How to install Google Play Store on Windows 11

If you’ve upgraded to Windows 11, you may have heard about native Android emulation, which will let you run Android apps on Windows 11 without needing to install a third-party app. The feature officially uses Amazon’s App Store for Android apps, embedded inside the Microsoft Store. While Amazon’s App Store is fine, it has a much more limited app selection. You can sideload APK files, but many apps rely on Google Play Services, which means they simply won’t work. So to avoid all of these problems, here’s a quick guide on how to install the Google Play Store on Windows 11.

Editor’s note: An earlier version of this guide offered a simpler way of installing the Play Store on Windows 11 using GitHub Actions. However, that counted towards the original project’s limited resource quota, which eventually ran out. We have revamped the instructions to the latest known working method, which carries out the build process on your own machine.

Step 0: How to install Google Play Store on Windows 11

There are many steps to installing Google Play Store on Windows 11. Many of these steps include getting your system and the subsystem files ready. It will take you some time to download all the necessary files, get the system ready, and carry out the final installation process. If you want to install some simple apps that don’t require Google Play Services, you might want to sideload APKs to the unmodified Windows Android Subsystem, as detailed in our guide.

Notes and credits

The following method for installing the Google Play Store on Windows 11 comes courtesy of the MagiskOnWSALocal project on GitHub. Remember, you will need to meet the minimum system requirements and be on the latest Windows 11 build for this to work.

This method works by modifying the Windows Subsystem for Android and replacing the kernel with a modified one. Therefore, this method is risky and may result in data loss. Consider yourself warned.

Step 1: Uninstall Windows Subsystem for Android

For this method to work, you’ll need to uninstall the current version of Windows Subsystem for Android on your Windows 11 system. Here’s how:

1. Head over to the Settings app in Windows 11.
2. Click on the Apps tab from the left pane and select Apps & features in the right menu.
3. It should be the first tab in the Apps section.

Scroll down to Windows Subsystem for Android in the apps list. Click the three-dot menu, and click Uninstall.

Step 2: Getting and packaging the modified Windows Subsystem for Android

Windows Subsystem for Android doesn’t include the Play Store by default, so we’ll have to build and install a modified version ourselves. Luckily, the open-source community has built a script that automates the entire modding process for us. Unluckily, however, the script will only run on a Linux distribution so we cannot run it directly on Windows. But don’t worry — using the Windows Subsystem for Linux, we can get the Ubuntu command line on Windows 11.

To get started, navigate to the Microsoft Store page for Ubuntu and click Download. Once it completes, a command prompt window will show up. Here, enter a username for your Ubuntu installation and hit enter. After that, you’ll be prompted to enter a password for that account. This doesn’t have to match your Windows account password, but don’t forget it! We’ll need it in a bit.

Eventually, you’ll see the Installation successful message, followed by an empty command line waiting for your input.

Type git clone https://github.com/LSPosed/MagiskOnWSALocal.git and hit the Enter key. Wait for the download to complete.

Next, we need to navigate to the folder we just downloaded. The script we need to run is in the scripts directory. Enter it using the cd MagiskOnWSALocal/scripts. We’re now ready to run the script. Type ./run.sh and hit the Enter key to execute it. You’ll be asked to enter your Linux account password from earlier at this point. The next stage will involve downloading approximately 1GB worth of WSA files.

The script will download all of the required files and eventually present you with a few screens. You can go with the defaults, simply press Enter on each screen until you reach the one that prompts you for root access. Select None here.

After the final prompt, you’ll have to wait for the script to download the required files and compile the modified Windows Subsystem for Android.

Once it’s successful, you’ll see an empty command line prompt once again. We’re now ready to copy and install this modified build.

Step 3: Install the modified Windows Subsystem for Android with Play Store

We now have to navigate to the output folder in the main MagiskOnWSALocal folder. Type cd ../output and hit Enter. Use the ls command to know what the output folder is called. We’ll need to copy this to the C:/ partition on Windows so that can navigate to it outside of Linux.

Start typing cp WSA and hit the Tab key to autocomplete the folder name. Do not press Enter yet! Finish off the command with the output directory (I created one called temp) and -r as shown in the screenshot below. The final command will look like this: cp WSA_2011… /mnt/c/temp -r

Next, navigate to the folder from the previous step and look for the run.bat file. Double-click this file and provide it with administrative permissions when prompted.

A minute or two later, the installation should be completed. The Play Store start screen will now appear on your screen. That’s it — we’ve reached the end!

Step 4: Housekeeping

Now that we’re done with installing the modified Windows System for Android build with the Play Store, we can delete the files we downloaded from GitHub earlier. Enter the following command within the Ubuntu command line: rm -rf ~/MagiskonWSALocal.

And if you don’t need the Ubuntu command line, you can also uninstall it from the Windows control panel. However, you shouldn’t delete the folder we copied to the C:/ partition in the earlier section.

Final step: Using Google Play Store on Windows 11

The rest of the usage will be similar to using Play Store on a phone or an Android emulator. Just search for the app, and download it. Note that this is still a modified build, so you’re likely to run into issues. However, we had no problems downloading chat apps like Telegram and WhatsApp on our machine.