Installation

Installation

System requirements

macOS 26.4 (Tahoe) or newer	Required, not recommended. macOS 27 works from v1.0.1702
Apple Silicon	M1, M2, M3, M4 or newer
Disk	~280 MB for Mac.apk and its runtime. Apps need more than their APK; see below

Disk space. An installed app takes one and a half to three times the size of its APK, so budget for that if you install a lot of big games. How Apps Are Installed explains why.

macOS 26.4 is a hard floor. Running Android apps that contain native code needs a platform capability Apple introduced in macOS 26.4. On earlier versions native Android code would fail intermittently and misleadingly rather than obviously, so Mac.apk checks for the capability at runtime and refuses to run native Android code without it. See Design Decisions for more.

Intel Macs aren't supported and won't be. Mac.apk runs Android's ARM code directly on your ARM processor, which an Intel chip can't do.

Setup (four steps, once)

1. Install Mac.apk

Download the disk image from the Releases page, open it, and drag Mac.apk into your Applications folder.

Mac.apk is signed with an Apple Developer ID and notarized by Apple, so it opens normally: no right-click-to-open, no "unidentified developer" warning, and no trip to System Settings.

2. Open Mac.apk

Launch it from Applications. You get the Mac.apk control panel: a drop zone, your installed Android apps, and a Runtime: indicator in the top left.

3. Install the runtime

Next to Runtime:, click Install. This unpacks the Android runtime your apps execute. It's a one-time, per-user step, needs no password, and takes a few seconds. The indicator changes to Runtime: Installed.

If you skip this, Mac.apk installs the runtime for you the first time you install an Android app.

4. Make Mac.apk the default for APK files

Open Settings (the gear at the top right), find File types, and click Make Default. macOS asks you to confirm; approve it, and .apk files plus the .apkm, .xapk, .apks and .apkx split-bundle formats belong to Mac.apk.

The File types row shows a green check once Mac.apk opens all five formats. This works even when another app (an archive tool such as Keka, for example) has also claimed .apk. If .apk files still open elsewhere, select any .apk in Finder, press ⌘I, choose Mac.apk under Open with, click Change All…, and please tell us in issue #1.

You're done. Installing an Android app is now a double-click. Next: Installing Apps.

Updating Mac.apk

Mac.apk doesn't update itself. When a newer release is out, download its disk image and drag the new Mac.apk over the old one in Applications. Your installed Android apps and their saved data are untouched. Each app picks up the new version the next time it opens, and that launch can be slow again while Mac.apk prepares the app.