Starling v0.8.0

Starling 0.8.0: the first release of Starling and Horizon Android together.

Horizon Android and Starling are now one app, in starling-client/starling. Starling, formerly Horizon Android, is co-founded by JuanLuci, founder of Starling, and Vasysik, founder of Horizon Android. Thanks to Vasysik for the support for older phones, Diagnostics, account profiles with Ely.by, the terrain work on Adreno and the game folder in the Files app in this release.

Install

• Already have Starling: tap Update inside the game.
• New here, or coming from Horizon Android: download the APK for your phone below and open it. Almost every phone takes starling-0.8.0-arm64-v8a.apk. Older 32-bit phones take armeabi-v7a, and x86 tablets and emulators take x86_64 or x86.

What's new in 0.8.0

New

• Horizon Android's controls: the touch controls, their MCPE and GoyControl layouts and the layout editor now come from Horizon Android: open H > Controls > Customize Controls, or Options > Controls > Customize Layout, for presets, undo and button sizes. Options > Controls picks Auto, Touch, Keyboard & Mouse or Controller. Starling's chat shortcuts and inventory gestures stay.
• Accounts: the account button on the title screen keeps Microsoft, Ely.by and offline profiles, and switches between them. The one you pick is the one you play worlds and servers with, and it stays picked after a restart. Ely.by takes your password and, if you use it, a 2FA code. The setup on the first start offers Ely.by and named offline profiles too.
• Skins for each profile: Skin Customization keeps a skin for each profile. A Microsoft account can send its skin to its Minecraft profile, so others see it on servers, and an Ely.by account wears its Ely.by skin, with a button to change it on ely.by.
• A catalog inside the game: the Catalog button on the Mods, Resource Packs and Shader Packs pages finds, installs and removes them. Java shader packs like Complementary, BSL and Photon install with a tap and run as they are.
• Your game folder in the Files app: Starling shows up in Android's Files app and file pickers, to browse, copy, rename and delete.
• More phones: 32-bit ARM phones and x86 devices get their own APK, and older GPUs get a game built to run on them.
• Faster terrain on Adreno, and a lighter upscale on Mali and PowerVR when the resolution is below 100%.
• Diagnostics: Options > Diagnostics shows what happened when something goes wrong, and Starling offers a way back if it can't start.
• Credits: Options > Credits & Attribution names Starling's founders and the game it is built on.

Mods and shader packs

• More shader packs work: packs written for the core profile, like Pixel Perfect, no longer leave a black screen, and packs with only world programs, like Round World, load.
• Many more native mods compile, like Treefall, Eating Animation, Carry Block, Biome Compass and Dynamic FPS.
• Use GitHub (slower) on the Compile card compiles your native mods on GitHub's machines, for when the build server has reached its limit for the day.
• More builds a day: 32 instead of 16.
• Clearer build errors: when a native mod can't compile, the message says which one, right away, and it no longer uses up your builds for the day. Try again on a failed compile compiles again.
• Build server... on the Compile screen lets you use your own build server.
• A clearer Mods page: the top says which game is running, the APK's own or a build with your native mods, and what the next start runs. Tick the native mods you want and press Compile once; a mod ticked and not in the game yet says so beside it. A build made for an earlier install no longer loads by mistake.
• The Mods page finds native mods you copy in while the game is open, when you open the page. A .hnmod Starling can't read gets a row that says why.
• Compiled native mods: compile them again after this update.

Fixed

• The on-screen keyboard opens and types in more places: a server's dialogs, the recipe book's search, the searches in Options, the skin name, a custom button's text, the game rules in World Options and Create New World, and the LAN port.
• Chests and shulker boxes close again after you close them.
• The title screen no longer shows the last world's mobs over the panorama.
• Scrolling the options with a finger no longer changes the setting under it.
• Open Folder opens the game's folders in the Files app. If nothing can open them, a message says how to find them there.
• The setup tries again when a server refuses a download because of its limit, instead of stopping.
• Opening a game in OpenGL no longer crashes on Adreno phones.

