The best way to run Android apps on Windows: BlueStacks 5
BlueStacks was the best way to run Android apps on PCs before Microsoft launched Android app support in Windows 11. Now, with Microsoft giving up on Android apps, BlueStacks is still the best way to run Android apps on Windows.

BlueStacks gives you full access to the Google Play Store, making it easy to install Android apps. It’s also completely free, though it does have ads for mobile games and similar things, and it runs on both Windows 11 and Windows 10. Those ads are a little annoying, but they’re the price you pay — did I mention it works well and is completely free?

Generally, you’ll want to install and run BlueStacks 5. BlueStacks offers two versions: BlueStacks 5 is the traditional application that runs Android apps on your PC. BlueStacks 10 is totally different: It’s an app player focused on running demanding mobile games “in the cloud.” If you want to run a particularly demanding mobile game on a lower-end PC, BlueStacks 10 might be a better bet. But, for broad Android app compatibility, go for BlueStacks 5.

Bluestacks app in Windows
BlueStacks comes with built-in access to Google’s Play Store in just a few clicks — no hacks necessary.
Chris Hoffman/IDG

BlueStacks 5 is simple to set up — you can install it and launch “BlueStacks 5” from your Start menu to begin. In the BlueStacks app player window, you can click or tap “System Apps” and then select “Play Store” to launch the Google Play Store. Sign in with a Google account and you can then install and use Android apps on a window on your PC.

While BlueStacks is simple to use, it’s a fairly mature option packed with powerful options. For example, BlueStacks has a multi-instance feature so you can run multiple Android apps at once. Many competing similar apps aren’t anywhere near as polished.

Other ways to run Android apps on Windows
While BlueStacksis the best solution for most those looking to run some Android apps, there are other options, including:

Google Play Games: Google offers a beta version of Google Play Games for PCs. It’s designed for running mobile games on Windows PCs and supports “over 100 games” as of March 2024, according to Google’s website. This may be a good solution if you want to play a specific mobile game on your PC, but it’s not a way to run any Android app.
Google’s Android Emulator: Google offers an official Android emulator built into its Android Studio software. But this software is intended for developers, it’s not as easy to set up, and doesn’t perform as well as BlueStacks in my experience.
Other Android app players: There is a variety of other BlueStacks-style applications for running Android apps in a window. Many don’t have the Google Play Store built in, they might not deliver the same level of performance as BlueStacks, and they don’t have the long history BlueStacks offers. I recommend staying with BlueStacks.
These solutions run Android apps in a player window — the BlueStacks App Player window, for example — rather than running individual apps in their own app-specific windows, like Windows 11’s built-in Android support used to. This is unfortunate, and that lack of taskbar integration is annoying, but there’s not a great answer for this.

Use Phone Link to use Android apps on your PC
There’s another solution, though. It involves using an Android phone — if you have one.

Basically, you can run an Android app on your phone and see it on your PC’s desktop, interacting with it using your mouse, keyboard, and even your touch screen, if it has one. But the heavy lifting is done on your phone.

Windows 11 and Windows 10 have built-in support for this. It’s available in the Phone Link app — assuming you have a compatible phone. It’s one of the many useful features included in Phone Link. You must be using a phone that comes with “Link to Windows (pre-installed).” Microsoft offers a list of phones that come with this software, and it includes a variety of Samsung Galaxy phones as well as phones from OnePlus, HONOR, Asus ROG, and other manufacturers.

However, it does not include Pixel phones — I use a Google Pixel phone, so I don’t have access to this feature. (If there’s one theme here, it’s that Google and Microsoft don’t seem to be cooperating much!)

If your phone does support this feature, you just need to launch the Phone Link application — on first launch, it will guide you through a setup process — and look for Apps in the Phone Link window. You can even pin an Android app to your taskbar or Start menu for easy access.

If you have a phone without this software built-in, you don’t have the same level of polish in your available options. There are tools like AirDroid (screen mirroring) and Vysor to run Android apps on your PC and see them on your desktop, but I’m not sure there’s a huge demand for them.