Purchased apps from Google Play Store

Using /e/OS Applications
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Hi

I guess it’s a stupid question, but is there a way to get and use purchased apps and games from Google Play in /e/ ?

Thanks for answer.

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Technically yes, if you sign in with your goolag account in the Aurora or Yalp store it will give you access to your previously purchased apps. Though using a goolag account is kind of counter productive when the purpose of /e/ is to break free from them. Also most paid/pro apps in my experience may be ad-free but are still riddled with trackers anyway.

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Thanks for answer.

So, I guess with /e/, I can say goodbye to backups of games saved in Google Play Games ?

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And let’s not forget that Goolag could ban your precious account if it used under Aurora/Yalp.

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Yeah I had no intention of re-using any paid apps when switching to /e/ so I never bothered signing in with my goolag account. I actually ended up nuking the whole G-account and the purchased apps along with it. Had accumulated quite a few $$$ worth over the years, but wasn’t too bothered as its only a small price to pay.

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Really ? Google considers Aurora/Yalp as illegal stores ? Or using illegal methods or kind of thing like that ?

Good to know ! Thanks

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The key word is ‘could’

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It would be better to just quote the developers themselves:

Sergey Yeriomin (Yalp)
Q: Is it legal to use Yalp Store with my own Google account?
A: No. Yalp Store violates §3.3 of Google Play Terms of Service. Your account might be disabled, robbing you of any apps you have purchased.

Q: Is it safe to use Yalp Store with my own Google account?
A: Yes. Software like Yalp Store, Google Play Crawler and Raccoon has been used for years and it seems to be safe. Never heard of any real cases of accounts being disabled.

Rahul Patel (Aurora)

Q: Why would I use my own account? Is it safe?
A: You can use your own account to download apps purchased by you or to access your wishlist. However, you may want to be careful as Google retains
the right to block any account. It might be worth using a dummy account for that reason.

UPDATE: I unintentionally mixed up the quotes from two authors: Rahul Patel recommends to be careful too. Now corrected.

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Try to login your Google account and download all the paid apps, then use this app to create an apk version by backing them up, all the apps will be saved as apks in the app folder. After that, you can delete your Google account and stuff and will have all the paid apps you’ve bought. Just save them on some trustworthy place.
Of course, this just a workaround and not all applications will work. Some apps need to detect the Play Store stuff to let you use the “premium” version. Just as an example, if you’ve bought the Earthcam app, you won’t be able to access all the cameras you bought using this method.
I have my account blocked by Google after using Aurora Store, for some reason I wasn’t able to get everything I paid - so I decided to use this method I described above to get all my paid stuff and finally get rid of Google. There were some people saying Google was banning people who were using third-party applications to log into Google services. I haven’t checked it if was true though.

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I installed ShareIt which is makes it easy to sideload an app from an existing phone to the new /e/ phone. Note because ShareIt has annoying adds, immediately delete it after moving the apps over.

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In F-Droid you can find free and open-source tools for such purposes:
https://fossdroid.com/a/oandbackup.html
https://fossdroid.com/a/apk-extractor.html

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Thanks for all answers, it’s good to see active forum !

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One thing I didn’t notice mentioned in this thread. Yes you can install paid/pro apps via Yalp or Aurora stores. However, any app that does license checking will not work. Period. Play Store is required as the checking is done via that app.
So paid/pro apps that do not do license checking will work just fine (f.i Root Explorer, QuickEdit Pro, Root Checker Pro, SMS Backup & Restore Pro, to name several). Others, like Substratum themes, icon packs, and, ofc, apps that check for licenses will not work.

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To add to that, I’ve also come across a couple free apps that fail to launch without play services as well.

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Another way to do that is to use another phone with Google Play Store installed :

  1. Install the paid app
  2. Use Apk Exporter (or equivalent) to save the app on APK file
  3. Install the APK file on your /e/ device
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You can also install the modified Play Store by Lucky Patcher to bypass licence verification, if I remember well there is an option to only install Licence Bypassing Proxy without installing the Play Store.

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Anyone with first hand experiences with Lucky Patcher?

Is it able to block trackers?

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There are Apps, for example the app of my bank, who are propably not available in the /e/ App store.
For Apps like this who are essential i need a possibility to intall them. Otherwise i must stay on android.

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/e/ is Android, too :wink: .

Just a note because I stumbled across this myself … there are so-called “split” APKs out there in contrast to “normal” ones, so make sure the APK extractor App of choice can handle those, else you might have an APK, and you can even install it again, but the App in question will not work.

If in doubt, SAI (Play Store / F-Droid) can handle split APKs.
(Worked for me at least.)

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Some precision about Lucky Patcher, it work only for bypassing in-app purchases, if the app is paid and available only in play store, it will not work.
You should use an APK exporter.

(Banking apps are on /e/ repo, at least the more known ones)