New in 0.2.3

• Coming from Horizon Android? Starling offers to bring its worlds and resource packs over: in the setup on the first start, or over the title screen if Starling is already set up. Close Horizon Android, tap Bring them over, then Use this folder and Allow. They are copied: Horizon Android keeps its own.
• A new note for what you import: a banner drops in across the top of the screen, with a sound, and says what each file you open with Starling added, or what went wrong.
• Native mods that record sound ask for the microphone: when the game starts with one, Starling says which mod wants it and Android asks you. Not now stops asking for that build.
• The first start goes on to the title screen once the game is prepared. It used to stay on Starting Starling until Starling was opened again.
• Starling also looks for updates in the new starling-client/starling repository.
• Compiled native mods: compile them again after this update.

New in 0.2.2

• Many more .hnmod native mods from playhorizon.dev/mods now compile, like AppleSkin, Mod Menu, SmartF3, Freecam, Waymap and Distant Horizons. Open the mod's .hnmod with Starling, go to Mods and tap Compile.
• Fixed the crash on opening on GPUs limited to 4096x4096 textures, like the PowerVR GE8320. The largest textures load at half size when they don't fit.
• More builds a day: 16 instead of 8, and a build that fails gives its place back.

New in 0.2.1

• Shader packs run on Mali phones again. On phones with a Mali GPU every pack stayed vanilla since 0.2.0.
• A pack that can't run on your phone now says so in the chat and turns off.

New in 0.2.0, the biggest update yet

Mods: .hmod and .hnmod

Open either kind of file with Starling, from your file manager or your downloads, and it shows up in Mods.

• .hnmod, native mods: tap Compile. Starling tells you the risks, builds the game with your mods while you fish or mine, and restarts with them. It takes a few minutes and needs a connection.
• .hmod, content mods: data-only mods, with nothing to compile. A dropped download of a mod's assets goes on from where it stopped.

The old Starling mods (Far View, FPS Overlay, Keystrokes, Minimap, Recipes, Zoom) and the wasm mod format are gone: mods now use Horizon's formats.

Controls

• Bedrock Inventory: the creative inventory shows the items and your inventory side by side, with six rows of items and a 2x2 crafting grid, and a tap takes a full stack. It is on by default; turn it off in Options > Controls for the Java layout.
• Custom buttons: tap Add in Touch Controls, or go to Options > Controls > Custom Buttons. Each one holds or toggles a key, a native mod's key included, or sends a command or a message. Give them an icon or your own image, drawn on Bedrock's plate or imported as a PNG, and another image for while they are pressed. Select one in Touch Controls to move it or delete it.
• On-screen keyboard: a tap on a text field brings it up and a tap beside it puts it away, on every screen, number boxes included. It no longer opens by itself on the world list or in the creative inventory.
• A double tap on a stack moves it straight to the other side, as Shift-click does.
• The held F3 button also has the other F keys, and the F3 text is bigger: it follows the GUI scale.
• The three-finger Stats tap is off unless you turn it on (3-tap in the touch editor).

Shader packs

• Auto profile: fits a pack to the phone by what its profiles ask of it, and draws terrain's depth first.
• Shader Options for a finger, and Resolution and FPS Limit on the Shader Packs page.
• Water and terrain came back in Photon, Sildur's and Bliss, and superDuperVanilla lost its overlay.
• Packs' own textures load, a block's cracks show, faces are no longer shaded twice, and the sky reaches the horizon.
• A pack that loses the graphics device is turned off instead of closing the game.

Newest Horizon

Starling now sits on the newest Horizon, about 4,800 commits ahead of the previous base:

• Many more vanilla behaviours for mobs: piglins, dolphins, wolves, foxes, zombies with spears, mobs boarding minecarts and picking up gear.
• Remote players' hands and shoulder parrots, the jeb_ sheep's colours, and the portal loading screen on a server's dimension change.
• Optimize World inside Edit World, and operator commands (/op, /deop, /ban, /pardon, /whitelist) on a dedicated server.
• Your own skin shows with offline accounts, and on LAN the host's skin shows.

Report a bug

Open an issue: the form asks for your phone, your Android version and Starling/logs/latest.log (with previous.log beside it once Starling has been opened again).

Not sure which APK to install?

...

Starling v0.2.3

Starling 0.2.3: bring your worlds over from Horizon Android.

Horizon Android and Starling are becoming one app, in starling-client. Starling installs beside Horizon Android and takes nothing from it.

Install

• Already have Starling: tap Update inside the game.
• New here, or coming from Horizon Android: download starling-0.2.3-arm64-v8a.apk below and open it.

