Can't connect Google Account with Fairphone 5 /e/OS by Murena

Whenever I try to use my new Fairphone 5 /e/OS by Murena to download any given app from Google Store, the system always claims there was an error because my device was not connected to my Google account - but I have connected the account to the telephone number.

Hi @GerhildKrebs warm welcome to the /e/ forum

This is a degoogled phone. Just replying in light of your other thread, maybe you need to do more research on life without Google?

If you depend on Google, maybe this is the wrong phone … or maybe questions on the line of how to adapt to degoogled will get a response as we saw in this thread

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Wrong OS rather, which can be fixed …

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Thanks for your replies, however am at loss to act accordingly. Am first time smartphone user; bought F5/Murena because I wanted to avoid G’s power but had no idea about the problems that could cause. I just happen to need certain apps the download of which is solely available in G Play

How exactly are you trying to do this?

In /e/OS you would open App Lounge.
Regarding Apps from the Play Store, there’s a choice here. You can either access Apps in “Anonymous Mode” without an account, or you can “Sign In with Google”. If this choice is not presented when starting App Lounge, you can get to it in App Lounge via Settings - Login.

For most needs Anonymous Mode should be fine, you can install many cost-free Apps from the Play Store this way.
A Google account would come into play in certain special scenarios, for instance if Apps are only being made available in certain regions or countries not covered by the anonymous access, or for instance if you want to access Apps you bought before. Does something like this apply to you? If not, there’s a good chance you don’t need your Google account for this.

That they are solely available in the Play Store shouldn’t be a problem at first.
App Lounge is directly accessing the Play Store (if the user wants to), as part of it is an alternative client App for the Play Store apart from Google’s own Play Store App. See above on how to proceed in App Lounge.

More importantly, please define “need”. How dependent are you on the Apps in question working 100%? Which Apps exactly are we talking about?

Please be aware that with /e/OS you are using an Android OS without the genuine Google services on the phone (software parts supplied by Google to let Google-dependent Apps work without issues).
/e/OS comes with a degree of compatibility built-in, so many Google-dependent Apps work on it nonetheless, but this can fail for any given App at any given point in time for any given amount of time. There’s no guarantee any Google-dependent App will work as intended all the time, or at all, and most of the Apps in existence are Google-dependent, meaning they expect the genuine Google services on the phone. Which are not on the phone with /e/OS, instead replaced by a compatibility tool, which is pretty good but can’t do magic.

You can help us figure out your exact use cases for your Google account, if there even are any, as well as the Apps you need to use, and then we can see about the problems to perhaps expect, if there even are any. Many users can do all the things they would do with a fully googled Android OS just fine with /e/OS … but mileage may vary.

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