How to get Android apps on Windows 11 for free

Windows 11 has a number of tricks up its sleeve to make your life easier, including running the same Android apps on your computer that you'd use on your phone.

What if you don't have an Android phone? Don't worry, you can still do this – you only need an Amazon account to get started. So, for example, you can use it to install the BBC Sounds app on your PC.

While it’s simple enough to install the Windows 11 components that allow you to pull off this clever trick, the apps you can run are limited to those from the Amazon Appstore. Even so, you get a selection of news apps, podcasts, kids’ apps and a lot of games.

Keep scrolling for our step-by-step guide on how to run Android apps through your Windows 11 computer.

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Step 1: Check your PC can run Android apps

To run Android apps on your computer, you'll need a machine that hits specs slightly higher than those required to run Windows 11.

If you’re not sure what you're working with, you can find out by selecting the search bar at the bottom of your screen. Type system and select System information when it pops up.

As well as an SSD (solid-state drive), you'll need:

• The October 2022 update installed It might be worth running Windows Update (press the button on your keyboard, type Updates and click Check for Updates), just to make sure you’re completely up to date.
• A 64-bit processor An Intel eighth-gen Core processor (codenamed Coffee Lake and released in 2017) or newer, an AMD Ryzen 3000-series CPU (Zen 2, from 2019) or newer, or a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8c or better.
• 8GB of Ram Note that 16GB is recommended.

You can’t control the resources the Android system uses. This won't be a problem for most PCs that exceed the system requirements, but it may start to slow down if you run a lot of apps at once.

Nothing here will negatively affect your PC. If you don’t use it, or use it once then never touch it again, it won’t have an impact.

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Step 2: Enable Virtual Machine

You also need to have virtualisation enabled on your PC. Select the search bar at the bottom of your screen, type Windows features and select Turn Windows features on or off.

You'll now be looking at a list of Windows features. Scroll down until you see Virtual Machine Platform (shown below) and tick the box to the left. Select OK and restart your PC.

During virtualisation, some of your PC’s processor cores and a chunk of its Ram are hived off using a low-level program called a hypervisor, and used to run virtual machines, which are different operating systems running in a window, as if you had a PC inside your PC.

Step 3: Set up the Amazon Appstore

Open up the Microsoft Store – it’s the shopping bag icon on the taskbar at the bottom of your screen. Next, click Install > Set up and Yes to give the app permission to make changes to your device. Click Download > Yes. Then wait. 

Click Next > Restart and your PC will restart.

Installing the apps once you’ve got the Amazon Appstore installed is simple. Access your Start Menu and find the Amazon Appstore, then login with your Amazon account. Now you can search or browse to find the app you want (we've included some popular ones further down this page), and click the Download button to get it.

Many of the apps available are free, but you’ll find some that you’ll need to pay for, and this uses the payment methods associated with your Amazon account. Install the Amazon Appstore on your Android phone, log in with the same account, and you’ll be able to get the same apps there, as well as on any Amazon Fire tablet you may have.

Once you’ve got the Amazon Appstore installed, your apps can be launched in exactly the same way as Windows apps, pinned to the Start menu or Taskbar for easy launching.

Got an Android phone? Check out 11 Android tricks you really need to know about

5 Android apps you need to try on Windows 11

While it may have a more limited selection than Google Play, the Amazon Appstore is home to some useful apps, and you can get a lot of them for free.

1. Kindle

There’s no Kindle app on the Microsoft Store, although PC users can use its web app in their browser. The Amazon Appstore has one, as you might expect, and it has a neat interface for displaying and reading your Kindle ebooks, though you still can’t buy them in the app.

2. Khan Academy Kids

An educational app for kids aged 2-6, the app and its content are free, supplemented by videos from YouTube. Subjects covered include maths, science, computing, economics, the arts and life skills including personal finance and internet safety. It’s a bit US-focused but still useful.

3. BBC Sounds

A handy way to search and play the BBC’s collection of podcasts, playlists and radio programmes. Ranging from the kind of music that sounds like a chest of drawers falling down the stairs, to sports podcasts, the latest chart hits and live orchestral concerts – there’s something for everyone.

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4. Ticket to Ride

A chilled-out game about building rail lines between cities. Based on a popular board game, Ticket to Ride offers plenty of tactical depth and replayability, as you balance scoring points with less lucrative routes against the possibility of a big score with a risky longer route that takes more time to complete

5. Solitaire

Windows no longer comes with the classic Solitaire game, and one of the ways to get it back is by playing it as an Android app. There are several variations available on the Amazon Appstore, some of which are free but can contain adverts. Spider Solitaire and Freecell can be found, too.

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Additional reporting by Tom Morgan.