Google Accounts and Play Services

Google Accounts and Play Services

Signing in with Google

The person icon at the top of the Mac.apk window opens Accounts. Sign in with Google there opens Google's own sign-in page, and the account is then available to the Android apps you run, the way an account added to a phone is. That's what lets an app you bought on Google Play check its licence, and what an app that asks for a Google account gets. It's optional; nothing else in Mac.apk needs it.

Apps that sign you in to a Google account through a web page (an email app's "Sign in with Google" button, for example) open that page in your Mac's browser and return to the app when you finish, as they would on a phone. Other web sign-ins that hand you back to the app, such as an Epic Games login, open in a small Mac.apk sign-in window that closes by itself when you're done. See App Stores.

An app's own "Continue with Google" button uses the account you added in Accounts: you pick the account, and the app receives a sign-in made for that app alone. If no account is added yet, the app offers to add one.

Note

Outside the Mac.apk account, "Sign in with Google" doesn't work. Some apps only offer Google sign-in when Google Play Services itself is signed by Google. Mac.apk's Play Services is its own implementation and is honestly not, and Mac.apk will never pretend otherwise. In those apps the Google button does nothing or reports an error, exactly as on a phone without Google's Play Services. Use the app's other sign-in options instead. Reddit is one of these: sign in with your email or username. (Reddit picks its sign-in method from its servers; where it picks Android's Credential Manager, the Mac.apk account works.)

Licensing

Mac.apk doesn't bypass app licensing. When an app checks its Google Play licence, Mac.apk asks Google's servers using your own Google account and passes Google's signed answer back to the app unchanged. The app verifies Google's signature itself, so Mac.apk can't fake a "licensed" result. If your account didn't buy the app, the check fails just as it would on a real Android device. Mac.apk doesn't patch or crack apps.

What Play Services can do here

Mac.apk ships its own implementation of the parts of Google Play Services most apps use, and it answers honestly, as a Mac.apk device.

Works	Partly	Does not work
Google sign-in through the Mac.apk account	Push notifications: apps register and get real tokens; delivery from Google's servers is implemented but not yet verified end to end	Play Billing: nothing can be bought (why)
Play licence checks, using your account		Play Integrity: a hardware-attested verdict Mac.apk can't honestly give
		Apps that insist on Google's own signed Play Services package

Mac.apk isn't a Google-certified Android device and doesn't claim to be. See Design Decisions.