Android Studio Emulator For Mac

Supported Platforms: Android, Microsoft Windows, and Apple Mac OS. Advantages of Android Studio Emulator: Android Studio is an official emulator by Google, so it comes with solid reliability and good features. It provides several options for accessing mobile applications on the desktop like testing apps, high definition gaming experience, etc. Click File Settings Tools Emulator (or Android Studio Preferences Tools Emulator on macOS), then select Launch in a tool window and click OK. If the Emulator window didn't automatically appear, open it by clicking View Tool Windows Emulator. Start your virtual device using the AVD Manager or by targeting it when running your app.

Check out our list of the best Android emulators available for Windows PC and Mac in 2020. Android emulators are seemingly becoming more popular as Android’s popularity keeps growing. From developers testing apps to gamers playing on a large screen, users yearn for experiencing Android OS on a Windows PC, complimented with a mouse and keyboard. Some iOS emulators for PC and Mac are also available but Android ones offer a better performance.Maybe you are switching from iPhone to Android, or you merely want to test out a custom ROM, the possibilities with an Android emulator are endless. While BlueStacks has always topped the list of phone emulators for PC and Mac, few others are catching up insanely fast.

There are three main uses for emulators. The main and the most common use for Android Emulator is gaming. Gamers can use emulators on their computers to make some games easier to play. They don’t have to rely on the battery life of their devices and the existence of macros and other tricks help the process. In most cases, these little tricks aren’t illegal (in most games) so nobody really has a problem with it. So lets take a look at the best Android Emulators of 2020 for PC and Mac.

With most of such devices being powered by Operating Systems such as Windows and macOS, Android emulators come to the rescue when it is necessary on such non-Android platforms. If you are confused about which is the best Mac and PC Android emulator, the following article would serve as a guide.

1List of Best Android Emulators in 2020:

List of Best Android Emulators in 2020:

Here is the list of our picks for the best Android emulators available for Windows PC, Mac and Linux platforms. PC support for emulators is more common than Mac and Linux. However, we have covered the best ones you can download right away. We have also included a few standalone Android builds that you can install on your computer.

  1. Nox Player
  2. BlueStacks
  3. LDPlayer
  4. MEmu
  5. Ko Player
  6. Genymotion
  7. Droid4X
  8. Android Studio Emulator
  9. Remix OS
  10. ARChon
  11. Bliss OS
  12. Phoenix OS

To know more about these best Android emulators, continue reading ahead:

1. Nox Player

Nox Player especially targets Android gamers. Although the emulator works perfectly fine for other Android apps and enjoying the whole Android experience, it is best suited for playing massive games like PUBG or Justice League. The best part of Nox Emulator is that it’s absolutely free with no sponsored ads at all.

The Nox Player allows you to map keys of keyboard, mouse, and gamepad. You can even assign keyboard keys for gestures, for instance, mapping shortcut for swiping right.Also, you can specify the CPU and RAM usage in the settings option to get the best gaming results. If rooting Android is your focus, Nox Player makes it easy to root the virtual device under one minute.

The only problem with Nox is that it puts a lot of load on the system. Thus, you can’t use tons of other apps. Another thing is it is based on Android 5 Lollipop which might be a concern for you. For a complete setup and install guide, read: How to Install Nox Player 6

Compatibility: Windows and Mac

2. BlueStacks

BlueStacks is probably the most known Android emulator among Android users. The emulator is preferred for gaming and is ridiculously easy to set up. Other than Play Store, you have the option of downloading BlueStacks optimized apps from its own app store. Although, BlueStacks supports keyboard mapping but does not go well with gestures.

