How to download the apk file from the Google Play store on Linux

How to download the apk file from the Google Play store on Linux

Assume that you want to install an Android app on your Android device. However, for some reason, you cannot access the Google Play store on the Andord device: obviously this is normal for us ). What should you do next? One possible method to install an application without accessing the Google Play Store is to use other methods to download the APK file of the application, then manually install the APK file on the Android device.

On non-Android devices such as regular computers and laptops, there are several ways to download official APK files from the Google Play Store. For example, you can use a browser plug-in (for example, a plug-in for Chrome or Firefox) or an online APK archive that allows you to use a browser to download an APK file. If you do not trust these closed-Source plug-ins or third-party APK repositories, here is another method to manually download the official APK file, which uses an open-source Linux application named GooglePlayDownloader.

GooglePlayDownloader is a Python-based GUI application that allows you to search for and download APK files from the Google Play Store. Because it is completely open-source, you can use it with confidence. In this tutorial, I will show you how to use GooglePlayDownloader to download the APK file from the Google Play store in Linux.

 

Python requirements

GooglePlayDownloader must use Python with SNI (Server Name Indication) to support SSL/TLS communication. This function is introduced by Python 2.7.9 or later. This makes some old releases, such as Debian 7 Wheezy and earlier versions, Ubuntu 14.04 and earlier versions, or CentOS/RHEL 7 and earlier versions, unable to meet this requirement. Suppose you already have a release version with Python 2.7.9 or later, you can install GooglePlayDownloader as follows.

 

Install GooglePlayDownloader on Ubuntu

On Ubuntu, you can use the deb package officially built. One condition is that you may need to manually install a required dependency.

 

On Ubuntu 14.10

Download the python-ndg-httpsclient deb package, which is missing from an older Ubuntu release. Download the official deb software package of GooglePlayDownloader.

1. $ wget http://mirrors.kernel.org/ubuntu/pool/main/n/ndg-httpsclient/python-ndg-httpsclient_0.3.2-1ubuntu4_all.deb
2. $ wget http://codingteam.net/project/googleplaydownloader/download/file/googleplaydownloader_1.7-1_all.deb

As shown below, we will use the gdebi command to install the two deb files. The gedbi command automatically processes any other dependencies.

1. $ sudo apt-get install gdebi-core
2. $ sudo gdebi python-ndg-httpsclient_0.3.2-1ubuntu4_all.deb
3. $ sudo gdebi googleplaydownloader_1.7-1_all.deb

 

On Ubuntu 15.04 or later

The latest Ubuntu release version already has all the required dependencies, so the installation process can be carried out as follows.

1. $ wget http://codingteam.net/project/googleplaydownloader/download/file/googleplaydownloader_1.7-1_all.deb
2. $ sudo apt-get install gdebi-core
3. $ sudo gdebi googleplaydownloader_1.7-1_all.deb

 

Install GooglePlayDownloader On Debian

Due to its Python requirements, Googleplaydownloader cannot be installed on Debian 7 Wheezy or earlier versions unless you upgrade your own Python version.

 

In Debian 8 Jessie and later versions:

1. $ wget http://codingteam.net/project/googleplaydownloader/download/file/googleplaydownloader_1.7-1_all.deb
2. $ sudo apt-get install gdebi-core
3. $ sudo gdebi googleplaydownloader_1.7-1_all.deb

 

Install GooglePlayDownloader on Fedora

Because GooglePlayDownloader was originally developed for Debian-based release versions, if you want to use it on Fedora, you need to install it from its source code.

Install necessary dependencies first.

1. $ sudo yum install python-pyasn1 wxPython python-ndg_httpsclient protobuf-python python-requests

Then install it as follows.

1. $ wget http://codingteam.net/project/googleplaydownloader/download/file/googleplaydownloader_1.7.orig.tar.gz
2. $ tar -xvf googleplaydownloader_1.7.orig.tar.gz
3. $ cd googleplaydownloader-1.7
4. $ chmod o+r -R .
5. $ sudo python setup.py install
6. $ sudo sh -c "echo 'python /usr/lib/python2.7/site-packages/googleplaydownloader-1.7-py2.7.egg/googleplaydownloader/googleplaydownloader.py' > /usr/bin/googleplaydownloader"

 

Use GooglePlayDownloader to download the APK file from the Google Play Store

Once you have installed GooglePlayDownloader, you can download the APK file from the Google Play store as follows. (LCTT Note: obviously you need to make your Linux can climb the ladder)

First, run the following command to start the application:

1. $ googleplaydownloader

In the search box, enter the name of the app you want to download from the Google Play Store.

Once you find the application in the search list, select the application and click "Download selected APK File. Finally, you will find the downloaded APK file in your home directory. Now, you can transfer the downloaded APK file to your Android device and install it manually.

I hope this tutorial will help you.

Via: How to download apk files from Google Play Store on Linux

Author: Dan Nanni Translator: FSSlc Proofreader: wxy

This article was originally translated by LCTT and launched with the Linux honor in China

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