how to download android apps to the pc 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 phone screen 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 only available in Windows 10’s Insider Previews, but it should make its way to the mass-released version of Windows soon. 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 Download Android Apps to PC without Installing Any Software [Quick Tip] Android has a very rich app ecosystem where you can find an app for almost anything like fitness, note taking, financing, traveling, navigation, time management, educational needs, etc. To compliment the ecosystem, the Google Play Store has made it very easy to install and uninstall an app from the market. As good as it is, the only problem with the Play Store is that you won’t have any access to the APK (installer file) file. In case you are wondering, having the APK file of your most used or important app makes it easy to install the app even if you don’t have access to the Play Store, to the internet connection or if the app is not available in your country. No matter what the reason is, here is how you can download Android Apps to PC . Though I’ve previously shared a simple way to download Android APK files to PC, the procedure needs you to install a free software. If you don’t want to install any software then follow on to know how to download Android apps to PC . Download Android Apps to PC. Using APK Pure. APK Pure is a simple web service that lets you download any app from the Play Store with a single click. All you have to do is, head over the website, paste the app URL and click on the button “Search” button. This action will take you the app download page. Here, click on the button “Download APK” and you are good to go. The good thing about this service is that you can search for the apps directly from the homepage if you don’t have the Play Store URL. Using APK-DL. APK-DL is also similar, you can search for almost any app in the Play Store using the URL, Package name, or App name.