{"id":285934,"date":"2026-07-05T07:04:00","date_gmt":"2026-07-05T11:04:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/07\/05\/google-doesnt-want-you-to-sideload-android-auto-apps-i-did-it-anyway\/"},"modified":"2026-07-05T07:20:07","modified_gmt":"2026-07-05T11:20:07","slug":"google-doesnt-want-you-to-sideload-android-auto-apps-i-did-it-anyway","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/07\/05\/google-doesnt-want-you-to-sideload-android-auto-apps-i-did-it-anyway\/","title":{"rendered":"Google doesn’t want you to sideload Android Auto apps. I did it anyway"},"content":{"rendered":"

Google doesn’t want you to sideload Android Auto apps. I did it anyway<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.androidauthority.com\/sideload-apps-android-auto-hidden-feature-3681820\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Publish Date: 2026-07-05 07:04:00<\/a><\/p>\n

Source Domain: www.androidauthority.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Sanuj Bhatia \/ Android Authority<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve seen plenty of people get deeply invested in Android Auto, but I never really did, because I assumed it was little more than a navigation system and a media playback controller. Sure, you can have messages read out or take Google Meet calls on it, but that felt like the extent of it. Whatever Google enables, that\u2019s what you get.<\/p>\n

But I recently found out that isn\u2019t quite the case. You can go far beyond what Android Auto offers out of the box and even install third-party apps outside of the Google Play Store.<\/p>\n

Google places hard limits on what Android Auto can do, but it\u2019s capable of much more. Here\u2019s how you can sideload third-party apps onto Android Auto and make it far more useful than what Google ships by default.<\/p>\n

Would you sideload apps on Android Auto?<\/h3>\n

3 votes<\/p>\n

Yes, already have<\/p>\n

67%<\/p>\n

Tempted, but nervous<\/p>\n

0%<\/p>\n

No, not worth the risk<\/p>\n

0%<\/p>\n

I didn’t know you could<\/p>\n

33%<\/p>\n

I had no idea you could sideload apps on Android Auto, but it\u2019s easy to do<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n

\"Various<\/p>\n

Sanuj Bhatia \/ Android Authority<\/p>\n

I\u2019m sure most of you have used only the apps on Android Auto that Google provides out of the box, like YouTube Music, Spotify, Google Maps, the phone app, and so on. But I\u2019m willing to bet you\u2019ve also wished you could just play a YouTube video or stream an episode of a show while stuck in traffic.<\/p>\n

A few days ago, I found out you can actually sideload apps onto Android Auto, and the process is surprisingly straightforward. You don\u2019t need to root your phone or do anything particularly complicated. The steps can be broken down into three simple parts.<\/p>\n

Step 1. Enable Developer Mode on your Android phone<\/h3>\n

First, you\u2019ll need to unlock Developer Mode on your Android phone. Head to the Settings app<\/strong>, go to the About section<\/strong>, and tap the build number seven times<\/strong>. Once done, you\u2019ll get a toast notification confirming that Developer Settings have been enabled.<\/p>\n

Step 2. Unlock Developer Mode for Android Auto<\/h3>\n<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Sanuj Bhatia \/ Android Authority<\/p>\n

Next, you\u2019ll need to enable…<\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Google doesn’t want you to sideload Android Auto apps. I did it anyway https:\/\/www.androidauthority.com\/sideload-apps-android-auto-hidden-feature-3681820\/ Publish…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":285935,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.androidauthority.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/android-auto-third-party-apps.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[46],"tags":[70],"class_list":["post-285934","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-android","tag-google"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285934"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=285934"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285934\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":285936,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285934\/revisions\/285936"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/285935"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=285934"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=285934"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=285934"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}