Run an Android App on Your Computer (PC or Mac) Using BlueStacks
Android
is probably the most popular operating system for smartphones today.
With its increasing popularity, hundreds and thousands of Android apps
are released everyday on the Google Play store, the official Android
apps repository.
You can find an Android app for almost anything on Google Play store.
This includes Android games, productivity apps, business apps, finance
apps etc. The only issue now is that these Android apps are getting more
and more resource heavy with each version. So you have to spend a lot
on high power Android smartphones.
There are times when you just want to test an Android app to check if
its suitable for your purpose. But you can’t as it needs much more
resources (RAM and processor) compared to what you have on your Android
phone. But thanks to BlueStacks, you can now run an Android app on your computer (PC or Mac) easily.
BlueStacks is a software, available for both Mac and PC that lets you run an Android app on your computer.
You can play Android games on your computer, and use any other Android
app on computer just like you would do on your Android smartphone.
Installation and Setup of BlueStacks on Your Computer
Installing BlueStacks on your computer is very easy. Go to BlueStacks home page
and download BlueStacks for the operating system you have installed on
your computer. It may be Windows or Mac. Once you have the BlueStacks
.exe file, double click on it and follow the on screen instructions to
install it.
Important Note: If you are trying to install BlueStacks on a laptop,
make sure to plug in your power cord while you install it. This is
because the laptop battery may not be able to handle the power needed by
graphic card while installing Bluestacks
Once installed, you need to setup BlueStacks for your computer. This
is one time procedure. To do this, start BlueStacks. It will immediately
start downloading the Android apps database and other necessary updated
features. It may take a few minutes to complete depending upon the speed of your internet connection
.
Now go to ‘My Apps’ in BlueStacks and click on ‘App Search’.
BlueStacks will now prompt you for one time setup where you have to
select the preferred App store and enter you authentication details.
There will be a list of available App stores including the Amazon App
store and Google Play store. Select Google Play Store from the list. Now
accept the BlueStacks Terms and login using your Google account.
Important Note: If the password of your Google account contains
special characters or capital letters, you need to use the BlueStacks
virtual keyboard to enter it. You can find it at the bottom of
BlueStacks window.
That’s it. Your are not ready to run an Android app on your computer.
Run Android App on Your Computer Using BlueStacks
To run an Anroid app on your computer using BlueStacks, you need to
first download it. To download an Android app, start BlueStacks, and
click on the small search icon in the top right corner of the BlueStacks
interface. Now enter the name of the android app you want to install
and click on ‘Find’.
Bluestacks will now search for your Android app in all the available
marketplaces and it will list them on the next screen. Select the
default Google Play store here.
Note that is you want to install some rare Android app, then it may
not be available at Google Play marketplace. So you will not see it in
the BlueStacks search results. In this case, you can install the app
from any other marketplace, but make sure that its a trusted source like
Amazon Android market.
Once you select the market, you can start downloading the Android app.
Once download is complete, go to ‘My Apps’ window in BlueStacks and
click on the Android app to run it on your computer. You can repeat this
same procedure to download, install and run any Android app on your
computer.
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