google play store has the most extensive collection of apps for android. almost everyone download apps from play store. but many excellent applications cannot be found out there. To get these apps on your android phone, you need to go through a process called “sideloading”. we will explain the process later.
To begin with, several rules and regulations that must be followed to register an application in the Google Play Store. and many times, it is not possible for developers to comply with these policies while creating the best applications for the public. such apps are banned from play store or never make it to the charts.
but don’t worry. To help you with all this, we have decided to do something about it and have put together our list of the best Android apps that are not available on the Google Play Store or are banned due to Google’s strict policies.
but before you start, please read the following note carefully.
note: enable unknown sources from settings >> security to allow installation of the applications listed here.
so here in this article we have selected and listed the best android apps that are not in google play store:
list of the best android applications that are not in the google play store
1. fortnite
Probably one of the most popular games on the planet, Epic Games’ Fortnite is not available on the Google Play Store! The reason is because of fortnite’s expensive play store proposition and many things to buy revenue model.
Google charges 30% of all in-app sales in exchange for the play store’s valuable promotion, distribution, and payment services. Furthermore, Epic Games is a huge company with enough infrastructure to distribute software updates and process global payments.
To install fortnite, you need to visit their website and download the fortnite launcher, which will download the actual game.
2. k-9 mail
k-9 mail is also one of the open source applications. As the name suggests, it is a very advanced email client for android. includes features like push imap support, webdav support, bcc for self, notifications per account, black and white themes, multiple identities, and more.
jesse vincent developed the k-9 mail application. she created a simple patch for the email app in android 1.0 when its creators didn’t yet know how to handle community contributions. she created her own version and made it open source.
download k-9 mail via github
3. xtunes
This app is for those who like to download music and audio on the go. unlike other apps available on google play store, the user has the freedom to store the songs in their storage.
Most of the songs can be found in this application, from the oldest to the most recent. Also, most of the songs that you will download from this app will have correct metadata preloaded like artist, album, year, track, cover photo. so you don’t have to worry about it and can organize your music efficiently.
almost all songs are available in high quality. we have discovered that all the latest songs are available in 320 kbps quality. if you are a music enthusiast, you will know it when you see it. in addition, you can search for an entire album and the songs on that album will be listed. You will also have the option to download the youtube search song if it is not available in the application’s database. we consider it as the best application to download songs.
visit xda thread
4. quickie
As the name suggests, this app will show you the lyrics of the currently playing song or any song you go to manually search for. you may also be wondering what is different between quickric and the other apps available on google play store like musixmatch etc.
the difference is that, here at quickric, you will be able to download the lyrics of all the songs offline with just one click. If I remember correctly, other apps don’t allow it for free. In addition, if you enable the option to update lyrics automatically, this app will search for and download them every time you add a new song to your device. you can also set it to show the lyrics once you change the track. looks fantastic, right?
download quickric
update: the app is now also available on the google play store. here is the google play store link.
5. viper4android
If you have a rooted android device, you have probably heard of this app. it’s an equalizer app but don’t even think that, so what? it’s not just a simple equalizer; is the father of all equalizer. you can configure almost anything this app. however, this comes with a limitation. You will need a rooted android device to run this app. If you don’t have a rooted device, then you can try poweramp music player which will give you almost the same experience.
If you’re a music enthusiast, you’ll love the audio output you’ll receive from this app. If you’re still not convinced, let’s list all the features this equalizer offers:
- analogx
- spreaders
- x86 support
- speaker optimization
- haas/differential surround effect
- fidelity control
- surround+ headphones (vhs+)
- hearing system protection (cure tech+)
- we can’t list everything. It’s such a long list 😛
is the best equalizer for your android device. So what do you think? if you install this app, please let us know your experience with it.
download viper4android
6. popcorn time
First of all, tell us what comes to mind when you say the name of this application. As its name suggests chill time and movies, this app will let you download your favorite TV series and movies with just one click. Now when you’re bored, you won’t have to open torrent sites and google and stumble across the web to download the movies and TV shows you want. this app is a blessing :d.
There are several other applications available on the web, such as showbox, etc., but none of these applications seemed to us to be as complete and bug-free as popcorn time. You may already be starting to like the app, but we haven’t told you the best part yet. you can also see the trailer before downloading, excellent video quality, select subtitles. and then all you have to do is click on the magnet button. the download will start in your torrent client.
7. torrent search [no longer works]
There are many torrent websites available on the internet. let us give you a hint; if you start counting all the torrent sites, you won’t be able to count them! but some of the popular torrent sites have everything we need and are regularly updated.
but to search these torrent sites you will need to first open these sites one by one and search for what you want. what if you can cut down on this work and just search all these major torrent sites with one click? well, this app will be able to do that.
just enter what you want to download and hit the search button. will search all the major sites and provide you with the results with the size of the torrent, the number of seeders and leechers, and the age of the torrent. now click on the torrent you want to download. then the download will start in your default torrent client. you can also search for the best torrents of the day, month, year and all times. If you don’t have a torrent client on your android device, we recommend using flud, one of the best torrent downloaders for android.
8. f-droid
you may be familiar with open source. f-droid consists of all the applications that are available as open source. Here you can download the apps which are not available in google play store. you can find some of the apps listed in this article at f-droid.
This application does not consist of any pirated or cracked software. You may have heard of an app called “black market”. this app is nothing like that. This app is great for exploring new open source apps that you can’t find in google play store.
download f-droid
also read: top 10 android apps every geek must have
9. mix explorer
mixplorer is a file manager that is made up of many useful features. the layout is quite similar to the solid explorer. it can be said that it combines is file explorer and solid explorer. offers dual-pane and tab support, making it easy to work in different locations.
the functions to connect the best cloud storage services like google drive, mediafire, ftp, etc. they even make it useful to control remote storage directly from the file manager. it has its file manager, e-book reader, file encryption, media player and many more features that you can explore by yourself.
download mixplorer
10. tube mate
You may have also heard of this app somewhere or read about it. as its name suggests, it helps you to download the videos from youtube. you can also download and extract mp3 from videos.
