How to Use Android Apps on Your Windows PC (And Why You Might Want It)

This summer, popular game studio Bungie ended development on the long-running live-action game. Destiny 2. As an avid gamer who has gone through all the content the game had to offer, I still wanted a Fate fix, so I turned to the next best thing: mobile gaming Destiny: Ascendantdeveloped by NetEase. But even though I could easily play the game on my phone or tablet, playing on a portable screen never appealed to me. So I installed the Android version of the game on my PC, then relaxed and enjoyed the game’s robust mouse and keyboard support, with much better graphics to boot.

But how did I install an Android game on my Windows PC, and are there any reasons to do so beyond the game? It’s much easier to run Android on your PC than you think, with several popular and powerful tools available for the purpose. Almost every computer made in the last decade can run an Android emulator, and as long as you’re at least somewhat familiar with Android, you’ll get used to it quickly. And while emulating Android on a PC opens up new possibilities for mobile gamers, it’s also useful for content creators, developers, and DIYers. Here’s what you need to know to start using Android apps on your PC and why you might want to do so.

There was a time when Microsoft planned to make Android apps compatible with Windows 11, using something called Windows Subsystem for Android. While a subsystem for Linux eventually shipped, support for Android apps was dropped in 2024 for reasons beyond the scope of this article. The bottom line is, if you want to run Android apps on your PC in 2026 and beyond, you have two main routes to go: Android emulators and the Google Play Games app.

Emulators are the most robust solution. Two of the most popular options are BlueStacks and MuMuPlayer, the latter being the tool I personally use. Bluestacks is a legitimate app, but it’s so full of ads that it seems to prioritize everything else, and they clutter almost every corner of the interface. MuMuPlayer is free, and while it has more ads than a year ago, they only appear on a few loading screens. Because it is developed by NetEase, the Chinese publisher of the famous PC and console title Marvel Rivals and mobile games, including Destiny: AscendantMuMuPlayer is designed as a PC portal for NetEase games and doesn’t rely as much on ads. Nonetheless, it is a full-featured Android emulator and recently received an update to Android 15. You simply create virtual phones and then run apps from the Play Store or elsewhere, just like you would on a handset.

If you only want games, you can instead try Google Play Games for PC, a Google project that translates Android games directly to your PC using a lightweight virtual machine. However, it only works with a selection of titles offered by developers who have signed up. You will find many familiar games, such as GenshinImpact, Clash of clans and even the mobile adaptation of the critically acclaimed RPG Disco Elysée. Others, like my beloved Destiny: Ascendantare visibly absent.

It’s worth noting that Phone Link on Windows 11 will let you wirelessly cast your Android phone’s apps or screen to your desktop, although they will run on the phone itself rather than directly on your PC.

Gaming is an obvious use case for Android emulation on PC. Even on high-end gaming tablets, you may experience restrictions in terms of graphical fidelity and frame rate. This is the case of Destiny: Ascendantwhich is capped at 60fps on my Samsung Galaxy Tab S10 Ultra tablet when I crank up the graphics (although I’m pretty sure it could handle both at once, the game decided for me that it couldn’t). With PC emulation via MuMuPlayer, I can get much better graphics using the Nvidia RTX 4070 Ti Super on my PC. I could also install Android emulators for older consoles like the PS3 or GameBoy, but given the legally dubious territory these use cases can fall into, I haven’t done so.

If you’re not a gamer, there are still use cases for Android emulation on PC. Many Android apps don’t have a dedicated PC edition or have more features in the mobile app than on PC. You can run social media programs like Instagram or TikTok, messaging apps like Snapchat, or that app your landlord made you download to control your smart thermostat and locks which unfortunately doesn’t have a PC version. Of course, Android developers use emulation to test apps. And low-end computers that can’t run professional-grade authoring software may be able to run stripped-down Android versions of those programs, at least if their more limited functionality is tolerable.

An Android emulator like MuMuPlayer or BlueStacks can also be a great way to separate some workflows from your main compute environment (although local emulation will still consume local system resources). Both tools also allow for parallel instances, that is, multiple emulated Android devices running simultaneously, a capability that some mobile gamers use to leverage in-game resources, social media creators use for multi-account management, and others can use to create separation between work and personal accounts.