How to get google play store on chromebook

Sometimes, an Android app that you want to install on your Chromebook may simply not be available on the Google Play Store. This could be either because it’s incompatible, or because the app’s developer has tagged it as such due to the experience on your device not being exactly how they prefer to present it.

While admirable, you may just want the darn thing to be installed so you can use it – bugs and all. Today, I’m going to show you how you can install apps from outside of the Play Store on your Chromebook without needing to switch into developer mode.

A quick note on this though – if you do this, you’re potentially putting yourself at risk with bad actor app packages, so please proceed with caution and only install apps you know from developers you trust! Okay, let’s continue.

What you’ll need

To get started, you’ll need your Chromebook (of course), and you also need to have enabled Linux on your device. You can do that by following our quick tutorial. Once you’re up and running with that, then just go and grab whatever app you want to install. We recommend going exclusively to APK Mirror since all of their uploads have been scanned and approved for safety. However, if you’re trying to install Fortnite or something, you can download other apps from their source website.

This is an incredibly useful thing to know as a Chromebook owner who’s looking to take advantage of different apps on your laptop, especially as many game developers simply don’t port their experiences to larger screens. We’re lookin’ at you, Apex Legends! Unfortunately, I did try to install Apex, and it still wouldn’t run because the devs have forced the game to check for Play Store integration, so your mileage may vary.

Opening “Settings”

2. With the “Settings” application all fired up, you’ll need to focus your attention on the column displayed on the left of the screen. From there, click on “Apps” to get to the next step.

Clicking on the “Apps” button

3. With that done, you’ll now be taken to the “Apps” section of your device’s settings. You’ll find Google Play Store listed here and a “Turn On” button beside it as well. As shown in the screenshot below, click on the latter to get to the next step.

Turning on the Google Play Store

4. Once done, a window will appear on your screen, and it will take you through the installation of the Google Play Store on your Chromebook. The first step here will be to accept the “Google Play Terms of Service.” After that, you’re free to read the terms and conditions part of the software for your satisfaction.

Once done, there’s an option to enable a Google Drive backup feature that you might be interested in looking at. This functionality will save your application data, including game progress and saved settings, to the famous cloud-storage platform. You can enable it and click on the “More” button to continue.

• Regarding the cloud, check out the best cloud storage options available for users on Chrome OS.

Furthering the installation

5. After clicking on “More,” you’ll be taken to the next page of the installation window. Here, you can permit the Play Store to use your location for all those games and applications that require location access. It’s up to you to grant this permission from the get-go or deal with it later when using an app. Click on “Accept,” as shown in the screenshot below, to continue.

Clicking on “Accept”

6. Once you click on “Accept,” the setup for Google Play along with its installation will begin. You’ll have to wait a couple of minutes for the process to conclude. You should be seeing the following on your screen in this step.

Play Store being installed

7. Once the installation finalizes, the Play Store application will launch on its own. It’ll take a brief moment to load everything up at the launch screen, but you’ll shortly be shown the main Play Store interface afterward. The following screenshot depicts how the latter looks like on Chrome OS.

Google Play Store installed

That’s about it for activating the Play Store on a Chromebook! The process is easy to follow, especially if you have some nicely illustrated instructions to go with. Now that you have the program installed, we genuinely recommend checking out our top 20 Google Play Store applications guide to getting started ideally.

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