This open-source app lets you run practically any phone app on your Android Auto car screen

Getting full apps onto your car’s dashboard has historically meant jumping through complicated rooting hoops, dealing with screen-mirroring quirks, or relying on specialized multimedia players like Xtream Player. A new open-source app utility called Android Auto Maker looks to streamline that entirely by repackaging practically any Android app into a car-friendly app package that runs natively on your car’s dashboard while your vehicle is parked.

Developed by malebuffy on GitHub (the same developer behind Xtream Player), Android Auto Maker modifies an APK or XAPK file to register with Android Auto’s “parked apps and games” category. This lets you tap into games, video players, and utilities on your infotainment screen once your car is parked. The tool is available either as an Android APK or via a local PC web server.

The process on Android is straightforward: install Android Auto Maker on your phone, feed it the APK or XAPK of your target app, and let it inject the necessary manifests and repackage the bundle. However, because Android Auto Maker must re-sign the modified file with its own debug key, Android will refuse to overwrite the existing app because of a signature mismatch. That means you must completely uninstall the original app first (wiping its local app data in the process) before installing the patched package.

Beyond the hassle of losing your data and having to log back into patched apps, there are several other technical and security caveats you should be aware of. For one, your connected phone must run Android 15 or newer to display parked apps on your car’s head unit. Second, apps that rely on strict Google Play Integrity or hardware-backed SafetyNet checks (such as banking apps or DRM-heavy services like Netflix) will either fail to launch or refuse to stream media due to the signature mismatch. Modified apps will also not update over the Play Store for the same reason, so you have to patch and install (sideload) every update manually.

Android Auto Maker also appears to work well on Samsung Galaxy phones. However, on several skins from Chinese Android brands, sideloaded “parked apps” appear to be restricted from exposing their Android Auto services. On these phones, users will have to run Shizuku to bypass OEM package verification, or install the patched APK via helper tools like KingInstaller.

The developer has also released an “advanced” version of Android Auto Maker that can be used to patch navigation apps so they appear in Android Auto while driving. For these apps, the developer notes that Shizuku must remain running while using the patched apps, and your phone display must stay unlocked.

If you are comfortable navigating these trade-offs of running modified, third-party-signed apps, you can check out Android Auto Maker to finally run your favorite apps on your car’s dashboard.