How to resize android apps on chromebooks

@Summerson
Jun 28, 2017, 9:00 am EST | 2 min read

Android support on Chromebooks started with Android 6.0, which only allows apps to run in full-screen mode, or a smaller static size. This isn’t the best layout for many apps on Chromebooks, and Google finally changed this with Android 7.1.1. The thing is, resizing doesn’t work out the gate—there are a few tweaks to get it working.

Step One: Verify Which Version of Android Your Chromebook Is Running

Before you get your hands dirty, you’ll want to first make sure your Chromebook is even running an Android build that offers resizable apps.

First, click the system tray, then the gear icon.

From there, scroll down to the “Google Play Store” section and click it.

Click “Manage Android preferences,” which will launch the Android settings menu.

From there, just scroll to the very bottom—you’ll see the Android version under the About Device section.

If your Chromebook is running 6.0, you’re pretty much stuck with what you have for now. Sorry.

If you’re running 7.1.1 or above, however, read on.

Step Two: Enable Developer Options

While you’re already in the Android Settings menu, let’s go ahead and enable Developer Settings. You’ll need to do this in order to resize apps.

Click into the About Device menu.

From there, click the “Build number” seven times. You’ll see a small toast notification at the bottom of the screen letting you know how many click are left until you “become a developer.”

After seven clicks, developer mode will be enabled. Awwww, yeah.

Step Three: Enable Window Resizing

Click the back button in the top left corner, which will take you back into the main Settings menu. You’ll see a new option here: Developer Options. Click into that bad boy.

Ignore everything you see in this menu until the very bottom. Seriously, start scrolling now, lest your curiosities get the best of you and you break something.

At the bottom, find the “Allow free window resizing by dragging the border” option and enable it. Just like that, you’ll be able to resize Android apps. Keep in mind that this doesn’t work with all apps—if they haven’t been updated in some time, they won’t support this. Many modern apps (with good developers) should be on board, though.

To do this, just hover over the edge of the app window, just like you would any other window. The cursor will change, indicating you can resize the window.

Optional: Set the Default Size for Pre-Nougat Applications

Now, you could stop here and be finished, but there’s also another option I think you should check out, which will determine the default size for apps that aren’t designed for Android Nougat.

Unironically, it’s called “Default size and orientation for pre-Nougat applications, and unresizable portrait applications.” That’s a mouthful. But click it anyway.

Basically, this lets you figure out what is going to work best for the way you use Android apps on your Chromebook. For me, defaulting portrait maximized sized and landscape orientation just makes the most sense—that means apps like Instagram, which are portrait-only, launch full screen. Others will launch in landscape mode. It works for me, but feel free to experiment with these options and use what works best for you.

Once you’re finished, just back out of this window—you’re done.

As you can likely tell, for the past week, we’ve been testing (and loving) the Samsung Chromebook Pro. One of my few nags with the device, up to this point, was the way Android apps opened out of the box. Though usable, having only a choice between small phone and full screen window was a bit limiting.

I know, I know, resizable apps are on the way and hopefully won’t be too long.

A couple commenters over the past week have pointed out that there may be a way to enable app resizing. So, being curious, I took a look.

Simple Fix

So first, you need to enable developer mode on Android. This is quite simple and works just like you expect if you’ve ever done this on a phone. Go to your Android settings > About Device > Build Number and click that section until you see ‘you are a developer!’

Now, you can back out and you will see Developer options. There are a few you need to enable.

–> Force activities to be resizable
This option enables all windows to be resizable, regardless of what is in the manifest file.

–> Allow free window resizing by dragging the border
This does exactly what you think. Enable this to be able to resize your apps by dragging the edges.

Default size and orientation for pre-Nougat applications
This allows you to choose the default opening size for your apps. I’ve found the ‘portrait maximized size and default to portrait orientation’ to be my favorite. Your mileage may vary.

After doing these quick steps, you now have resizing app containers.

Some Caveats

There are still some things to consider, here. First, this isn’t enabled out of the box, so there’s likely going to be some glitches here and there.

Second, not all apps are ready for Nougat resizing. You’ve likely seen this on your phone from time to time. An app you’d like to split-screens with simply wont’ comply. That is due to the app not being optimized for Nougat’s resizing windows.

With these apps, you still get the default opened window and the option to go full screen. Dragging the edges of the window won’t do anything for you.

As time goes on and developers start to see the worth in having a resizing element to their apps, we’ll see less and less of this.

Working Well

For obvious reasons, I haven’t tried this on every app. I have tried it on a bunch and it works very, very well already.

