Downloading an Android app from Google Play is as simple as tapping the app icon on your phone or tablet, searching for the app and hitting the install button. However, if you own multiple Android smartphones, you will need to do this on all smartphones, one after the other. This could be time consuming and utilize expensive 3G data if your apps are huge. Though you may have a wireless network at home and the data connection may be fast and cheap, there are times when you need to backup the app for your own purposes.
Backing up an app and storing it on your Micro SD card is simple and there are numerous apps available on Google Play that can backup installed apps. However, if you want to install apps on a device without Google Play installed (mostly in cases of devices with custom ROMs or in Android emulators), you will have to go through the process of installing the app, backing it up, connecting the smartphone to the PC and then transferring the file to the PC. To cut the steps even shorter, an online website does exactly what you may need.
Online Apk Downloader is a website which will download the app for you in a few seconds. It is very simple and all you need is the Google Play link for the app you need to download. Head to the Online Apk Downloader website and simply paste the Google Play app link in the URL field on the given page. Click on the ‘Generate Download Link’ button. In a few seconds, you will find the download link to the apk file. Hit the button and your app will be downloaded to your PC. All you need to do is transfer the apk file to the smartphone/tablet/emulator and install it.
What would you need an apk file anyways? We have run into some questions like these before. Well, you could do loads of stuff with the downloaded Android apps.
- As a backup
- Install / share across multiple Android devices
- For experimenting and reverse engineering
- As an alternative for updated apps. Some newer versions of an app may not work across all Android OS platforms and older app versions are never available on Google Play
- For an Android emulator
- On Android smartphones with custom ROMs
- When you are resetting your smartphone to factory defaults so you can install the apps without downloading them all over again and save on time and data costs
- For safekeeping so that when the app is pulled off the store, you don’t want to lose out
- Build an archive of apps
- Include free apps as an Android ROM developer
