Instructions on how to sideload apps on Mudita Kompakt

Hey everybody! I thought I’d give you some quick instructions on how to sideload apps to your Mudita Kompakt. Hopefully this should help if you’ve not done this before, and wanted a little assistance.

Here’s how:

Disclaimer
Please be careful and don’t trust random people on the internet. The steps below unlock functionality which could be used to make your phone unusable - so be careful digging around with ADB or in the developer options menu. Mudita don’t support sideloading. So this is all at your own risk.

Step 1: Download the apk you want to install
Make sure you download this from somewhere trustworthy, it as this will be running on your phone. You can download an app from somewhere like APKMirror https://www.apkmirror.com/, which holds a library of apps, or you can download an app store like F-Droid https://f-droid.org/ for free and open source apps, or the latest Aurora https://auroraoss.com/ for accessing apps which are on the Google Play store. If you use Aurora or F-Droid, you’ll be able to use them directly on your phone to install further apps.

Step 2: Enable developer options menu
This shows a hidden menu on your Kompakt. Go to Settings (tap the bottom right button then the cog), scroll down to “About” and then tap the “Build number” 7 times. You might not see anything happen, or you might be asked to input your PIN.

Step 3: Enable USB debugging
This lets you modify the Kompakt from your computer. Go into Settings, scroll down to “System”, open “Developer options” (this is the new hidden menu), then scroll down to “USB debugging” and tap it to turn it on. You should see a white circle appear on the right to indicate it’s switched on.

Step 4: Plug your phone into your computer
You’ll need a USB-C cable to connect your Mudita Kompakt to your computer. You might need to click that your phone trusts your computer or vice versa. Your phone might make a notification noise.

Step 5: Go to webadb
I went to https://app.webadb.com/ - there are other webadb services. Make sure you go to one that you’re happy to trust. You will need to use a web browser that supports the web usb standard (like Chrome, Edge or Opera) - Safari and Firefox don’t work with this yet.

Step 6: Click “Add” to add your phone
This will connect webadb to your phone. Make sure your phone is turned on and unlocked. In the popup menu, look for your phone to appear, select it and click “Connect”. If it’s not on the menu, maybe you’ll need step 6a…

Step 6a: Click “Allow” on your phone
This is where your phone is allowing your computer to make changes. After doing this, you should be able to connect to your phone in webadb.

Step 6b: Select your Kompakt
You may need to choose your Kompakt from the dropdown menu at the top left of WebADB and click the “connect” button.

Step 7: Click on “Install APK”
On WebADB there are various options down the left. For this, we’re doing “Install APK”. We’ll use this to install the apk we downloaded in step 1.

Step 8: Sideload
Click “Open” to choose the .apk file you downloaded in step 1. If everything goes well, it should start sideloading to your Mudita Kompakt. You can do this multiple times to sideload multiple apps.

Step 9: You’re all done!
The apk file should install on your phone, and when you open the apps menu on your phone the new app should be there to run.

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Thanks very much for that @damian1 Great, straightforward tutorial👌

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Great thank you! I was about to look for tutorial as last time I was digging in system to modify something was Nokia Symbian :sweat_smile:

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Here’s a tip for users wanting to add gmail to Thunderbird ( or k-9, fairemail, etc):
The email app will open the built-in browser to log in to your google account, but this won’t work. After logging in you will receive the following error: " 403: Access denied: The request was blocked by Google’s policy". (I got the Dutch error, so don’t know English text). This can be resolved by installing firefox, or any other browser probably. Just remove the browser after logging in to your gmail

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Bonjour, deux petites questions, comment peut-on désinstaller une application une fois installée? et ensuite gmail ne s’ouvre pas vous sauriez pourquoi? Merci

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I don’t think gmail would work on the Mudita Kompakt. The Kompakt is de-googled, so I’d guess that Gmail would need all of the google services running.

Yes, you can uninstall an app. Please be careful to type these instructions exactly

How to uninstall an app using webadb

Step 1: Open webadb, connect your phone, and click on the “Interactive shell” option.

Step 2: Get a list of the packages (apps) you’ve installed. To do this, type the following (and then hit enter afterwards):
pm list packages -3
This should show a list of everything you’ve installed - e.g. com.whatsapp is whatsapp, or com.aurora.store is the aurora store. You’ll need this name for step 3.

Step 3: Uninstall the app. Just type pm uninstall followed by the package name. For example pm uninstall com.whatsapp will uninstall whatsapp.

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Thanks for the great instructions! I was looking all week for these.

After a week of using the vanilla Kompakt I am already so used to it, I couldn’t think of a single app I really missed and that wouldn’t disturb the peace. Signal and Whatsapp are on my MacBook and I’m using the call-function a lot more :smiley:

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Hi! Is there a reason you use and adb on the web instead of the command prompt?

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I personally use the adb command line. But to write these instructions I figured webadb would be easier for people who aren’t comfortable using the command prompt.

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i have downloaded Signal from APK Mirror, but it was a .apkm file. I installed it via WebADB to the mudita, and it didn’t show up as an app on the phone. I went on with the original APK from the Signal webstite, installation via WebADB worked perfectly.

Now i wanted to find and delete the wrong .apkm file on my phone but i can’t find it. Do you have any idea?

Thanks in advance!

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do not download signal from apk mirror. always use their own source Signal >> Signal Android APK
(i just re-read and saw you did this in the end :smiley: )
(or alternatively molly)

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That’s what I wanted to do first, but couldn’t find the APK file. My impatience quickly led me to the APK Mirror :rofl:. Then, calmly, I went back to the official Signal website and found it. :smiley:

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Hello Mudita community! And what about downloading spotify apk? Where do you get the source?

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Hi Janlo,

I used aurora store and it works perfectly.

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have you looked on APK Mirror ??
results of searching for Spotify

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Yes I found some apk files for Spotify app, but I think is better download it from original Spotify website. Im no technological geek and have any experience with code.

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i can also recommend droid-ify or obtainium app from pulling apps from other sources

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quickly googled this question, and found the following website on Spotify :

Spotify does not release the latest .APK file direct on there website

if you’re no “technological geek and have no experience with code” then as Yoda says, “Do or Do Not … there is no try”

You have two choices. follow the instructions that have been shared with you above, or don’t install Spotify on your phone.

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Thanks for reply, at first i will try to sideload Proton mail, there is apk on their website.

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Thank you so much for this post :))

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