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Install Google Android applications from your SD card

October 11, 2009: Straight out of the box, your Android phone won't be able to install applications from anywhere other than the Android Market or through the development environment. Thankfully, some nice developers wrote free applications that you can install that do the job just fine. For this tutorial I'll be using App Manager by zx128. There's a Pro version available, but I haven't tried it. Search AppManager in the market and you'll find it.

After you've installed AppManager you'll need to connect your phone to your computer using the USB cable it came with. Once connected, you'll need to pull down the Notification tray and tell your phone that it should mount the SD card so your computer can see it as a removeable storage device. After clicking the "Mount" button your phone should be visible as a removeable storage device in Windows Explorer or Mac Finder.

Now you need an Android application, also referred to as an apk file. You can use my application to test with. After downloading the application, create a folder on the SD card called appmanager. Copy the application to the SD card and put it in the appmanager folder.

After you have copied the file to the SD card, tell Windows or Mac to eject the device. Then pull the notification tray back down and select the "Turn off USB Storage" option. This warning is reminding you to eject the device. Since we've already done this, go ahead and click "Turn Off".

Launch AppManager. After it loads, press the menu button and select "Install". Select the application you wish to install from the list and click the "Install" option. That's it! Your application should now be available in your applications menu.

If you found this tutorial useful, drop a line to brian@cribbstechnologies.com and let us know.