lifetime license per computer (after a 30-day trial) and, like other emulators, high memory and CPU usage. The more memory and processing power your computer has, the better.

For the money, though, AMIDuOS offers excellent performance and features, such as the ability to emulate a rooted Android device (so you can try apps and settings that you might not attempt with your $500 phone or tablet). Soon, it will also run Android 5.0 Lollipop.

Best for: People who want to run graphics-intensive or otherwise demanding Android apps, have enough system resources to run the virtual machine and/or want to try Android in root mode.

Andy provides the full Android (4.2.2 KitKat) experience in either full-screen or windowed mode. You can basically do anything in Andy that you could on an Android tablet or phone, including adding widgets to your home screen, backing up your virtual device to Google and receiving app notifications. The latter comes in handy, because instead of leaving a browser tab open for Facebook or Gmail or needing your phone for messaging apps like Snapchat, you can just get the notifications in Andy.

The program offers many ways for Android to interact with your PC (with either x86 processors or ARM processors) and even your phone. You can use your Android phone as a controller for Andy on your desktop (helpful when playing games that require tilting or tapping, if your computer doesn’t support these). Android apps can be launched from your Windows desktop, and you can copy files between Android and Windows through a shared folder.

Andy is also attractively 100 percent free, although its parent company is an alleged adware distributor (a fact that might give some people pause). The program also ran disturbingly slow on my two-year-old laptop, so a newer computer with at least 4GB of RAM, if not more, is recommended if you want to run Android apps with Andy.

Best for: Those who don’t have a touch-screen PC and who want to use their Android device as a game controller, have enough system resources to run the virtual machine, have a laptop with an ARM processor, want to run Andy on both Windows and Mac, and/or want to run Android in a flexible, resizable window (the other programs reviewed here only offer a fixed-size window).

BlueStacks

BlueStacks App Player was one of the first Android emulators. Rather than virtualize the full Android OS, the program lets you install and run individual Android apps on your PC, either in full-screen or windowed mode. According to the company, the system is compatible with 96 percent of the apps available in Google Play and 86 percent of Android games.

While you can search for any Android app to install on your PC using BlueStacks, it is particularly focused on games, as its home page filled with suggested games by category reveals. If you have a touch-screen computer, you can interact with Android apps just like you would on an Android phone or tablet: by tapping, swiping and tilting away.

Unfortunately, although BlueStacks runs many games quite well, I found the program to be buggy and the user interface inflexible. However, it is a free program that doesn’t take up a lot of resources (it requires just 2GB of RAM) — as long as you’re willing to occasionally install BlueStacks’ recommended apps. Otherwise, the program costs $2 a month to keep playing.

Best for: people who don’t need the entire Android OS, want a free solution (and are OK with installing random apps) and just want to play Android games, particularly on a resource-limited computer.

Other Ways to Run Android in Windows

BlueStacks, Andy and AMIDuOS aren’t the only Android emulators in town.

YouWave is another option, but it costs a comparably hefty $19.99 and runs only the older Android 4.0.4 Ice Cream Sandwich.

Genymotion, on the other hand, is free, and, like AMIDuOS, takes advantage of your computer’s x86 architecture for better performance. It runs on Windows, Mac and Linux. You can choose a specific device to emulate — a Google Nexus 9 running the latest version of Android (5.10), for example, or another Android tablet or phone — and create multiple virtual machines. While Genymotion perfectly emulates the full Android environment, however, it’s a tool meant more for Android developers. It doesn’t include Google Play, so you can’t install apps from there without work-arounds. And in my tests, I found bugs such as not being able to pinch to zoom in Google Maps. If you’re willing to go through the steps to install Google Play, however, Genymotion runs most apps smoothly, including those using 3D graphics, but performance isn’t as strong as with AMIDuOS.

The official Android SDK includes a mobile device emulator. Like Genymotion, it’s meant primarily for developers to test their own Android apps on their computers. While it’s possible to use the Android emulator in the Android SDK to try out apps you want to run, the emulator is notoriously slow — perhaps impossibly slow, even.

You can create your own Android emulator in Windows using VirtualBox and Android x86, but that’s essentially like installing Andy or AMIDuOS, with more work involved and fewer user-interface controls.

In short, for a completely free option, you’ll probably want to try either Andy or Genymotion. AMIDuOS, however, is a worthwhile $10 investment if you see yourself regularly using Android apps on your computer (and you can try it free for 30 days to see if it works for you).