Being able to open up things like Play Music or Gmail and resize the window makes these apps really worthwhile on the desktop. And that’s what we are all after here, right? Apps on a Chromebook are fun to play with, but they eventually need to get productive.

This is a great step in that direction.

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About Robby Payne

Tech junkie. Musician. Web Developer. Coffee Snob. Huge fan of the Google things. Founded Chrome Unboxed because so many of my passions collide in this space. I like that. I want to share that. I hope you enjoy it too.

Copyright © 2021 · Chrome Unboxed · Chrome is a registered trademark of Google Inc.
We are participants in various affiliate advertising programs designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to affiliated sites.

Android Nougat could probably be nicknamed “The Juggler” because of how it brought the gift of powerful multi-tasking to Android. Apparently, however, it might not just be Android that will benefit from that. According to Chrome Unboxed, even Chrome OS gets a taste of that multi-tasking if and when Nougat comes to Chrome OS. Apparently that might really be soon now, at least for those in the development channel, as screenshot reveal Chrome OS running not just Android 7.0 but Android 7.1.1 even.

Chrome OS can already run Android apps, or at least some of them, that much is true. But the current implementation, aside from being limited to a select few devices, isn’t all there yet. In particular, it’s impossible to resize Android apps running in Chrome OS. Either you’re given a big floating window designed for a tablet or you get a smaller window designed for a phone.

Nougat’s multi-window capabilities may have also been designed with Chrome OS in mind. In fact, on Android, having floating, resizable windows is officially an experimental feature. On Chrome OS, it will be a necessity.

Another multi-tasking feature that may arrive with Android N is keeping Android apps running in the background. In a “desktop” setting like Chrome OS, apps shouldn’t stop running just because they aren’t in focus. That seems to be the case with Android apps on Chrome OS though, which makes for a dealbreaking missing feature.

The big question now is “when”. Google seems to have been rather slow in rolling out Android to other Chromebooks, though the arrival of Samsung’s stylus-toting Chromebook Pro could give Google some incentive to pick up the slack. An Android Nougat update could once again revitalize the Chrome OS market. It might also, ironically, render Android tablets obsolete.

Google recently released its very first developer preview with Android apps for Chromebook and it’s pretty wonderful. but, the brand-new Chrome OS replace is handiest available for the Asus Chromebook flip. While we can anticipate devices like Acer Chromebook R11 and Google Chromebook Pixel to get the update next, owners of other Chromebooks will have to wait for quite some time. According to Google’s latest timeline, other Chromebooks will get the Play Store build later this year or early next year.

If you are impatient, similar to us, there are other approaches to run Android apps on a Chromebook. To run Android apps on Chrome OS, we will be the use of the ARC Welder app to utilize Google’s App Runtime for Chrome OS (beta). So, right here’s the way to run Android apps via it:

Use Android apps on any Chromebook through ARC Welder:

1. Firstly, you will have to download the ARC Wielder app from the Chrome Web Store.
2. Then, download the APK files of apps you want to run on your Chromebook. You can download APK files from APKMirror.com.
3. After you have downloaded the APK file of an app, open the ARC Wielder app. In the app, you will see the one and only option to “Add your APK“. Click on the option.

1. Select the APK fileyou have downloaded from the Files app.
2. After the app has loaded the APK file, you will get various options to customize your app experience. You can select theorientation (portrait or landscape), form factor (tablet, phone, maximized or fullscreen) and you can choose to give the app “Clipboard access” or not. Once done, click on “Test” to start the app.

1. If you have a loaded on the ARC Welder app previously, the app will prompt you to remove it, before it can start loading the new APK. Then, the app should start up. You can then start using app through mouse or touch, if your Chromebook supports it.

Important Points to Note:

The ARC Welder app is aimed toward builders looking to optimize their Android apps for the Chrome OS, so don’t assume exceptional performance out of it. However, if you are just looking to use a few Android apps on your Chromebook, it’s no longer too shabby both. Having said that, if you plan on using ARC Welder, here are some essential points to be aware:

• You should be a little patient after you’ve clicked “Test”, as some apps might take a longer time to load.
• According to developers, you should use Tablet or Maximized as the form factor and Landscape as the screen orientation for best results. You can resize the window of an app, like you would do on a normal app and the interface will scale accordingly.
• Not all the apps work! We tried out the APKs of most of the popular apps and only a few managed to play well with Chrome OS. This should get fixed with future Chrome OS updates, as Google starts integrating its Play Services.
• You should prefer downloading stable versions of apps, rather than trying out any beta or alpha builds of an app.

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One of the advantages that Chromebooks — well, most Chromebooks — offer is the ability to run many of your favorite Android apps alongside Chrome OS windows. In fact, a lot of the more popular Android apps have been optimized for Chrome OS, so they will look perfectly at home on your Chromebook.

