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How to install an app on any Android TV box

Cheap boxes all run Android, but every maker rearranges the menus and gives them different names. So this guide tells you what you are looking for, not just where it was on somebody else's box.

Two kinds of box, and it matters. Some run proper Android TV (rows of apps, a Play Store, a Google logo at start-up). Others run ordinary phone Android with a home screen bolted on, and have no Play Store at all. Both can do this. The second kind needs the alternative in Step 3.

Step 1: Find the unknown sources switch

It is always there. It is called one of these, and lives in one of these places:

On anything from Android 8 onwards you do not get one big switch: you give permission to one app, the one that will do the installing. Switch on whichever app you plan to use: Downloader, or the box's own File Manager or Browser.

Cannot find it anywhere? Some boxes hide it behind developer mode. Go to Settings › About and press the middle of the remote seven times on Build number. Then look again.

Step 2: If you have a Play Store

The Downloader app: an orange tile with a white D and a down arrow, and the word Downloader
Look for this orange tile. It is free.
  1. Open Google Play and search for Downloader.
  2. Install the one by AFTVnews, orange icon.
  3. Open it, type the address in the top box, press Go.
  4. Choose Install, then Install again, then Done and Delete.

Step 3: If you have no Play Store

Most of these boxes come with a browser or a file manager instead. Either will do.

  1. Open the box's Browser and type the address in. It downloads the file.
  2. Open File Manager (sometimes called Explorer or ES File Explorer) and go to the Download folder.
  3. Select the file that ends in .apk and choose Install.

If the box refuses at that point, it is Step 1 again: the browser or the file manager is the app that needs permission, not the app you are installing.

Installing Brownout Media Player

In Downloader, type this number:

4205862

or type the address brownoutapps.com/tv

Brownout runs on Android 7 and up, which covers nearly every box sold since 2016, including the very cheap ones. When it opens it shows a QR code; scan it with your phone and put your provider's details in there rather than on the remote.

If it will not play ball

“App not installed”

On cheap boxes this is usually storage. Many have only 8GB and arrive half full of apps you will never open. Uninstall a few and try again.

“There was a problem parsing the package”

Either the download did not finish, or the box is on a version of Android older than the app allows. Check Settings › About for the Android version.

The remote will not type in the address box

Some boxes only bring up the on-screen keyboard when you press the middle button on the box itself, not the down arrow. Press Select on the empty box first.

It installs, but the app is nowhere

Look in the box's full app list rather than its home screen. It is often a grid icon or an Apps tile. Home screens on cheap boxes frequently only show what the maker chose.

Other devices

The idea is the same everywhere, but the menus differ. Guides for each: