An ad-free Android emulator for Windows.
Google Play, game controls, multiple instances, and nothing trying to sell you anything.
Download the Androidbox installer
Windows 10 or 11 · free · MIT license
Androidbox runs Google's official Android Emulator, the same engine inside Android Studio, on your graphics card, and shows Android in one clean window. There are no ads, no accounts to create, no bundled apps and no telemetry. Everything it needs downloads straight from Google, and everything it stores stays in one folder you can delete.
You need:
- Windows 10 or 11, 64-bit
- Windows Hypervisor Platform turned on. Androidbox tells you if it's off and opens the right settings page
- A graphics card with current drivers
- About 4 GB of disk space for Android, plus up to 10 GB per instance
Then:
- Download
Androidbox-Setup-<version>.exefrom the latest release. - Run it. Windows may warn that the app is from an unknown publisher, because it isn't code-signed. Choose More info, then Run anyway.
- Follow the setup wizard. It installs Androidbox in
Program Filesfor everyone on the PC and asks Windows for permission once. No admin rights? Choose Install for me only on the first page and it installs in your own folder instead. If Windows Hypervisor Platform is off, the wizard offers to turn it on for you. - Open Androidbox and choose Download and install. This happens once.
- Press Start Android.
Closing Androidbox saves and shuts down every running Android, unless you choose to keep it running in the tray. Androidbox keeps itself up to date (see Updates), and you can also run a newer installer over the old one. Your instances and settings stay where they are, and an older per-user install is replaced.
Runs on your GPU at 60, 90, 120, 144 or 240 FPS, with ARM apps and games supported. For older games that only ship 32-bit ARM code, create an instance with Android 11, which runs both 32-bit and 64-bit ARM apps.
Each instance has its own hardware, set in its Settings:
- Processor and memory up to what your PC has, and new instances start with a sensible share of it.
- Display from six presets, or any size from 320 to 3840 pixels with your own density.
- Storage of 16, 32, 64 or 128 GB, which only takes the space Android actually uses. Big games need 64 GB or more.
- Graphics: your graphics card, Automatic, or Software when a GPU crashes the emulator.
Saved separately for every game:
| Control | What it does |
|---|---|
| Tap | A key or controller button taps a spot on the screen |
| Joystick | WASD (rebindable), the D-pad or the left stick moves |
| Aim | Shooter mode: press its key (F1) and the mouse turns the camera. The right stick aims too |
| Look | Free look: the mouse turns the camera only while you hold its key (Alt) |
| Fire and Scope | The left and right mouse buttons while aiming |
| Skill | MOBA casting: hold the key, point with the mouse, release to cast |
| Turbo | Hold the key to tap the same spot rapidly |
| Hold | Press once to hold a spot down and again to let go, for sprint and auto-run |
| Swipe | One key performs a drag along an arrow you place, for dodges and lane changes |
| Tilt | Keys, or the left stick, tip the device like a steering wheel, for racing games |
| Macro | One key plays a macro you recorded, and stops it if you press it again |
| Zoom | Ctrl and the mouse wheel pinch in and out, with no setup |
Starter layouts give a game a head start: Shooter, MOBA, Racing, Action platformer and Endless runner place the usual controls, and you move each one onto the game's real button. Layouts export to a file, so you can share them or move them to another instance or PC.
Xbox, PlayStation and Switch Pro controllers, 8BitDo pads and most other gamepads work straight away, wired or over Bluetooth. Bind their buttons and triggers like keys. Plug in two and both work at once, which is handy for couch co-op. Without game controls they navigate Android: A is Enter, B is Back, Start is Home.
Record taps, swipes and key presses once, then play them back at half, normal, double or four times the speed. Repeat a macro a set number of times or until you stop it, with a wait of your choice between rounds, which suits idle and farming games. Edit steps shows each tap, swipe, hold and key press so you can change how long it waits or remove it. Give a macro a hotkey, and turn on Works in any program to fire it while another program has the keyboard.
A profile keeps your game control layouts, macros, instance presets and preferences together. Make one for yourself, one for streaming, one for the family PC, and switch from the menu at the top right.
- Save an instance's hardware as a preset and start new instances from it.
- Profiles export to a single file.
- Profiles sync between PCs through any folder that OneDrive, Dropbox, Google Drive or Syncthing already keeps up to date. Pick the folder once on each PC and your layouts, macros and presets follow you. There is no server and no login, and Androidbox uploads nothing itself.
Every instance has its own apps, accounts and settings. Create, clone, back up to a single file, restore, start them all at once, open any instance in its own window, tile them side by side, and mirror your input to all of them at the same time.
The Apps page lists what's installed on an instance. Open a game, give it its own frame rate that applies while it's in front, uninstall it, or put a shortcut to it on your desktop. A shortcut starts the instance if it's off and opens that game, even when Androidbox is already running.
Androidbox checks GitHub for a newer release when it starts and every few hours while it runs. When one
is out, it downloads the installer in the background and checks it against the checksum GitHub published
for it. It then asks whether to restart and install: Androidbox saves your Androids first, Windows asks
for permission if it's installed in Program Files, and Androidbox opens again afterwards. It never
restarts on its own. Turn the checks or the automatic download off on the All instances page, where
Look for an update now also checks on demand.
Every push to main that raises the version publishes a new release, which is how an update gets to
you.
- Tray: keep Android running when you close the window, so idle games keep going. Quit from the tray icon.
- Start with Windows: Androidbox opens in the tray and starts the instances you marked to start with it.
- Boss key: one shortcut that works in any program hides every Androidbox window and mutes Android. Press it again to bring everything back.
- Mute one instance, and keep Androidbox on top of other windows.
- Block ads filters ad networks inside every app and game through AdGuard DNS.
- Ad-free browser installs Firefox from Mozilla, makes it the default browser and opens uBlock Origin for you. One tap later, websites are ad-free, YouTube included.
Off by default. Turn on Let Claude Code control Android in Settings and Androidbox writes a helper
script to %LOCALAPPDATA%\Androidbox\claude. Claude Code on your PC can then take screenshots, read
what's on screen, tap, swipe, type, install and launch apps, and read logs on your running instances.
Turn the switch off and the helper is deleted, and it refuses to run while the switch is off.
- Screenshots, and screen recording with no time limit (saved in 3-minute parts)
- Drag and drop to install
.apk,.apksand.xapkfiles, game data included - File import and export: add files to Android, or browse its storage and save files and folders to your PC
- A clipboard shared with Windows
- Your webcam as Android's camera
- Rotate, shake, volume and GPS location
- Full screen, an FPS counter that also shows how much processor and memory the emulator uses, and eco mode for idle games
- Move everything Androidbox stores to another drive when your C: drive runs short
- Automatic updates, with a check for new releases that you can turn off
- First run. Androidbox reads Google's SDK package index, downloads the emulator, adb and the
Android 16 system image (about 1.9 GB), checks every file's checksum, and unpacks them into
%LOCALAPPDATA%\Androidbox. The Android 11 image (about 1.4 GB) only downloads the first time you start an instance that uses it. - Starting Android. Each instance is a standard Android virtual device. The emulator runs without a window of its own, uses your GPU, and resumes from a snapshot in a few seconds.
- Showing it. Androidbox asks the emulator over gRPC to draw each frame, at the size of your window, straight into memory the two share, so frames arrive without being copied through a socket. Mouse, keyboard and controller input go back as multi-touch and key events.
- Game controls turn keys, mouse movement and controller sticks into touches at the spots you placed, so they work in any game, even ones that were never built for a keyboard.
- Shutting down saves a snapshot, so the next start picks up where you left off.
- Mouse: left-click taps, drag swipes, the wheel scrolls, right-click is Back, middle-click is Home.
- Keyboard: typing goes straight to Android, and Esc is Back.
- Files: drop them on the screen.
| Shortcut | Action |
|---|---|
| F11 | Full screen |
| Ctrl+Shift+S | Screenshot, saved to Pictures\Androidbox |
| Ctrl+Shift+R | Record the screen, saved to Videos\Androidbox |
| Ctrl+Shift+K | Game controls on or off |
| Ctrl+Shift+E | Edit game controls |
| Ctrl+Shift+M | Record a macro |
| Ctrl+Shift+O | Rotate |
| Ctrl+Shift+W | Open in its own window |
| Ctrl+wheel | Pinch to zoom |
Open the game, press Ctrl+Shift+E, click where a button is and press the key you want for it. Add control at the top adds a joystick, aim, look, fire, scope, skill, turbo or swipe control. Drag controls to move them (drag the tip of a swipe arrow to aim it), scroll over one to resize it, and right-click to remove it. Press Done, and the layout is saved for that game.
Press Ctrl+Shift+M, play, and press it again. On the Macros page you can rename a macro, change its speed and click the hotkey box to give it a shortcut such as Ctrl+1. Macros belong to your profile and remember the display they were recorded on, so they only play on instances with the same one.
Open Macros, click a macro's hotkey box and press something like Ctrl+1, then turn on Works in any program. Windows only lets a program claim a shortcut that includes Ctrl, Alt, Shift or Win, and not one another program already has.
Open the profile menu at the top right, or Manage profiles for the full page. Choose Choose a folder under Sync between PCs, on each PC, and pick a folder your cloud storage syncs. Instances, apps and accounts inside Android are not part of a profile, use Back up for those.
- Google Play needs a Google account to install or update apps, and some Google apps that come with
Android ask for an update before they open. If you'd rather not sign in, install apps from
.apkfiles and use the ad-free browser for YouTube. - Games need more? Give the instance more cores and memory in Settings, or switch it to the Tablet display for landscape games. A game that won't install for lack of room needs more Storage, which is chosen when an instance is created, and changing it erases that instance.
- Android crashes as it starts? In Settings, set Graphics to Automatic, then Software.
- Idle game in the background? Turn on eco mode for that instance.
- A game won't install or says the device isn't supported? It probably ships 32-bit ARM code only. Create a new instance, pick Android 11, and install it there.