Google has a long list of the Chromebooks that can run Android apps, but it’s not difficult to check to see if yours is one of them by doing the following:

• Go to Settings
• Click on the “Apps” link on the left-hand menu

• In the main window, look for “Google Play Store.” (It should be near the top.) If it’s there and it invites you to “Install apps and games from Google Play on your Chromebook,” then you’re ready to go.

It is possible that your Chromebook is capable of running Android apps, but the feature has not yet been enabled. Not a problem — it’s very simple to fix.

• As before, go to “Settings” > “Apps” > “Google Play Store” (if you’re not there already). You will see a button to the right of the “Google Play Store” label that says “Turn on.” Click on that.

• Before you can do anything, you’ll get the usual terms of service document that you must scroll through and approve. Read it if you like, then approve it.

That’s it! Now all you have to do is look for the familiar Play Store logo in your Launcher, either by clicking on the Launcher icon in the lower-left corner of the screen or using the Launcher button on your keyboard just above the left Shift key. That will take you to the Play Store where you can search for and install your favorite Android apps on your Chromebook.

Android apps you’ve installed will also appear on the Launcher, just like any other Chrome OS app. For example, when I installed the Spotify Android app on a PixelBook, the Spotify icon appeared in the Launcher alongside all the previous apps.

Note: The first time you go to the Google Play Store, you may get a pop-up that asks you to “Complete account setup” by adding a payment option. Don’t panic. If you don’t want to add any kind of payment info, you don’t have to. Just hit “Skip.”

You can even select many of the same options for the Android apps that you would if they were on your phone. Click on “Manage Android preferences” (which is just above the “Google Play Store” link you were at before) to choose whether you want notifications, if Do Not Disturb should be activated, etc.

One warning: Android apps that have been optimized for use on a Chromebook — which means many of the most popular apps — will look and act like normal Chromebook apps. However, apps that have not been optimized will basically appear in a phone screen format, so they won’t be quite as usable — although they should, with possibly a few exceptions, still work.

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Chrome OS Partition Resizer

This script resizes partitions of a Chrome OS. Typically, this will be used to dual/multi-boot Chrome OS and another operating system, but it can also be used to reclaim lost disk space.

Chrome OS enforces a particular disk layout and will “repair” its installation by formatting the disk and reinstalling if a partition is added or removed. This script resizes the partitions rather than creating new partitions to avoid triggering the “repair”.

As shown in the chart, the kernel C (partition 6) and rootfs C (partition 7) partitions are unused by the device, so we can safely resize (and use) them. The user state partition (green, labeled “Encrypted user data”) is used by Chrome OS to store user files, extensions, Android apps, etc. chromeos-resize redistributes space among these three partitions to the user’s desire.

Using this script will delete all data on these partitions, including any downloads and files Chrome OS uses. Back up that data if it is important to you.

Originally created to serve the Chromebook Pixel 2015 (samus) Linux community which noticed the need for Chrome OS to receive firmware updates.

Dual/multi-booting Chrome OS alongside other operating system(s) is useful for a number of reason:

1. Only Chrome OS can provide firmware updates to Chrome OS devices.
2. Chrome OS can run Android apps, offers excellent battery life, and works out-of-the-box without issues.
3. Other operating systems can provide access to other types of software, a better development environment, more system control, etc.
4. Natively installing another operating system can be more convenient or efficient than running one through e.g., crouton or connecting to another machine via ssh.

chromeos-resize can also be used to revert from a multi-boot system to one with only Chrome OS, or other variations. If, somehow, space on the disk was lost by another resizing, this will fix it.

Read through this entire section before resizing.

Carefully consider how much space you are allocating to each partition! If you are unhappy with your partition sizes later, you will have to go through this process and lose all data on the three partitions again.

Chrome OS needs little space for itself, so it is recommended to minimize the space allocated to Chrome OS in order to maximize the space for the other operating system. Check how much space you are using in the user state partition by running $ df –human –output=used /dev/sda1 at the shell. If planning to install the Google Play Store for Android apps, no less than 3 GiB should be allocated to the user state partition. (Chrome OS and the Play Store without any Android apps use nearly 3 GiB.)

If kernel C will be used as a boot partition (recommended), enough space for multiple kernels should be allocated to it. The default of 64 MiB will be able to hold around eight versions of the Linux kernel–enough for most users.

After resizing the user state and kernel C partitions, all remaining space will be allocated to the rootfs C partition. Allocating less space to the user state and kernel C partitions will result in a larger rootfs C partition, and is therefore recommended for most use cases.