What's new

• Coming from Horizon Android? Starling offers to bring its worlds and resource packs over: in the setup on the first start, or over the title screen if Starling is already set up. Close Horizon Android, tap Bring them over, then Use this folder and Allow. They are copied: Horizon Android keeps its own.
• A new note for what you import: a banner drops in across the top of the screen, with a sound, and says what each file you open with Starling added, or what went wrong.
• Native mods that record sound ask for the microphone: when the game starts with one, Starling says which mod wants it and Android asks you. Not now stops asking for that build.
• The first start goes on to the title screen once the game is prepared. It used to stay on Starting Starling until Starling was opened again.
• Starling also looks for updates in the new starling-client/starling repository.
• Compiled native mods: compile them again after this update.

New in 0.2.2

• Many more .hnmod native mods from playhorizon.dev/mods now compile, like AppleSkin, Mod Menu, SmartF3, Freecam, Waymap and Distant Horizons. Open the mod's .hnmod with Starling, go to Mods and tap Compile.
• Fixed the crash on opening on GPUs limited to 4096x4096 textures, like the PowerVR GE8320. The largest textures load at half size when they don't fit.
• More builds a day: 16 instead of 8, and a build that fails gives its place back.

New in 0.2.1

• Shader packs run on Mali phones again. On phones with a Mali GPU every pack stayed vanilla since 0.2.0.
• A pack that can't run on your phone now says so in the chat and turns off.

New in 0.2.0, the biggest update yet

Mods: .hmod and .hnmod

Open either kind of file with Starling, from your file manager or your downloads, and it shows up in Mods.

• .hnmod, native mods: tap Compile. Starling tells you the risks, builds the game with your mods while you fish or mine, and restarts with them. It takes a few minutes and needs a connection.
• .hmod, content mods: data-only mods, with nothing to compile. A dropped download of a mod's assets goes on from where it stopped.

The old Starling mods (Far View, FPS Overlay, Keystrokes, Minimap, Recipes, Zoom) and the wasm mod format are gone: mods now use Horizon's formats.

Controls

• Bedrock Inventory: the creative inventory shows the items and your inventory side by side, with six rows of items and a 2x2 crafting grid, and a tap takes a full stack. It is on by default; turn it off in Options > Controls for the Java layout.
• Custom buttons: tap Add in Touch Controls, or go to Options > Controls > Custom Buttons. Each one holds or toggles a key, a native mod's key included, or sends a command or a message. Give them an icon or your own image, drawn on Bedrock's plate or imported as a PNG, and another image for while they are pressed. Select one in Touch Controls to move it or delete it.
• On-screen keyboard: a tap on a text field brings it up and a tap beside it puts it away, on every screen, number boxes included. It no longer opens by itself on the world list or in the creative inventory.
• A double tap on a stack moves it straight to the other side, as Shift-click does.
• The held F3 button also has the other F keys, and the F3 text is bigger: it follows the GUI scale.
• The three-finger Stats tap is off unless you turn it on (3-tap in the touch editor).

Shader packs

• Auto profile: fits a pack to the phone by what its profiles ask of it, and draws terrain's depth first.
• Shader Options for a finger, and Resolution and FPS Limit on the Shader Packs page.
• Water and terrain came back in Photon, Sildur's and Bliss, and superDuperVanilla lost its overlay.
• Packs' own textures load, a block's cracks show, faces are no longer shaded twice, and the sky reaches the horizon.
• A pack that loses the graphics device is turned off instead of closing the game.

Newest Horizon

Starling now sits on the newest Horizon, about 4,800 commits ahead of the previous base:

• Many more vanilla behaviours for mobs: piglins, dolphins, wolves, foxes, zombies with spears, mobs boarding minecarts and picking up gear.
• Remote players' hands and shoulder parrots, the jeb_ sheep's colours, and the portal loading screen on a server's dimension change.
• Optimize World inside Edit World, and operator commands (/op, /deop, /ban, /pardon, /whitelist) on a dedicated server.
• Your own skin shows with offline accounts, and on LAN the host's skin shows.

Report a bug

Open an issue: the form asks for your phone, your Android version and Starling/logs/latest.log (with previous.log beside it once Starling has been opened again).

---

Starling is unofficial: not an official Minecraft product, and not approved by or associated with Mojang or Microsoft. The game is Horizon, by Ludovic Marie; Starling, the Android port, is by @JuanLuci. MIT licensed.