- High refresh rate monitor? Set the instance's frame rate to 144 or 240 FPS in Settings. Games that cap their own frame rate stay capped.
Is it really ad-free?
Androidbox itself has no ads and never will. Inside Android, Block ads stops ad networks in apps and games, and the ad-free browser handles websites and YouTube. Ads that apps serve from their own servers can't be filtered by any DNS blocker.
Does it support root?
No. The Google Play images can't be rooted. The upside is that banking apps and games with root detection keep working.
Do I need an account?
No. A profile is just a name on your PC, with no password and no sign-in, and nothing about it leaves your PC unless you pick a sync folder. Anyone who can open that folder can read the profile, so don't share it with people you wouldn't hand your game layouts to.
Where is my data, and how do I remove it?
Everything lives in %LOCALAPPDATA%\Androidbox, apart from the program itself, which is in
Program Files. To keep it somewhere else, open All instances and use Where Androidbox keeps its
files: it copies everything to a drive you pick, restarts, and then removes the old copy. Uninstall
Androidbox from Settings > Apps and it asks whether to delete that folder too, with all its
instances. It keeps the folder unless you say yes, because the Android images take a while to download
again. If you turned on sync, a copy of your profiles also sits in the folder you chose, in
Androidbox Profiles.
Can I run it without Google Play?
Yes. Skip signing in and install apps from .apk files.
Does Pokémon GO work?
No, and it won't. Niantic blocks emulators on purpose: the game checks Play Integrity and its own anti-cheat, and refuses to run on any emulator, BlueStacks included. Getting around that means breaking their terms of service and risking a ban, so Androidbox doesn't try. The GPS location tool is meant for testing apps and games that allow it.
Why Android 16, and not the newest Android?
Google publishes Play Store images for new versions long before they are stable enough for games. Android 16 is the newest stable one, and its ARM translator runs games that crash on Android 15, such as BitLife. Android 11 stays available because it's the last one that runs 32-bit ARM apps.
An ARM game crashes on my Android 15 instance
On a PC, Android runs ARM-only games through Google's ARM translator, and the one in Android 15 crashes some Unity games a few seconds after they start. Create an Android 16 instance and install the game there. Apps and accounts don't carry over between Android versions, so you sign in to Google Play again on the new instance.
.\build.ps1This creates a virtual environment, installs the packages in requirements.txt plus PyInstaller, bundles
the app with PyInstaller, and wraps it in a setup wizard with Inno Setup 6
(winget install JRSoftware.InnoSetup). The installer lands in dist\Androidbox-Setup-<version>.exe, and
the version comes from androidbox/__init__.py. The wizard's artwork is drawn by installer/make_art.py,
and the PNGs it writes are committed. Raise VERSION and push to main, and
.github/workflows/release.yml builds the installer the same way and publishes it as release v<version>,
which installed copies then offer to download. Dependencies are pinned in requirements.txt so that
release builds match what was tested. To run from source instead:
python -m venv .venv
.venv\Scripts\pip install -r requirements.txt
.venv\Scripts\pythonw Androidbox.pywWhat's in the source
androidbox/installer.py: downloads and verifies the emulator, adb and the system imageandroidbox/instances.py: instances, ports, virtual hardware, backup and restoreandroidbox/emulator.py: starts and stops the emulator, adb and console commandsandroidbox/bridge.py: the gRPC link, with the screen stream, touch and key input, and sensorsandroidbox/keymap.py,gamepad.py: game controls and controller inputandroidbox/profiles.py,settings.py: profiles, presets, per-game settings and the sync folder, plus preferencesandroidbox/macros.py,browser.py: macros, with their editing, and the ad-free browserandroidbox/system.py,relocate.py,hotkeys.py: what the PC has, shortcuts and Windows startup, moving the files to another drive, and shortcuts that work in any programandroidbox/claude.py: the Claude Code helper scriptandroidbox/updates.py: asks GitHub for the newest release, then downloads and verifies its installerandroidbox/ui/: the windows.window.py,popout.pyandhost.pylay them out,phone.pydraws Android, andfiles.pybrowses Android's storageandroidbox/proto/: bindings generated from the emulator's gRPC definitionbuild.ps1,setup.iss,installer/: build the app and its Windows installer, and the wizard's art
- The Android Emulator, its system images and its gRPC definition (
emulator_controller.proto) are made by the Android Open Source Project and Google. The bindings inandroidbox/protoare generated from that definition, which is licensed under the Apache License 2.0. The emulator and system images are downloaded from Google under the Android SDK License, which you accept on first run. - The Android robot is reproduced or modified from work created and shared by Google and used according to terms described in the Creative Commons 3.0 Attribution License.
- Firefox is made by Mozilla, uBlock Origin by Raymond Hill and contributors, and AdGuard DNS by AdGuard. Androidbox only helps you install or use them.
- Built with Qt for Python (PySide6) and gRPC. Controller support comes from SDL, through PySDL2.
Androidbox is released under the MIT License.