What Gapps are and how to install them on your smartphone

Gapps

Some of you may have heard of Gapps at some time, but surely many of you still don't know what these initials correspond to.

Perhaps you have run into them when you have decided to install a new ROM and after the installation may miss some applications, since the famous Gapps do not usually come by default in a custom ROM.

Here we will see what Gapps are and how to download and install thanks to The Open GApp Project.

What are Gapps?

If you haven't guessed it yet, here you have the solution: Gapps = Google Applications, Gapps are Google's native applications.

Specifically, when you hear about Gapps, you will be referring to packages that contain the basics your Android smartphone needs to use your Google Account on Google Play and Google Play Services.+ That is to say what is necessary to be able to install applications from the Google Play Store and synchronize our contacts and calendar.

Other applications can then be added, depending on the Gapps package, such as Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Drive, Google Docs, Google Music, etc.

If you want to install Google Play on a smartphone bought in China and that does not have a custom recovery installed, it is better to follow this other tutorial:

How to download Gapps?

Normally Gapps come pre-installed on every smartphone we buy. But if we change rom it is very possible that it does not contain them and we will have to install them manually from the Custom Recovery. But beware, not just any Gapps package is good for any smartphone.

The easiest way to download our Gapps package is from the Open GApps Project website. In this web they worry about having updated all the Gapps packages for any smartphone. To download the right package we will follow these steps:

1. First we will select the type of processor our smartphones have: ARM (32-bit), ARM 64-bit, x86 (intel), x86 64-bit (intel). If you don't know which processor you have, install the Aida 64 application and consult the CPU section.

1. Now choose the Android version of the system: 4.4, 5.0, 5.1, 6.0, 7.0, 7.1, 8.0, 8.1 or 9.0. To find out which version of Android you have installed on your device, go to Settings > About the device or Phone information, here inside you can see which version of Android you have.
2. Finally select the package you need. My recommendation is the nano package, as it has all the basics you can't install from Google Play. From the micro package onwards, other applications such as Gmail and others are also included. Instead, the pico package will only install what is necessary to have Google Play, no synchronization of other Google services such as calendar or contacts.
3. Once the three correct options have been selected, press the red circle with the download icon.

How to install Gapps?

The procedure is similar to installing a ROM, but this time it is not necessary to make any wipe, but you need to have installed a custom recovery to be able to flash .zip files. To install the Gapps you must follow these steps:

1. Copy the .zip file you just downloaded with the Gapps to the device memory.
2. Turn off the device and  recovery mode by pressing the button combination determined for your device.
3. Once inside the custom recovery we enter the option to install a .zip file from memory. We look for the file with the Gapps that we have previously passed or downloaded to the phone and install.
4. The flashing may take from a few seconds to a little more than a minute (depending on the size of the package) and when finished we will restart the device.
5. The first boot may take a while, but we'll have the fundamental Google applications installed.

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