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Google TV is Google's free discovery app for Android, searching Netflix, Disney+, Prime Video and YouTube at once so you can see where a film is streaming, keep one watchlist across your devices, and use your phone as the TV remote.
Google TV comes preinstalled on most Android phones, which makes an APK for it an odd thing to be hunting for - right up until you are holding a device that does not have it.
That is a bigger group than it sounds: Fire tablets, Huawei handsets, de-Googled ROMs, TV boxes with no store worth the name, and phones whose manufacturer froze the app several versions back.
The app itself is a search engine for the subscriptions you already pay for rather than a player or a source of films, and that distinction decides whether it is any use to you at all.
Check Whether You Already Have It
Google installs this app on Android devices by default, so the first move is to look rather than download. Open your app drawer and search it - and search for the old name too, because plenty of phones still file it as Play Movies & TV.
The package name is the giveaway. Google TV still runs under com.google.android.videos, inherited from Play Movies & TV, so an APK verifier will report that string rather than anything containing "googletv". A file whose package name is something else is not this app.
If you find it and it is simply out of date, update it from the store rather than sideloading. The APK route is for the devices where that is not on offer.
Will It Even Run on Your Device?
Google TV is a Google app end to end. It signs in with a Google account, syncs through Google's servers and leans on Play Services for most of what it does, which means a phone with no Google services will install it and then stall at the sign-in screen.
Play Store Check answers that before you download anything - it reports whether an app can function without Google services on board. Worth thirty seconds if you are on a Huawei device or a custom ROM.
One Search Across Every Service You Pay For
The core job is answering "where is this streaming" without opening six apps to find out. Search a title once and Google TV tells you which of your services carries it, or which will rent it to you if none of them do.
Google puts the catalogue at over 700,000 films and episodes, and the app organises it into four tabs: Hot & New for releases, For you for recommendations built from what you actually watch, Shop for rentals and purchases, and Your stuff for your library and watchlist.
The watchlist is the part people keep. It syncs across every device signed into the account, so a film added on your phone at a bus stop is sitting in a row on your television when you get home.
Your Phone as the TV Remote
The most underrated feature here is a full remote for Google TV and Android TV devices, built into the app - navigation, volume, voice search, and your phone's own keyboard.
That last one is the reason to keep the app installed even if you never use it for discovery. Entering a streaming password one character at a time on a D-pad is a genuinely miserable way to spend four minutes, and this ends it.
Where Your Old Purchases Went
Google TV is the successor to Play Movies & TV, so films and shows bought or rented over the years are still in the account and still watchable, under Your stuff. They can be downloaded for offline viewing too, which matters on a flight.
Two things the app does not make obvious. Purchases also appear in the YouTube app, which is where to look if the library here comes up empty. And the Google Play Movies and TV tab is a United States feature, so a library that looks incomplete elsewhere is regional rather than broken.
Do not install an old APK to fix a library problem. Google degrades builds older than version 4.27 on purpose - you can still play what you own, but Manage Services returns an empty list or an error, so the app stops finding your subscriptions. If a sideloaded copy is misbehaving, an out-of-date file is the first thing to rule out.
What Google TV Does Not Do
It is a guide and a storefront, not a media player. It will not open the MKV sitting in your downloads folder, and it has no interest in your local files at all.
For local playback, VLC for Android carries its own decoders and opens essentially anything you hand it.
MX Player is lighter and has better gesture controls, though surround audio needs the separate MX Player Custom Codec add-on.
If you want the Google TV experience pointed at your own collection instead - poster art, plot summaries, episode tracking - that is Kodi for Android, and Kodi for Windows keeps the same library on a PC.
We compared the best video players for Android TV if you are choosing one for the big screen rather than the phone.
It is also not a source of free films. The app is free to install, but every service it searches still wants its own subscription, and the Shop tab is a real shop.
Free Things to Watch Instead
If what you actually wanted was something to watch tonight at no cost, a discovery app for services you do not subscribe to is the wrong tool. Tubi TV is the straightforward answer - thousands of films and episodes, free, funded by adverts rather than a subscription.
Stremio takes the aggregator approach with an add-on system and cross-platform syncing, and Emby goes the other way, serving your own collection to every device in the house.
For live television, ProgTV for Android handles IPTV channels with EPG and DVR, and ProgDVB does the same job on Windows.
Both need a channel list to point at, and our guide to free popular IPTV playlists covers where the legal M3U links live.
When Playback Stutters, It Is Usually the Codec
Google TV hands playback to whichever service app owns the title, so smoothness comes down to what your hardware can decode. Modern phones handle HEVC and VP9 without complaint.
AV1 is where older devices struggle, and YouTube and Netflix serve more of it every year because it looks better at lower bitrates. If newer content stutters, drops to a lower resolution or refuses outright, how to get the AV1 codec on Android walks through what can and cannot be fixed in software.
Installing the APK Safely
- Allow installs from your browser. On Android 8 and newer this is per-app - Settings, Apps, your browser, then Install unknown apps.
- Get the file from the Google TV download page rather than from a mirror you have not heard of.
- Verify it before you open it. APK Checker reads the package name, the signature and the minimum Android version the build needs - a genuine copy reports com.google.android.videos, signed by Google.
- Tap the file and install, then sign in with the Google account that holds your subscriptions and purchases.
Installing onto a television is the awkward case, because most TV boxes have no usable browser. Downloader by AFTVnews is the standard route - it fetches an APK straight from a typed address using the remote.
The general version of all this is in how to install an APK safely on Android, and if the file will not open at all, the usual reasons an APK is refused cover it.
What It Runs On
- Android phones and tablets, plus Android TV and Google TV devices. There is no separate build to hunt for.
- A Google account and working Google Play Services - this is not an app that runs usefully without them.
- Version 4.27 or newer for the full feature set. Older builds are deliberately limited to playing what you already own.
- Free to install, with no ads in the app itself, though rentals, purchases and every service it searches are all paid separately.
Quick questions
Do I need the APK if I have an Android phone?
Probably not. Google installs the app by default on Android devices, so check your app drawer first - including under its old name, Play Movies & TV. The APK is for devices that never got it.
Is Google TV free?
The app is free to install and carries no ads of its own. It does not give you anything free to watch, though - it searches services you subscribe to, and the Shop tab sells rentals and purchases.
Why does my phone call it Play Movies & TV?
Google TV replaced Play Movies & TV and kept its package name, com.google.android.videos. Some manufacturer builds never updated the label, and older frozen versions still carry the original branding.
Where did my purchased films go?
Under Your stuff, and also in the YouTube app, which holds the same library. If the tab is missing entirely, note that the Google Play Movies and TV tab is only offered in the United States.
Will it play my own video files?
No, and it is not meant to. Google TV never touches local storage. Use VLC for Android for loose files, or Kodi if you want a library with artwork.
Can I use it as a remote without a Google TV device?
The remote works with Google TV and Android TV devices, which covers most Sony, TCL, Philips and Hisense televisions along with Chromecast and Google TV Streamer hardware. It will not control a Samsung or LG set.
More players, editors and codec tools for the platform are in the rest of the Android APK category.
Download Google TV for Android if the Play Store is not an option on your device, or tell us how you got on - this page has no reviews yet.
