One of the best things to come to Chromebooks was the introduction of the Google Play Store to access the millions of Android apps on supported Chrome OS devices. Here’s how to install Android apps on your Chromebook.
What Devices Support the Play Store?
While most new Chromebooks come with Google Play Store out of the box, some devices still don’t have support for the Play Store. Check out the Chromium Projects page to see a full list of devices that support Android apps and ones that are planned. Google continues to evaluate more devices for compatibility and updates the list as new devices are added.
If you still don’t see the Play Store app in the Launcher, your Chromebook might just be in need of a software update. Make sure Chrome OS is running the latest version and try to update your Chromebook to the most recent version.
How to Install Android Apps
To get started, you first need to open the Play Store. Click the Launcher icon, scroll down until you see the Play Store icon, and then click on it.
After the Play Store opens, type an app name into the search bar at the top, and hit the Enter key.
From the list of search results, click “Install” under the app you want to start the download.
After the app installs, click “Open.”
If you’d rather open it later, you can do so from the app drawer. Click the drawer icon, scroll until you see the application’s icon, and then select it.
How to Organize Downloaded Apps
After you download a bunch of apps, you might notice that the app drawer gets a bit cluttered. Although there isn’t a way to automatically sort the apps in the drawer, you can add them to folders and manually rearrange their order in the drawer.
How to Add Apps to Folders
To organize them into different categories for easy access, you can bundle them together inside a folder in the app drawer.
Open the app drawer, long press and drag an app on top of another app, and then drop it.
An unnamed folder gets created with the apps. To rename the folder to something a little more descriptive, click the folder, select “Unnamed,” and then type a new name.
How to Rearrange Apps
Now that you have apps organized into folders, you might want to rearrange them in the app drawer. You can place the most-used apps/folders at the very top and push the ones you rarely use to the bottom of the drawer.
Just as you did before, long press and drag an app/folder to any position in the app drawer, and then let go.
How to Uninstall Android Apps
Installing multiple Android applications on your Chromebook is bound to use up a large chunk of storage. Luckily, you can easily uninstall any applications you haven’t used in a while that are taking up that much-needed space.
Open the app drawer, right-click the application you want to uninstall, and then click “Uninstall.”
A prompt appears asking you to confirm you want to uninstall the app. Click “Uninstall.”
After the application is uninstalled, you can go ahead and install any additional apps with the freed-up space gained from removing any apps you no longer need.