A major drawback of BlueStacks emulator is that it gets sluggish in productivity apps. Other than that, the sponsored ads make the emulator lose behind other best free Android emulators for Windows. Talking specifically about BlueStacks 4, it brings an excellent gaming performance, thanks to low CPU and memory usage. It also claims to be 6x faster than Samsung Galaxy S9+. For a complete setup and install guide, read: How to Install Bluestacks 4

Compatibility: Windows and Mac

3. LDPlayer

LDPlayer is a free Android emulator for Windows PC users to play Android games easily on computer. This emulator is built with gaming in behind with all the features targeted for optimization of Android games. LDPlayer is based on Android 5.1.1 and Android 7.1.2 Nougat and provides the best compatibility with games like PUBG Mobile, Call of Duty: Mobile and Free Fire.

The team claims this emulator performs much better than playing Android games on a real phone. You can install games directly from APK + OBB data and you can also download Android games from the Google Play Store.

Compatibility: Windows PC only

4. MEmu

MEmu is relatively a new app player in comparison to the others. Launched in 2015, the MeMu Play, again, is focused on gaming. Regarding the speed, this Android emulator gives similar results as Nox and BlueStacks.One of the most important features of MeMu Android emulator is its support for both AMD and Nvidia chips. It also supports different Android versions like Android Jelly Bean, Kit Kat, and Lollipop. While MeMu advocates for high-performance gaming, the graphics performance is relatively poor. I saw textures and smoothness missing in comparison to other app players.

MEmu is currently based on Android Lollipop and works top of the class with productivity apps. And if you are looking forward to playing games like Ingress or Pokémon Go, this should be your choice.

Compatibility: Windows PC only

5. Ko Player

Just like other Android gaming emulators out there, Ko Player focuses on delivering lag-free gaming experience with a lightweight software.As Ko Player is free of cost yet you might see few ads here and there. The app player is easy to install and navigate through the apps. It also supports keyboard mapping and gamepad emulation.The downside of this Android emulator is that it sometimes freezes out of the blue. Also, the player is a little buggy and makes it difficult for the user to uninstall the Android emulator.

Compatibility: Windows and Mac

6. Genymotion

Genymotion is not your casual Android emulator; it is only targeted at developers. The Android simulator lets you test apps on a variety of virtual devices with different versions of Android. The emulator is compatible with Android SDK and Android Studio. It even works macOS and Linux.Since Genymotion is inclined towards developers, it is equipped with lots of developer-friendly features. And it might not be the right choice for people looking for Android gaming experience.

Google android emulator

Compatibility: Windows, Mac and Linux

7. Droid4X

Droid4x is an Android virtual machine/simulator that runs as a guest operating system on your PC or your Mac. It is a full, working Android operating system with networking (wi-fi), Google Play Store, and functional apps. You can play games, install apps, configure settings, test your apps, navigate the system, and anything else you can do with an Android device. Droid4x works on Windows and on Mac OS X. Android version 4.2.2 is the current version running on Droid4x.

Compatibility: Windows and Mac

8. Android Studio Emulator

Android Studio is a development IDE (Integrated development environment) from Google itself and especially caters to developers. It basically comes with a bunch of tools and plugins to help developers build and test their apps.Android Studio has a built-in emulator but packs fewer features in comparison to Genymotion. The emulator is unquestionably not for general usage and playing heavy games. Android Studio is tough to set up but simultaneously favorite of many developers.

For a complete setup and installation instructions, we would recommend you read through the following tutorials:

  • First, download and install the latest Android Studio.
  • Second, install and setup Android 10 emulator.

Compatibility: Windows and Mac

9. Remix OS

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Well, Remix OS is nothing like other Android emulators out there. It is an entire Android OS which you can boot into. Unlike the other emulators that can easily on top of the Window, Remix OS needs to be installed on a separate partition.Remix OS is a Jide Technology product, a company formed by Google’s former employees. You can put Remix OS on a USB device and boot from there to any computer on the planet. The Android emulator is good for productivity apps but does not support heavy gaming.Although Jide technology has killed its support, you can still download the last Android Marshmallow version. Meanwhile, a similar project known as Phoenix OS is being well-liked among the Remix OS fans. And recently, the project was updated to Android 7 Nougat.