First, enable Developer Mode on your Chrome OS device.

Next, get to the shell by pressing Ctrl + Alt + T then typing “shell” at the prompt. Once at the shell: download, read, and run cros-resize.sh .

Note that the script names partitions differently than does this document:

• STATE is the user state or “stateful” partition,
• KERN-C is the kernel C partition,
• ROOT-C is the rootfs C partition.

• Ethan Madison: [email protected]
• Eric Hegnes: [email protected]

This work is released under the GPL v3.

Thanks to Jay Lee and the authors of chrubuntu-script for providing the inspiration and base for this project.

About

A partition resizing tool for Chrome OS devices.

Anilrajkumar Battini

Feb 17, 2020 · 3 min read

Everyone wants a great image.

No. Not everyone.

If you are a developer you can relate to that.

A client and cloud always want to store images with as much less memory as possible, as long as it doesn’t compromise the visibility of the text/details on it.

So, these days any mobile phone can take an image wit h decent quality sizes up to 5MB(Not Mb). And it has become a nightmare to many developers to upload/store/download an image. In an app, whenever we need an image, either we have to take it through camera or choose one from image picker. Either way we are in soup. Cause,

5MB = 5,242,880 bytes

Now you get the idea, right. Our application has to upload that 7digit figure of bytes. And you all know how cloud behaves.

Simply ERRATIC, especially during uploading of images/documents.

Instead of complaining on internet speed and cloud limitations of uploading and downloading, let us address the root cause of the problem.

Everyone knows this is the problem. Then what’s fuss?

This simple line would solve many of the problems we people are facing. If you haven’t been using this, then this would give you great results. Try it.

Many people are still using this as god given solution.

But they often wonder how WhatsApp or WeChat is able to reduce the image size to few KBs keeping the quality relatively good.

Some may have tried their own algorithms to compress images, but most of them may not have shown consistency. Cause if 5MB becomes 1MB, then 1MB becomes 200KB.

This is not what we are looking for.

Whether it is a 10MB or 1MB, if they are of same aspectRatio(height x width), we should be able to bring down their size around same.

We should focus on Pixels here. That is, with our logic if we compress 10MB image to 500KB and try to compress that again, the resulted image should be 500KB still. Cause we should consider all the parameters and get best possible image with less memory in first go itself.

If you look close enough, then everything comes down to

Yes. This is the keypart of Bitmapfactory.Options which you have to use while compressing the image. This is like sampling the larger quantity into smaller quantity.
Let me give you an example.

Just as explained above, let us say your image is 4000 width and 2000 height of pixels. If we choose the inSampleSize = 2, then they would come down to 2000 width and 1000 height. If you make inSampleSize = 3, it further compresses and you get 1000/500 image. Now I beilive you have better idea on it.

This gives you a bitmap with better compressed memory and quality.

If you observe, we gave the quality as 90, usually this should result in higher in size of that image, still we get bitmap of less memory. Reason is, we compressed and taken out all the extra pixels of memory through handling of inSampleSize.

If you want, you can tweak the sizes 900, 1100. The bigger the number is, the more details you can keep. The lesser, the lesser quality of details.

Google Play Store and Android apps are available on many Chrome OS devices since launching in 2016. To learn more about what we launched in 2016, check out this blog post.

The Chromebooks, Chromeboxes, and Chromebases that were launched before 2019 that are able to install Android apps are listed below. Unless specified elsewhere, all devices that have launched in or after 2019 will support Android Apps. Roll-out of Android Apps is done on a device-per-device basis as it is dependent on a number of factors including the hardware platform that the device is based on and each device must be compatible with Android . While we won’t be able to bring Android apps to every Chromebook ever made, we’re continuing to evaluate more devices and we’ll update this list as new devices are added. Even if your Chromebook isn’t on the list below, it will continue to get other new features and improvements.

To learn how to install Android apps on supported Chromebooks, click here .

Chromebook R11 (CB5-132T, C738T)

Chromebook Spin 11 (R751T)

Chromebook R13 (CB5-312T)

Chromebook 11 N7 (C731, C731T)

Chromebook 11 (C771, C771T)

Chromebook 14 (CB3-431)

Chromebook 14 for Work (CP5-471)

Chromebook 15 (CB3-532)

Chromebook 15 (CB515-1HT/1H)

Chromebook 11 (C740)

Chromebook 15 (CB5-571 / C910)

Chromebook 11 (C732, C732T, C732L, C732LT)

Chromebook 11 (CB311-8H, CB311-8HT)

Chromebook 13 (CB713-1W)

Chromebook 15 (CB315-1H, CB315-1HT)

Chromebook 311 (C721)

