Installing Apps on LineageOS

June 23, 2025

So… I’m trying to de-big tech. De-google, de-meta etc… which comes with some problems. The big one is lack of “google play services”. Purchased software currently isn’t purchased (have to figure out how to solve that, in some cases it’s easy in others it totally dependent on play services or smthng I don’t want or have) but that is a problem for another day. For now I’m just trying to figure out how to install important things that I wouldn’t otherwise be able to install. The latest one is the BC Services card. Which is handy to have working on a phone so I can get services digitally from the province where I live.

TLDR: In priority order I use F-Droid, Aurora, Obtainium and SAI to install apps on my phone. Be cautious and wise when choosing to download random apks from the web to install on your phone.

F-Droid

To begin with let’s look at what’s happening here. I have an open source phone. So I’ve gone to mostly open source software where I can using F-Droid. This is an awesome thing as F-droid is in effect it’s own play store. Once installed you have access to a very large library of Open Source Software which is largely a beautiful thing. The open source guys need supporting by you. Do that as you are able to.

Currently installed through f-droid is

• Binary Eye (QR code reader)
• Bitwarden (password client for self-hosted password server)
• Campfire (Open Source Bandcamp client, love bandcamp)
• DAVx (client for syncing contacts with self-hosted contact manager)
• FairEmail (awesome email client for android)
• Graphhopper Maps (mapping and routing software using OSM as source maps in my case, particularly good for hiking trails)
• IMMICH (photo client for self-hosted photo server)
• Jellyfin (player for self-hosted movie server)
• Joplin (open source note taking app, integrates with self-hosted NextCloud)
• KDE Connect (desktop sharing of phone functions cause I’d rather use the desktop keyboard than peek and poke)
• Librera reader (reader for ebooks downloaded by Calibre Web Companion)
• NextCloud (client for self-hosted file and app management suite)
• NextCloud Notes (being supplanted by Joplin at least that’s the current plan)
• Obtainium (installer for github and other repositories, more on this later)
• OsmAnd (Open Street Maps mapping and routing software, replaces google maps)
• SAI (installer for multipart APK files, more on this later)
• Tempo (player client for self-hosted music server)
• Wire (secure open source messaging app)

There are a number of things missing here.

Banking software, apps from various levels of government (city, province, Fed), and then some apps I’m required to have through work or I just like and have been using for many years.

Aurora

For these I tried Auroroa, an opensource access to google play store. Lots of stuff that you can find won’t install this way but lots of it will.

Installed through Aurora:

• Action Launcher (can’t proved paid for sigh, launcher that replaces whatever lineageos comes with out of the box))
• Basecamp (project communications for current employer)
• CBC Listen (CBC radio on my phone… I like it)
• Coast Capital (Banking app)
• Fight Club (DnD character manager)
• FUTO Keyboard (keyboard app replacing google keyboard)
• Linkedin (business networking)
• Merlin Bird ID (bird call identification, awesome software)
• Our Groceries (Grocery shopping list, go figure)
• Photaf Panorama (panorama photo taking software)
• Podcast Addict (podcast client)
• Rocket Chat (chat client for current employer)
• Textra SMS (SMS messaging with emoji graphics)
• Tide Charts (Tide prediction)
• Total Commander (File management, among other handy features)
• Vancity (banking app)
• Weather Office (weather app using Environment Canada as source)
• Whatsapp (messaging app used by many friends sigh… so much for de-meta)
• Windy.com (wind prediction app companion to other weather and tide apps)

Obtainium

Still a couple of things missing. Looking for a way to download books from the self-hosted book server that’s easy and intuitive, would love to have some additional nature identification projects on here as well. Turns out some things are available directly through github, gitlab, Forgejo (Codberg) and F-Droid (which I already have)… Obtainium to the rescue. You can also add custom URLs to sites that are compatible (no I have no idea what these might be but I’ll guess if you’re running your own gitlab for example you could use this)

installed through Obtainium:

• iNaturalist (awesome plant and animal identifier includes crowd sourcing ids)
• Calibre-Web Companion (explore and download books from the self-hosted book server)
• Revenge (Open source replacement for Discord)

SAI

For the very difficult (for example things in aurora that say “won’t install” and you can’t find them on open source lists or anywhere easy really) there is SAI and wild apk downloads. Note, you are taking a HUGE risk here enabling this and downloading random apks. However when you’re looking to install something like the BC Services card, this may be the only way. For this purpose there is SAI, this handy software enables the install of “multi-part” apk files. If you find your apk’s are split (xapk files for example, which are zip archives with a bunch of files in them) SAI will help. Download the xapk, change the file name to .zip and feed it to a archive unzipper (I like peazip personally) then get the 4 or so files onto the android device (through a fileshare or email or whatever) and point SAI at the files. It will gather them together and ask if you’d like to install and away you go.

Installed through SAI

• Inkbird (I have a sous vide that will play with this software)
• BC Services Card (provincial proxy ID for BC Services access)

Your mileage may vary but this is working for me. It IS annoying that this isn’t all sitting in one app by itself but I’m slowly figuring out how to get where I need to go with this.

There are some apps (Vancity, BC Services Card and others) that will complain that they don’t work without Google Play services. This is mostly not the case. The software will work until it hits a function that relies on Play Services for a particular action. Most of the functionality of the software is independent of play services (I haven’t met a function in vancity that won’t work).

I did try other installer apps (aptoide notably) but they were annoying and mostly trying to get me to upgrade and pay for something which I have yet to understand the benefit of. APK Pure and others are offering xapk files and a charge to use their software to install their files. SAI gets around this quite handily at stated above.

Be cautious, do lots of homework before installing random apks on your phone. There are lots of bad actors out there. Mostly it’s about greed and trying to make you pay for things you don’t need. It definitely helps to be paying close attention.