Compatibility: Windows PC only

10. ARChon

ARChon is not some big shot Android emulator, nor it has a huge fan following, it’s more of a fix to run Android apps on Chrome OS.It started out when Google brought support for two or three Android apps on Chrome Web Browser. Following which, a GitHub developer took it a little notch further and released ARChon to run all Android apps on Chrome.The ARChon Android emulator is not suited for hardcore gaming, but it is excellent for using productivity app due to its easy access

Compatibility: Windows and Mac

11. Bliss OS

Bliss OS is a little different from the above emulators. Where ‘Android Emulators’ emulate Android on your Windows PC, Bliss OS, on the other hand, is Android itself and needs to be installed as a separate OS. As for its installation, you could use a Virtual Box or you can create a bootable USB drive and install the Bliss OS ROM on the external storage.Now, installing Bliss OS or any other Android x86 based projects is always better if you are looking for the exact Android experience on your PC. Not to mention the fact is Bliss OS is open source and don’t encompass ads or any Android emulator clutter.

Compatibility: Windows PC only

12. Phoenix OS

Phoenix OS is a big-screen Android operating system that can run on bigger display screens like a computer monitor. This OS is designed with Android at the backend, but is customized to run like a full desktop platform. And most importantly, it has been optimized to run Android games on PC. Phoenix OS also support keymapping for all popular games like PUBG Mobile, Fortnite and other FPS / MOBA games. You can download and install Phoenix in a virtual environment on any laptop or MacBook easily. This emulator is available in two variants. One is based on Android 7.1 Nougat and one is based on Android 5.1 Lollipop.

Compatibility: Windows PC, Mac, Linux

Emulator

This was a detailed look at different Android emulators available for computers — Mac, Windows and Linux systems. Do you think we missed any? Let us know in the comments!

If you are looking for the best Android emulator for PC then there are dozens of Android emulator software available online. Newbies may think why someone needs Android emulators for PC when they have an actual Android Smartphone, then you need to think again. The Android emulators for Windows or Mac PC help developers those want to debug their newly developed apps or games for Android. Besides developers, the gamers can also enjoy their favourite Android games on the Windows 10, 8, Linux or MacOS using Android emulators. Even while gaming the gamers can use their PC keyboard and mouse for an Android game. The emulator software can also use to recording your favourite app video.

So, we have gathered nine Free Android Emulator For PC to write this article and all the mentioned emulators below work on Windows 10, 7, 8, 8.1. We tried all these Android emulators on our testing PC with i7 intel core processor, 12GB RAM, 250GB SSD and Windows 10 Professional edition. So before installing and using any Android emulators check the application hardware requirements.

Best Android Emulators For Windows 10 and Mac PC

Remix Os Player- Android Emulator

Remix OS Player comes in two forms one is Remix OS Player which is an Android Emulator and secondly is a complete independent Android Operating system for PC. The Remix Os is an Android-based computer operating system and can be installed on Windows or Mac PCs virtually. For physical installation, you need a Windows machine. Now come to the Remix Os Player that can install in one click. The Remix OS player is an Android Marshmallow based Android Emulator.

It comes with pre-installed Google Play store which makes easy to install any Google App. Remix Os Player includes a key mapper tool that allows Android games with touch control schemes to be played more effectively with keyboard and mouse. This Emulator developed on Google’s own Android Studio.

Unlike Android Studio and other emulators, Remix OS Player will let Android developers optimize their apps for the Android PC/Chrome OS environment because of its mouse and multiple window support. One thing to note is that the Remix Os Player only supports the Intel processors and not the AMD.

Download Free Android Emulator Remix Os Player

MEmu

This is another good Android Emulator in our list as it runs on the v5.1.1 (Lollipop). It comes with KitKat and you need to download additional packages to upgrade it to Lollipop. Unlike the Remix OS Player, it can support Intel and AMD both along Nvidia and Intel HD graphics. From OS part, it supports the Windows 10, Windows 8 and Windows 7.

It supports Multiple Android Kernels: Android Jellybean, KitKat, and Lollipop spontaneously. You can also run multiple instances at one click to create another Android instance, co-exist with other emulators. It supports most of Android games and app with keyboard, mouse, and joystick. It is the most capable Android emulator we have used while creating this list.

