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Sideloading apps from outside the Play Store is a beloved feature of Android phones. You may not know it, but it’s possible to sideload apps on a Samsung Galaxy Watch as well. That’s good, because there are a few handy apps that are worth the effort of manually installing.
How to sideload Android apps on a Galaxy Watch
Don’t be intimidated
First things first, you’ll need a way to sideload the apps on your Galaxy Watch. It’s not quite as easy as with an Android phone since downloading APK files on a small wrist screen isn’t very practical. However, there are a couple of phone apps that allow you to remotely install APK files on your watch.
We have a guide for doing it with an app called Bugjaeger—I used an app called GeminiMan WearOS Manager. The process is pretty similar regardless of which one you choose. You’ll enable wireless debugging on your Galaxy Watch, connect to it through the phone app, then send over the APK and install it.
Wear Button Remapper
Take control of the hardware buttons
One of the cool things about a Galaxy Watch is that Samsung actually makes it easy to choose your own shortcuts for the hardware buttons. However, not every single action can be customized. For example, long-pressing the Home button is locked to launching Samsung Wallet.
I prefer Google Wallet, so I used to get around this by launching it with the programmable Back button double-press. Wear Button Remapper, on the other hand, allows me to override the Samsung Wallet shortcut for my own purposes. The app allows for launching multiple apps with the Back button and overriding existing actions.
Wearable Widgets
Any Android widget on your Galaxy Watch
Wear OS has grown to include a nice selection of widgets, but it can’t compare to the massive library of apps with excellent widgets on phones. Wearable Widgets is an app that allows you to put those phone widgets on your watch.
It’s really pretty simple. First, you’ll need to sideload both the watch app and phone app (the Play Store version was not compatible with my phone). Then it’s just a matter of tapping the plus button in the phone app, selecting an app, choosing its widget, and then seeing it appear on the watch screen. The only bummer is that you can’t set Wearable Widgets itself to be a Wear OS widget.
Google Clock
Get more of that Pixel Watch feeling
Google officially offers quite a few of its apps for all Wear OS devices, including the Galaxy Watch. That includes Google Home, Maps, Keep, Gmail, Calendar, Wallet, and several more—but not Google Clock. The good news is it works perfectly when sideloaded.
After you download the APK and sideload it, you’ll see three new apps on your Galaxy Watch—alarms, stopwatch, and timer—but they’re all part of the same app. The clock widgets are completely functional as well. However, don’t get your hopes up if you’re looking to sync alarms between a Pixel phone and a Galaxy Watch.
Facebook Messenger
Only if you’re desperate
The last one I’ll mention is not recommended unless you really, really need it. Facebook Messenger technically works on a Galaxy Watch (make sure to download a v7a with 360-480 DPI version of the APK). However, the experience is Not Good. It doesn’t scale to the screen size very well, some buttons are literally impossible to tap, and there’s not a great way to go “Back” in the app. That being said, I was able to successfully send a message, so it can be done if absolutely necessary.
Check out this thread over at the XDA Forums with some other apps to try sideloading. Once you have the ability to send APK files to your watch, trying out new ones is an easy process.