Starling v0.2.2

Starling 0.2.2: many more native mods, and a fix for phones that crashed on opening.

Install

• Already have Starling: tap Update inside the game.
• New here: download starling-0.2.2-arm64-v8a.apk below and open it.

What's new

• Many more .hnmod native mods from playhorizon.dev/mods now compile, like AppleSkin, Mod Menu, SmartF3, Freecam, Waymap and Distant Horizons. Open the mod's .hnmod with Starling, go to Mods and tap Compile.
• Fixed the crash on opening on GPUs limited to 4096x4096 textures, like the PowerVR GE8320. The largest textures load at half size when they don't fit.
• More builds a day: 16 instead of 8, and a build that fails gives its place back.
• Compiled native mods: compile them again after this update.

New in 0.2.1

• Shader packs run on Mali phones again. On phones with a Mali GPU every pack stayed vanilla since 0.2.0.
• A pack that can't run on your phone now says so in the chat and turns off.

New in 0.2.0, the biggest update yet

Mods: .hmod and .hnmod

Open either kind of file with Starling, from your file manager or your downloads, and it shows up in Mods.

• .hnmod, native mods: tap Compile. Starling tells you the risks, builds the game with your mods while you fish or mine, and restarts with them. It takes a few minutes and needs a connection.
• .hmod, content mods: data-only mods, with nothing to compile. A dropped download of a mod's assets goes on from where it stopped.

The old Starling mods (Far View, FPS Overlay, Keystrokes, Minimap, Recipes, Zoom) and the wasm mod format are gone: mods now use Horizon's formats.

Controls

• Bedrock Inventory: the creative inventory shows the items and your inventory side by side, with six rows of items and a 2x2 crafting grid, and a tap takes a full stack. It is on by default; turn it off in Options > Controls for the Java layout.
• Custom buttons: tap Add in Touch Controls, or go to Options > Controls > Custom Buttons. Each one holds or toggles a key, a native mod's key included, or sends a command or a message. Give them an icon or your own image, drawn on Bedrock's plate or imported as a PNG, and another image for while they are pressed. Select one in Touch Controls to move it or delete it.
• On-screen keyboard: a tap on a text field brings it up and a tap beside it puts it away, on every screen, number boxes included. It no longer opens by itself on the world list or in the creative inventory.
• A double tap on a stack moves it straight to the other side, as Shift-click does.
• The held F3 button also has the other F keys, and the F3 text is bigger: it follows the GUI scale.
• The three-finger Stats tap is off unless you turn it on (3-tap in the touch editor).

Shader packs

• Auto profile: fits a pack to the phone by what its profiles ask of it, and draws terrain's depth first.
• Shader Options for a finger, and Resolution and FPS Limit on the Shader Packs page.
• Water and terrain came back in Photon, Sildur's and Bliss, and superDuperVanilla lost its overlay.
• Packs' own textures load, a block's cracks show, faces are no longer shaded twice, and the sky reaches the horizon.
• A pack that loses the graphics device is turned off instead of closing the game.

Newest Horizon

Starling now sits on the newest Horizon, about 4,800 commits ahead of the previous base:

• Many more vanilla behaviours for mobs: piglins, dolphins, wolves, foxes, zombies with spears, mobs boarding minecarts and picking up gear.
• Remote players' hands and shoulder parrots, the jeb_ sheep's colours, and the portal loading screen on a server's dimension change.
• Optimize World inside Edit World, and operator commands (/op, /deop, /ban, /pardon, /whitelist) on a dedicated server.
• Your own skin shows with offline accounts, and on LAN the host's skin shows.

Report a bug

Open an issue: the form asks for your phone, your Android version and Starling/logs/latest.log (with previous.log beside it once Starling has been opened again).

---

Starling is unofficial: not an official Minecraft product, and not approved by or associated with Mojang or Microsoft. The game is Horizon, by Ludovic Marie; Starling, the Android port, is by @JuanLuci. MIT licensed.

Starling v0.2.1

Starling 0.2.1: shader packs on Mali phones.

Install

• Already have Starling: tap Update inside the game.
• New here: download starling-0.2.1-arm64-v8a.apk below and open it.

