How to Install APK files on your Android Phone

Published at: 07:07 am - Tuesday July 28 2009

There are two ways to install third party applications on your Android based phones:

  • The first way is by installing applications through the online Google Android Market, which you should be familiar with already.
  • The second way is to manually download and install so-called APK packages on your Android phone.

The latter option is discussed in the following chapters.

Through the Android Market

To install APK applications on your Android Phone do the following:

  1. Copy the APK file you want to install to your phones memory card and insert the card into your Android phone.
  2. Go to Android Market and search for the SlideMe App Installer application. Open and install it.
  3. After it is installed, just launch SlideMe App Installer. It will show you all the APK files stored directly in the root directory of your memory card.
  4. Just click on the application you want to install and it will be installed. That’s it.

There are plenty of other application installers available on the Android market, e.g. AppManager, eoeAppInstaller and AppsInstaller. I have no experience with any of those applications personally but they have been reported to work. Email me  if you have any further questions or feedback.

Using the Android SDK

There is one more method that can be used, you can install APK files into your phone using the Android SDK.

Download the Android SDK.

First of all, install the Android SDK on your computer. You will also need to install the Android USB drivers to connect the SDK to your phone via USB. You can download it from here – http://dl.google.com/android/android_usb_windows.zip.

To install applications from other sources, you also need go to Settings -> Application Settings and enable Unknown Sources. Also go to Settings -> SD Card and Phone Storage -> Disable Use for USB Storage. You can enable it again later.

Next, just open Command Prompt and type: adb install <path>/<file>.apk

where <path> is the full path to the APK file and <file> is the name of the APK application file. Your application is now installed. This is all you need to do, now just open the application on your phone and use it.