You then need to put the resulting files onto your Chromebook. You don’t need to put “–tablet” at the end, but it does fill the screen better on your Chromebook if you do that. Once you’ve got the APK, do a “wget” to get or SCP the file to your Linux box you can then do this command to convert the Android APK to a ChromeOS APK.Ĭhromeos-apk /path/to/yourapp.apk –tablet You then just search the Google Play store as normal and it’ll download the APK file to your phone. Perhaps the best way to get the APK you require is to grab an Android app called APK Downloader. Finding the right APK is a tricky business, and if you “stumble across” one on the internet it could have things lurking in it that you might not want. As you may know, there’s plenty of APKs kicking around the internet. To do this you’ll need to get onto your Linux server and “locate” the APK you need. Once you’ve got all that you can grab yourself an APK and convert it. I basically just ran this command on a CentOS box.ģ – Install the ChromeOS-APK tool by typing.

You can buy / rent a virtual machine for not-that-much, especially if it’s a low-powered one (do a search for “cheap VPS” and find one if you want to get into this a bit more). You might not have one of these kicking around to be honest. This installs the required “bits” that you’re going to need to add your own Android APK. I installed Kids Sight Words because, well… it was just the one I clicked on. To begin with you’ll need to get one of the official Android-based apps for your Chromebook. The first method involves a certain amount of “faff” and you’ll need a Linux server, which I appreciate not everyone has. For the majority, the second method is the fastest. The first way is slightly more complex than the other methods, but hey – we’re hardcore. Google have so far announced four Android apps for the Chromebook recently but that’s kinda where things have stopped. The solution involves running the Android version of the app on your Chromebook. However, there is a way to get this working, and when you’ve completed one of these three steps the end product is very good indeed.

Some people have avoided getting a Chromebook purely because Skype isn’t available. NOTE – This method no longer works, please see the new article here.

How to download skype on chromebook