What's new

• Shader packs run on Mali phones again. On phones with a Mali GPU every pack stayed vanilla since 0.2.0.
• A pack that can't run on your phone now says so in the chat and turns off.
• Compiled native mods: compile them again after this update.

New in 0.2.0, the biggest update yet

Mods: .hmod and .hnmod

Open either kind of file with Starling, from your file manager or your downloads, and it shows up in Mods.

• .hnmod, native mods: tap Compile. Starling tells you the risks, builds the game with your mods while you fish or mine, and restarts with them. It takes a few minutes and needs a connection.
• .hmod, content mods: data-only mods, with nothing to compile. A dropped download of a mod's assets goes on from where it stopped.

The old Starling mods (Far View, FPS Overlay, Keystrokes, Minimap, Recipes, Zoom) and the wasm mod format are gone: mods now use Horizon's formats.

Controls

• Bedrock Inventory: the creative inventory shows the items and your inventory side by side, with six rows of items and a 2x2 crafting grid, and a tap takes a full stack. It is on by default; turn it off in Options > Controls for the Java layout.
• Custom buttons: tap Add in Touch Controls, or go to Options > Controls > Custom Buttons. Each one holds or toggles a key, a native mod's key included, or sends a command or a message. Give them an icon or your own image, drawn on Bedrock's plate or imported as a PNG, and another image for while they are pressed. Select one in Touch Controls to move it or delete it.
• On-screen keyboard: a tap on a text field brings it up and a tap beside it puts it away, on every screen, number boxes included. It no longer opens by itself on the world list or in the creative inventory.
• A double tap on a stack moves it straight to the other side, as Shift-click does.
• The held F3 button also has the other F keys, and the F3 text is bigger: it follows the GUI scale.
• The three-finger Stats tap is off unless you turn it on (3-tap in the touch editor).

Shader packs

• Auto profile: fits a pack to the phone by what its profiles ask of it, and draws terrain's depth first.
• Shader Options for a finger, and Resolution and FPS Limit on the Shader Packs page.
• Water and terrain came back in Photon, Sildur's and Bliss, and superDuperVanilla lost its overlay.
• Packs' own textures load, a block's cracks show, faces are no longer shaded twice, and the sky reaches the horizon.
• A pack that loses the graphics device is turned off instead of closing the game.

Newest Horizon

Starling now sits on the newest Horizon, about 4,800 commits ahead of the previous base:

• Many more vanilla behaviours for mobs: piglins, dolphins, wolves, foxes, zombies with spears, mobs boarding minecarts and picking up gear.
• Remote players' hands and shoulder parrots, the jeb_ sheep's colours, and the portal loading screen on a server's dimension change.
• Optimize World inside Edit World, and operator commands (/op, /deop, /ban, /pardon, /whitelist) on a dedicated server.
• Your own skin shows with offline accounts, and on LAN the host's skin shows.

Report a bug

Open an issue: the form asks for your phone, your Android version and Starling/logs/latest.log (with previous.log beside it once Starling has been opened again).

---

Starling is unofficial: not an official Minecraft product, and not approved by or associated with Mojang or Microsoft. The game is Horizon, by Ludovic Marie; Starling, the Android port, is by @JuanLuci. MIT licensed.

Starling v0.2.0

Starling 0.2.0: the biggest update yet. .hmod and .hnmod mods, right from your phone.

Install

• Already have Starling: tap Update inside the game.
• New here: download starling-0.2.0-arm64-v8a.apk below and open it.

What's new

Mods: .hmod and .hnmod

Open either kind of file with Starling, from your file manager or your downloads, and it shows up in Mods.

• .hnmod, native mods: tap Compile. Starling tells you the risks, builds the game with your mods while you fish or mine, and restarts with them. It takes a few minutes and needs a connection.
• .hmod, content mods: data-only mods, with nothing to compile. A dropped download of a mod's assets goes on from where it stopped.

The old Starling mods (Far View, FPS Overlay, Keystrokes, Minimap, Recipes, Zoom) and the wasm mod format are gone: mods now use Horizon's formats.