A while back when downloading videos from youtube was not against their terms and conditions, there were various apps available on google play store to do it. but the new cough does not allow it. so you will have to rely on the apps that are not available in the google play store and luckily tubemate is one of the best apps to download videos from youtube.
11. tachiyomi
if you are interested in manga, you will love tachiyomi, one of the best manga apps. tachiyomi is a free and open source manga reader specially designed for android. you can read manga from popular sources like kissmanga, mangadex and more using this app. you can read manga on the go after downloading them.
is a highly configurable reader with multiple viewers, reading instructions, and other settings. the manga is divided into different categories, which makes it easy to classify. there are light and dark themes, as well as support for myanimelist, anilist, and kitsu.
tachiyomi is a free application that can be downloaded from github.
12. anyone
anyme is an anime app that can be synced with myanimelist. It also has a built-in ad blocker, so you don’t get any of those annoying ads. it also selects and suggests similar and related anime based on your tastes.
You can read all the information you want, such as score, rating, broadcast day, adaptations, etc. There are also other cool features like the ability to add notes to episodes you’ve watched and a random anime button for times when you don’t know what to watch. you can even search and listen to your favorite anime songs.
download anyme via github
13. exposed frame
xposed framework is an application that will allow you to customize your android device the way you want. It consists of sub-applications known as modules. these modules can be used for specific customizations. and there are a lot of modules available for xposed which will make your android device awesome.
however, for xposed to work, you will need a rooted android device. otherwise, you’re out of luck. There is also an app known as Substratum (available on the Google Play Store), which is also perfect for customization. but you will also need a rooted device.
download xposed framework apk
14. adaway
Whenever you download apps for free from google play store, ads are likely to appear everywhere. nothing to worry about, but when they are placed in such a way that every time you accidentally click, it becomes annoying.
also read: how to access blocked websites?
This app is one of the best ad blocker for android and it will allow you to remove all ads from all apps on your android device. thus, it saves you some time and also, in case you do, some bandwidth. however, for this you will need root access on your android device. Also, there’s a nice feature that it can check for updates, so if a new ad network comes in, you can block it, so it won’t be able to show ads.
Also, please note that if you disable ads, some apps like xtunes will crash and won’t work properly like they used to. however, this is not the case with most applications. Almost every app we’ve tried so far worked fine.
download adaway
15. lucky patcher
lucky patcher is a useful application when it comes to remove ads, apply patches, remove license verification, modify applications, backup/restore and much more. You will also need a rooted device for this app. this app just can’t be explained in ordinary words. you will just have to try this app to test its features. let us know what you think about it.
16. lounger
You may be wondering what the heck a lawn chair is. is the name your custom pixel launcher has been given by its developer. now you will think how it is different from google pixel launcher which is available everywhere.
As you may know, if you want to swipe to google now to work, you’ll need to change the pixel launcher to the system app. this is only possible on rooted android devices but what about others? so lawn chair offers all the different customizations in the pixel launcher along with google now support.
download garden chair
17. youtube advanced
youtube vanced is a modified app from xda devs and team vanced. It has most of youtube premium features like background play, offline videos, picture in picture, themes, etc. extra features like forced vp9 and hdr support, override max resolution.
can be installed on both rooted and non-rooted android devices. you can download advanced youtube by clicking here.
18. gcam (google camera)
google camera is available on play store, so why have we included it here?
It’s because when you install google camera on any device other than nexus or pixel line, you won’t get hdr+ mode. It’s because Google has limited this feature to its own devices for now.
hdr+ is an image processing technique that takes multiple photos with different exposures and then combines them to get the best possible result. it’s much better than normal hdr mode, and that’s why the photos on google pixel come out fantastic. so how to get this exclusive feature on your android device?
the answer is the modified google camera app. For now, this app is only compatible with some devices. the developer is trying to make this possible on all devices, and then the front camera will also have hdr+ in the future.
download google camera
19. amazon app store
The Amazon App Store launched in 2011, shortly after the Amazon Underground app was shut down. the app is available in more than 200 countries. Like Apple and Google, Amazon also charges 30% of the price of in-app or in-app purchases for the Amazon App Store.
the amazon app store has a free app of the day, which allows you to download a free app or game. When the app store launched in 2011, the free app was Angry Birds (no ads). all amazon kindle devices use the amazon app store instead of google services entirely.
you can download the amazon app store by clicking here.
20. mirror apk (unofficial)
Whenever a vendor releases a new app, the apk mirror is usually the first website to upload their apk to their site so you can download and install it on your android device. thumbs up for such excellent service 😀
and all developers trust it because they never interfere with applications and insert malware or unwanted code. that’s why everyone loves them. but for some of us, it’s a pain to open apk mirror and search for android apps.
so unofficial apk mirror app will help you navigate through apk mirror and let you download your favorite android apps directly from the app.
download the unofficial app apk mirror
21. mobdro
services like netflix & amazon prime video costs a lot of money. the price is slowly coming down, but for sure it will never be free. this is where mobdro comes in. is an excellent application that can stream live TV directly to your smartphone.
There are over 200 channels you can select from. Plus, it comes with Chromecast support, which means you can easily cast it to a compatible device. Although this app has ads, it is not annoying. there is also a premium version that you can opt for an ad-free experience.
So there you have it, our top 21 android apps not on the google play store this year. let us know what you think about these apps and what was your experience trying them out. If you have any better suggestions or if we’ve missed any apps, please let us know in the comments section below.