Download the MEmu Android Emulator.

Also See: How to install Android apps on PC with MEmu, the Android emulator for Windows

Ko Player

Koplayer can run all Android games and apps on Windows system smoothly. It built on x86 Architecture, support advanced features like OpenGL & hardware acceleration.

It comes with pre-integrated Google app store and supports multiple accounts, video recording, gamepad & keyboard. You can map the keyboard buttons according to your choice to streamline the gaming experience. The company promoting this Android Emulator especially for gamers.

Download the KO PLAYER Android Emulator.

Nox App Player

Nox App Player is another popular and reliable free Android operating system emulator. It based on Android 4.4.2 and compatible with X86 and AMD. The Mac version is also available. It allows you to modify player settings, custom skins, and even assigning CPU resources. You can map custom keyboard keys for gaming. Another cool feature is that you can log-in to multiple accounts simultaneously.

Andyroid

Andyroid is available for both Windows 7,8,10 and Mac and supports OpenGL Hardware. It now provides an Android upgrade feature that keeps you up to date. It features Camera integration, Microphone Integration, App Sync to Mobile, Phone as a controller, Google Play store, Desktop Push Notifications, cloud save in Android, Xbox/PS controller support, Keyboard mapper and more.

BlueStacks Android emulator

BlueStacks is the most popular Android emulator and best for playing Android games on PC but due to its bloatware, it loses its popularity. It also comes with pre-installed Google Play store and gives access to over two million Android and apps and games. Some Bluestacks features are there which you can’t get in every Android emulator such as Live Facebook streaming using Bluestacks TV and multitasking support.

Droid4x Emulator

The design of Droid4X is very simple and one of the best classic Android emulators for Windows PC. If you are a casual gamer or just want an emulator for a productivity work; the Droid4X Emulator is the best lightweight one. The Driod4X is also available for Mac. The operating system for Droid4X is based on Android 4.2.2

Download Droid4X Android Emulator

Run Android Apps on Windows PC with best Paid Android Emulators

AMIDuOS

AMIDuOS is not completely free but comes with a free trial period. It comes in two version Lollipop and Jelly Bean. The Lite Jellybean version cost $10 and Lollipop/Jellybean pro version is about $15. The AMIDuOS runs on Microsoft Windows devices. It converts any Windows 10, 7 and 8 PC or tablet in Android without the need of dual boot. If you are a developer or want a professional Android emulator then you can try it before purchasing.

Download the AMIDuOS trial version

Genymotion

Genymotion is paid and the good alternative to Android Studio. This emulator software runs on PC by installing the Virtual Box, so be sure you have enabled the Virtualization form the BIOS menu. A developer can develop test cases with JAVA API to automate them with the command line tool. It allows stimulating the Android 4.4 KitKat to Android 7.0 Nougat.

It provides plugins for Android Studio, IntelliJ IDEA, and Eclipse for smooth integration of Genymotion. It is dedicated for developers and doesn’t come with Google Play store. You can install Google Apps manually. The trial version is available for this emulator software.

Android Emulators Paid and Free Comparison Chart

Android Studio Emulator For Mac Download

Remix OS Payerv.6.0.1 9 (Marshmallow)FreeYesNo
MEmuv5.1.1 (Lollipop)FreeYesNo
Ko Playerv5.0. (Lollipop)FreeYesNo
Andyroidv4.4 (KitKat)FreeYesYes
Nox App Playerv4.4 (KitKat)FreeYesYes
Bluestacksv4.4 (KitKat)FreeYesYes
GenyMotionv4.4 (KitKat) to v7.0.1 (Nougat)PaidYesYes
AMIDuOSv5.0. (Lollipop)/JellybeanPaidYesYes

Android Studio Emulator For Mac Computer

If we missed something and you know or experienced any other best Android Emulator that can fit in this best emulator list, please let us know.

Android Studio Emulator For Mac

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