Controls

• Bedrock Inventory: the creative inventory shows the items and your inventory side by side, with six rows of items and a 2x2 crafting grid, and a tap takes a full stack. It is on by default; turn it off in Options > Controls for the Java layout.
• Custom buttons: tap Add in Touch Controls, or go to Options > Controls > Custom Buttons. Each one holds or toggles a key, a native mod's key included, or sends a command or a message. Give them an icon or your own image, drawn on Bedrock's plate or imported as a PNG, and another image for while they are pressed. Select one in Touch Controls to move it or delete it.
• On-screen keyboard: a tap on a text field brings it up and a tap beside it puts it away, on every screen, number boxes included. It no longer opens by itself on the world list or in the creative inventory.
• A double tap on a stack moves it straight to the other side, as Shift-click does.
• The held F3 button also has the other F keys, and the F3 text is bigger: it follows the GUI scale.
• The three-finger Stats tap is off unless you turn it on (3-tap in the touch editor).

Shader packs

• Auto profile: fits a pack to the phone by what its profiles ask of it, and draws terrain's depth first.
• Shader Options for a finger, and Resolution and FPS Limit on the Shader Packs page.
• Water and terrain came back in Photon, Sildur's and Bliss, and superDuperVanilla lost its overlay.
• Packs' own textures load, a block's cracks show, faces are no longer shaded twice, and the sky reaches the horizon.
• A pack that loses the graphics device is turned off instead of closing the game.

Newest Horizon

Starling now sits on the newest Horizon, about 4,800 commits ahead of the previous base:

• Many more vanilla behaviours for mobs: piglins, dolphins, wolves, foxes, zombies with spears, mobs boarding minecarts and picking up gear.
• Remote players' hands and shoulder parrots, the jeb_ sheep's colours, and the portal loading screen on a server's dimension change.
• Optimize World inside Edit World, and operator commands (/op, /deop, /ban, /pardon, /whitelist) on a dedicated server.
• Your own skin shows with offline accounts, and on LAN the host's skin shows.

Report a bug

Open an issue: the form asks for your phone, your Android version and Starling/logs/latest.log (with previous.log beside it once Starling has been opened again).

---

Starling is unofficial: not an official Minecraft product, and not approved by or associated with Mojang or Microsoft. The game is Horizon, by Ludovic Marie; Starling, the Android port, is by @JuanLuci. MIT licensed.

Starling v0.1.6

Starling 0.1.6: the game's sound.

Install

• On 0.1.0.1 or later: Starling offers this update on its title screen: tap Update, and Android installs it over (it asks you to allow installs from Starling the first time).
• New here: download starling-0.1.6-arm64-v8a.apk below and open it. Sign in with the Microsoft account that owns Minecraft: Java Edition, or play offline: the game is downloaded from Mojang's servers and prepared on the phone, once. You need a 64-bit phone with Android 8 or newer and Vulkan, and about 2 GB free.

Installed a test build from GitHub Actions? Uninstall it first: test builds are signed with another key. Worlds kept in the Starling folder stay where they are.

What's new

• Sound: a game set up on the phone now has its sounds and music. If you set yours up before this update, Starling adds them the next time it starts, in a few seconds, with nothing to download again.

Report a bug

Open an issue: the form asks for your phone, your Android version and Starling/logs/latest.log (with previous.log beside it once Starling has been opened again).

---

Starling is unofficial: not an official Minecraft product, and not approved by or associated with Mojang or Microsoft. The game is Horizon, by Ludovic Marie; Starling, the Android port, is by @JuanLuci. MIT licensed.

Starling v0.1.5

Starling 0.1.5: play offline, and mods for each new world.

Install

• On 0.1.0.1 or later: Starling offers this update on its title screen: tap Update, and Android installs it over (it asks you to allow installs from Starling the first time).
• New here: download starling-0.1.5-arm64-v8a.apk below and open it. Sign in with the Microsoft account that owns Minecraft: Java Edition, or play offline: the game is downloaded from Mojang's servers and prepared on the phone, once. You need a 64-bit phone with Android 8 or newer and Vulkan, and about 2 GB free.

Installed a test build from GitHub Actions? Uninstall it first: test builds are signed with another key. Worlds kept in the Starling folder stay where they are.

What's new

• Play offline: the first start offers Play offline beside Sign in with Microsoft, so the game installs without an account. Online-mode servers still need the sign-in.
• Mods and data packs for a new world: Create New World > More > Mods & Data Packs lists the content mods that add blocks or items next to your data packs. Pick them and Starling starts again with those mods and creates the world. Opening a mod's file with Starling now points you there.
• A steadier first download: the game's files come over a few connections kept open, and a file is tried again when the network drops for a moment.
• Your data packs move into the Starling folder with your worlds and packs.

