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How To Use Snapchat on a Mac

How To Use Snapchat on a Mac

Android has come a long way since it first launch on the market more than a decade ago. Early versions of the operating system were critiqued for their visual design and lack of quality apps, with iOS often being considered the older, better-looking sibling. But Android has grown into its own with two distinct flavors of visual design. The first, Holo, was released with Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich (which itself was a refinement of the Tron-esque, tablet-exclusive Android 3.0 Honeycomb). Holo was refined over the Android 4.x years, with each major iteration bringing a new, fresh update to the style. In 2014, alongside the release of Android 5.0 Lollipop, Google unveiled their new design language, Material Design. Material has been used for everything in Google’s entire suite of software since it was unveiled, and with the guidelines set by Google on how to design modern software, Android has seen a wave of new, innovative apps with fresh designs and improved aesthetics.

So, if you’re an Android user, there’s no reason not to bring some of those incredible apps to your Macbook Pro or Macbook Air. Maybe you’re looking for a weather application to keep around on your laptop for planning your outfit in the morning. Maybe you’d rather play some Android-exclusive games on a larger display, or you want to test out a brand new app without installing it onto your phone and taking up valuable storage space. Or, for our purposes, maybe you want to load up Snapchat on your laptop for checking Stories on the go. Whatever the reason, there’s a dead-easy way to install Android apps on Mac OS: emulation. It doesn’t matter whether you’re looking to play a game on your PC originally purchased on Android, or if you’d rather spend your time using Snapchat on your computer instead of your phone, emulation is the way that you can force all of your favorite Android apps to automatically start functioning on your Windows 10 PC.

There are a dozen solid Android emulators on the market today, and each has their own feature set and dedicated fanbase that swears by each app. It can be difficult to decide which app is and isn’t worth using, but for our purposes, we’ll be turning to our favorite emulator, Bluestacks. Let’s take a look at

Allow Apps

First, let’s enable apps to get installed from places other than just the Apple App Store. Before you can download and install the Android emulator—Andy—you’ll need to make sure your Mac allows the installation. To do that, you’ll need to:

  1. Go to “System Preferences” on your Mac.
  2. Next, you’re going to click on “Security and Privacy.”
  3. Then, click on the “General” tab (the first tab on the top left in Security and Privacy).  General security and Privacy
  4. If you’ve only got apps from the Apple app store allowed for installation on your Mac, you’ll need to check off the “Allow apps downloaded from:” both the App Store and identified developers.                             Allow Apps All

Now you should have the ability to download and install the Android emulator without a hitch.

You may also need to accept adding BlueStacks as an accepted developer in your settings in order to properly install the app.

Get the Emulator

Make your way to the BlueStacks website. Here you’re going to download the most recent version of Bluestacks from the page, which will allow you to access and use Snapchat from your Mac. After you’ve downloaded the .dmg file to install the app, double-click on the disk image on your desktop and double-click on the package within this installation folder. Your Mac prompts you to click on and accept installation of BlueStacksto your Mac, just as with any application or program you install.

At this point, you’ll want to follow through the installation software provided by BlueStacks, selecting the preferences you want for your emulator. When you finish your installation of BlueStacks, it’ll now live in your Applications folder within your Mac’s file system.

Open BlueStacks

Now that you’ve installed BlueStacks, you’re going to head to the “Applications” folder on your Mac. Double-click on the app to open it, and you’ll be asked to create a username and an avatar. The former can be whatever you want, though it can’t be something used by another BlueStacks player. As for the latter, you don’t need to spend too much time on the avatar portion if you don’t want to. Simply hit the random button and move onto the next step. You’ll be asked to select some popular games you like to play to connect with other users. Once you have those down, you can move onto the map, or you can skip the game selection altogether.

Logging Into Google and Installing Snapchat

Once you’re inside of BlueStacks, you can ignore the general interface and location information provided by the service for now. Instead of looking at all that, you’ll want to click over to My Apps, then tap on the System Apps folder to enter your main list of content. Select the Google Play icon, just as you would on another Android device, to open the Play Store. Google will prompt you to enter your login information for the device, using a tablet interface for the menu and visuals. BlueStacks runs Android 7.0 Nougat, so anything we try to install in Google Play will work fine on our device.

When you enter your login information for Google Play, you’ll be redirected back to the app, now able to install apps and launch content from within the store. Unlike the BlueStacks App Store, Google Play is entirely unchanged here. If you’ve ever used Google Play on a tablet, you’ll know what to expect here; the app is identical. You can search through apps at the top of the browser, select one of the options from the carousel of highlighted apps and games at the top of the screen, and scroll through the suggested games below. More importantly, however, is the ability to access your own account. Use your mouse to select the horizontal triple-lined menu button that will be familiar to any long-time Android user to open the sliding menu to the left of your screen. Since you previously logged into Google Play when first launching the app, you’ll see your standard number of options appear inside BlueStacks’ terminal, including your account name, your library of apps and games, and the ability to browse suggested categories like books, movies, and more.

From here, just search out Snapchat and install it to your device. Keep in mind that, once you log into Snapchat on BlueStacks, you’ll be logged out of Snapchat on your other devices.

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3 thoughts on “How To Use Snapchat on a Mac”

sefat says:
it says the device is not compatible
jillian says:
it now says that my device (MacBook Air) is not compatible with snapchat when I try to download it. please help!!
omar says:
it logs me out, when i sighn in

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Heather

Apr 21, 2019

Senior Editor at TechJunkie. I have a passion for writing all things tech. When I’m not writing, you can find me geeking out, gaming and spending time with my family. Follow me on Twitter @BloomerHeather.

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