Install Android apps from your computer

• Unlock the phone and check that USB debugging is on.
• Try another cable. Many cables, especially ones that came with chargers or power banks, only carry power and can't connect to anything.
• Pull down the phone's notification shade. If it says “Charging this device via USB”, tap it and try File transfer.
• Try another USB port, ideally one directly on the computer rather than a hub.

Windows needs a USB driver before a browser can talk to a phone in debugging mode. For Pixel phones and many others, install Google's USB driver. Samsung, Xiaomi and some other makers have their own; Google keeps a list of manufacturers' drivers. Unplug and replug the phone afterwards.

Your system needs Android udev rules so your user account can open the phone. Fedora 42 and newer include them. On other distributions they're often packaged as android-udev-rules or android-sdk-platform-tools-common. Install them, then unplug and replug the phone.

If you use Chrome or Chromium as a Flatpak, it may not be allowed to see USB devices. Give it device access (for example with Flatseal), or use the version from your distribution's packages.

Only one program at a time can talk to the phone. Close Android Studio, scrcpy, and any other phone tools. If you've used adb in a terminal, its background server keeps hold of the phone: run adb kill-server, then unplug and replug the phone.

Chrome, Edge, Brave, Opera, Vivaldi and other Chromium-based browsers, on Windows, macOS, Linux, ChromeOS and Android. Firefox and Safari don't support WebUSB, which this page needs, and iPhones and iPads can't do it at all.

Often, yes. On the first phone (the helper), open this page in Chrome and connect it to the second phone with a USB-C to USB-C cable. The second phone needs USB debugging turned on, as in step 1.

If the phones just charge each other, unplug the cable and plug it in the other way round, or change the USB setting from the notification shade on either phone. We've tested this with a GrapheneOS phone as the helper, and its USB setting didn't need changing. Not every phone supports this.

Tips:

• It can take a few tries.
• If one phone shows “MTP Host” or starts reading the other phone's files, reverse the cable end for end, or swap which phone runs the Installer.
• Open the Installer from its web address, install.anonacondacodelab.com. A copy opened from the phone's storage can't use USB.
• Use Chrome or another full Chromium browser. A phone's built-in browser (often a WebView in custom ROMs) can't use USB.
• Use a good data cable. With a weak one, the phones may charge but the page says “No devices found”.
• Keep the helper phone unlocked.
• Install stays grey? Look at the second phone: it's waiting for you to tap Allow on “Allow USB debugging?”.

A computer is the most reliable way.

Nothing is uploaded. This page is a set of plain files: it has no tracking, no cookies, no analytics, and no server of its own. The app file goes straight from your computer to your phone over the cable, and its checksum is worked out on your computer.

To connect, your browser creates a key and stores it only in this browser. If you ever ticked “Always allow” on the phone, it will accept that key without asking while USB debugging is on. You can delete it here, and remove the approval on the phone in Developer options with Revoke USB debugging authorizations.

It's a 64-character fingerprint of a file. If even one byte of the file changes, the fingerprint changes completely. When a publisher lists the checksum of their app, you can compare it with the one shown here to make sure your file is exactly theirs.

When you open an APK directly on the phone, Play Protect may warn about apps from developers who haven't registered with Google, even when the app is safe. Installing over USB from this page doesn't usually show that warning. The warning isn't a verdict on the app itself, so the usual rule still applies: only install apps from publishers you trust.

Yes. When you've finished installing, go to Settings → System → Developer options on the phone and switch it off at the top. That also turns off USB debugging, so no computer can use the connection. Your installed apps keep working. Turn it back on the next time you install or update an app this way.