Report a bug

Open an issue: the form asks for your phone, your Android version and Starling/logs/latest.log (with previous.log beside it once Starling has been opened again).

---

Starling is unofficial: not an official Minecraft product, and not approved by or associated with Mojang or Microsoft. The game is Horizon, by Ludovic Marie; Starling, the Android port, is by @JuanLuci. MIT licensed.

Starling v0.1.4

Starling 0.1.4: controllers, mouse and keyboard, new touch controls, and content mods per world.

Install

• On 0.1.0.1 or later: Starling offers this update on its title screen: tap Update, and Android installs it over (it asks you to allow installs from Starling the first time).
• New here: download starling-0.1.4-arm64-v8a.apk below and open it. New players sign in with the Microsoft account that owns Minecraft: Java Edition, and the game is downloaded and prepared on the phone, once. You need a 64-bit phone with Android 8 or newer and Vulkan, and about 2 GB free.

Installed a test build from GitHub Actions? Uninstall it first: test builds are signed with another key. Worlds kept in the Starling folder stay where they are.

What's new

• Controllers, a mouse and a physical keyboard play the game as they do on a PC.
• Touch controls: tap to interact as on Bedrock, an option for a fixed joystick, an F3 button with its combinations, Pick Block, the player list, vibration, and aiming with the gyroscope.
• Content mods per world: each world keeps its own set of content mods, a loading line shows while they build, and a mod's art is downloaded from Modrinth on the phone.
• Data packs: choose them when you create a world (More > Data Packs); open a data pack's zip with Starling to add it.
• Smoother loading: a backlog of chunks no longer freezes the game while it catches up.
• Signing in and the game's download keep Starling on screen.
• Horizon's latest: hundreds of fixes and improvements from the game Starling is built on.

Report a bug

Open an issue: the form asks for your phone, your Android version and Starling/logs/latest.log (with previous.log beside it once Starling has been opened again).

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Starling is unofficial: not an official Minecraft product, and not approved by or associated with Mojang or Microsoft. You need your own copy of Minecraft: Java Edition. The game is Horizon, by Ludovic Marie; Starling, the Android port, is by @JuanLuci. MIT licensed.

Native mod builds

Starling's game library with native mods compiled in, which the game downloads by itself. Not an install: use the APKs of the releases.

Starling v0.1.3

Starling 0.1.3: signing in works when your phone cuts background apps off the internet.

Install

• On 0.1.0.1 or later: Starling offers this update on its title screen: tap Update, and Android installs it over (it asks you to allow installs from Starling the first time).
• On 0.1.0, or new here: download starling-0.1.3-arm64-v8a.apk below and open it. New players sign in with the Microsoft account that owns Minecraft: Java Edition, and the game is downloaded and prepared on the phone, once. You need a 64-bit phone with Android 8 or newer and Vulkan, and about 2 GB free.

Installed a test build from GitHub Actions? Uninstall it first: test builds are signed with another key. Worlds kept in the Starling folder stay where they are.

What's fixed

• Signing in no longer stops with "Could not reach Microsoft (dns failed ...)" after you entered the code in the browser. While you sign in there, Starling waits in the background, and many phones cut a background app's internet (battery and data savers, the maker's own restrictions): the first answer it missed ended the sign-in. Now it keeps asking until you come back, and the steps after it (Xbox, Minecraft) are tried again too.

Known issues

• Setting up with a real account has been tried up to the sign-in; preparing has been tried with the official files copied over. If the setup stops, Try again retries the step that failed, and the message says why.
• Bedrock's buttons show from the start after the one that downloads them.
• Tested on a POCO F6 Pro (Adreno 740) and by a player on a vivo X200s (Immortalis-G925, a Mali GPU: about 100 fps); other Mali phones are untested so far.
• Servers that require signed chat (secure chat) refuse messages for now.
• Starling's own screens are in English only.

Report a bug

Open an issue: the form asks for your phone, your Android version and Starling/logs/latest.log (with previous.log beside it once Starling has been opened again).

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Starling is unofficial: not an official Minecraft product, and not approved by or associated with Mojang or Microsoft. You need your own copy of Minecraft: Java Edition. The game is Horizon, by Ludovic Marie; Starling, the Android port, is by @JuanLuci. MIT licensed.