Chromebook 311 (C733, C733U, C733T)

Chromebook 315 (CB315-2H)

Chromebook 512 (C851, C851T)

Chromebook 514 (CB514)

Chromebook Spin 11 (CP311-H1, CP311-1HN)

Chromebook Spin 13 (CP713-1WN)

Chromebook Spin 311 (R721T)

Chromebook Spin 511 (R752T, R752TN)

Chromebook Spin 512 (R851TN)

Chromebook Tab 10

Chromebook 715 (CB715-1W, CB715-1WT)

Chromebook 714 (CB714-1W, CB714-1WT)

Chromebook Spin 15 (CP315-1H/1HT)

Chromebook 15 (CB315-1H/1HT)

Chromebase (CA24I2, CA24V2)

Chromebook 11 (C730 / CB3-111 / C730E / CB3-131)

Many Chromebooks, including all Chromebooks since 2019, can run Android apps. This makes them attractive choices for working with App Inventor because you can use a single device both for creating apps in the browser and for running finished app as Android applications. See the link below in Resources for a list of Chromebooks that can run Android apps (as of 2019).

*NB: For school IT administrators: Some schools choose to disable the ability to run Android apps on their managed Chromebooks, which makes them unusable for App Inventor. See the link under Resources on how to control this feature for your managed Chromebooks and how to manage deployments of apps across your organization.

Initial Setup Instructions

Step 1. If you are unboxing a new Chromebook, you should use the “settings” app and go to the “About Chrome OS” item (usually the last item on the left-hand side of the window). There it will tell you the version of Chrome OS running on the Chromebook along with a “Check for Updates” button. Click the button. It will either tell you that your Chromebook is up to date or it will start the update process. It is possible that you may have to update multiple times. Once your Chromebook takes the update, again “Check for Updates” until your Chromebook says that it is up-to-date.1.

Step 2. Turn on the Google Play Store setting to enable the use of Android apps. To do this, search under settings for Play Store and you should see the option to turn on the store. as shown below. If you do not see Google Play store under the settings list, make sure you are running the latest version of Chrome OS. If your Chromebook is managed by a school or business, you may need to discuss with your IT administrator about enabling this feature if it has been disabled. If you are still unable to install Android apps from the Play Store, your Chromebook is unable to run apps and is not usable with App Inventor.

You may have already set up Play Store access when you first started your Chromebook. In this case, you will only see an arrow indicating additional settings. If so, jump to step 4.

Step 3. Accept Google Play Store conditions and set up Google Play

Step 4. Next, launch the Play Store app to access the Google Play Store.

Step 5. Once you have opened the Play Store, use the search feature to find the MIT AI2 Companion, similar to how you would find an app on a phone or tablet.

Important: If you are doing this setup during the beta testing period, the app in the Play store should be titled MIT AI2 Companion (Internal Beta). If it does not say Internal Beta, then you are probably either not enrolled in the internal beta testing group, or you are looking at the wrong version of the Companion.

Once you join the Beta program you will receive the beta version on all of your devices. The Beta version works correctly with the App Inventor production service as well as with the AI2-test.

Step 6. Click the Install button to install the Companion app. To open the MIT AI2 Companion, click on its icon in the ChromeOS menu. You can also pin this icon to the task bar for fast access in the future.

Creating apps

To create apps, use your browser to browse to the App Inventor service at ai2.appinventor.mit.edu (_during the testing period, use ai2-test.appinventor.mit.edu). Go to My Projects and start create new project in the designer and the blocks editor just as with other versions of App Inventor.

Next, go under the Connect menu at the top of the screen and choose Chromebook from the dropdown menu. The Companion should open, connected to your new app. You might want to rearrange the browser and Companion widows to appear side-by-side as shown below, to make it convenient to continue developing the app in the browser and interacting with it in the Companion window.

The Chromebook entry in the Connect dropdown appears only if you are using a Chromebook.

Building apps

Just as with other versions of App Inventor, you can package your app to produce an APK file that can run on a phone or tablet or distributed through Google Play or other sites.

Open the Build dropdown menu at the top of the browser screen. You can choose to display a QR code that can be used by a smartphone or tablet to install the app. Or you can create an apk file and save it on the Chromebook.

Installing apps

As explained above, you can use Chromebooks to build App Inventor apps and install these app on other devices or publish them to the Play Store. You can also download and install apps from the Play Store to the Chromebook.

** Limitation:** Currently, the Play Store is the only source from which you can download and install apps on the Chromebook. It is possible to get around this limitation, but the process is complicated and too awkward for school configurations. For information, search on the Web for “sideloading apps on Chromebooks.”