Bypass Country Restriction for Play Store Apps

VPN
1

I live in Brazil, I did not choose to be born here, I don’t like this country nor do I like the native language of here.

I wanted to download a few apps that are country restricted.

I tried using a VPN (I have a paid NordVPN subscription), but it still says it’s not available on my country. I then tried disabling mobile data and turning airplane mode on (while keeping WiFi on), but no luck. Then I also tried disabling the location (GPS and such), but still nothing. I even tried mocking my location, and nothing again.

So at the end I was running a VPN, with mobile data disabled, airplane mode on, and mocking my GPS, but it still said the app was not available on my country.

By the way, for each step I did clear Play Store cache and I even cleared it’s data just to make sure, but nothing worked.

Any help is appreciated.

And please don’t judge me for trying to download an app that’s not available in my country. I’m not proud of living here, but I don’t have the money to travel to somewhere else.

And also, I’m wanting to download the apps from Play Store the legit way, as if I wasn’t living here where I am.

Thanks :]

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Info:

Phone: Motorola Moto X4 (payton) XT1900-6

OS: LineageOS 15.1 custom ROM, on Android 8.1 Oreo

TWRP custom recovery installed

Rooted with Magisk

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My device passes SafetyNet beautifully.

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2

Use a vpn. Open play store. Slide from left. Account>Country and profiles. You will see the country used by vpn. Just set that country.
Then proceed.

I guess you can change your country only once in a year.

3

Just create another Google account for the country you wish to download apps from and add that account to your phone. All you have to do from there is switch the Google account in the Play Store (left slideout menu) to download the free apps from that country’s store. You can use Play Gift Cards found on eBay to download paid apps if required too.

I have been using US and India accounts for years now.

4

Let’s get this right, Google and most search engines will not direct you for a solution to overcome their guidelines. To avail for one, I will use PBS Live TV app as an example to show exactly the steps you need to do to overcome country store restriction to download this app from PBS directly.

I will explain my situation so you can map to yours:

**This process requires you to use your computer or laptop or any device other than your TV box.**

My requirement is to download PBS Live TV for my android TV box. I am based in Middle East, hence, can’t get the download working from Google store due to location restriction. Work around is:

  1. Get a Google drive account, subscribe and make sure you can access it from your Android TV Box

  2. Run FireFox in Private Mode “Incognito”, it would be good to have a VPN connected

  3. Click in the URL section and chose “DuckDuck” as your search engine. Or if you dont know how to do that, just type “DuckDuck” and hit enter, you will get the search engine page.

  4. Type in “dowload pbs live tv apk for android”. In your case, change PBS to your favorite Android App, for e.g. Hulu or Amazon Prime TV etc.

  5. DuckDuck will direct you to the APK download page on the application service portal (away from Google store), see in my case the url here: https://www.apkmirror.com/apk/pbs/pbs-pbs/

  6. Look for APK download, usually the provider publish several files e.g. Bundle Package and APK, chose APK download. This is the format supported on Android TV boxes

  7. Upload the file downloaded file to your Google drive

  8. From your Android TV Box access Google drive and download the file to your Android TV Box

  9. Go to file explorer in the Android tv box and run the file, chose Google to run app. Sometime the box does not allow you to run 3rd party application, you need to enable this feature from Android box settings.

  10. Once you run it, the App will be installed properly and you should be able to see it, add it to your favorite so it is on main page of your TV box

  11. Disable the feature “Map location via WiFi” in the Android TV box so you by pass the IP restriction

  12. If you are in different region than US or Canada, then certainly you need a VPN account to stream, otherwise, the App will not work.

  13. From this point onward, you need to login in to your app account and start streaming.

Hope this help!

5

if you really want to try an app out, you can easily find the apk elsewhere. spotify, for instance, isn’t available in India, but I’ve been using it since last year

6

geoblock is kinda racist and imo is something that should be banned

in my case I need my boarding passes and the app is geoblocked, what a nice way to welcome foreigners in your country, isn’t it?

7

Achei essa thread por acaso, já se mudou pros EUA pra poder comer hamburguer todo dia e aproveitar a maravilhosa cultura americana OP? KKKKKKKKKKKKKKK

8

Today i uninstalled an app …trying to reinstall install it shocked me with the country restriction.
It only meant one thing for sure … don’t trust these devices.
Teach your children how to hunt instead

9

Thanks. This appears to be a solution. I was trying it, but then I decided to stop because there are many implications of doing such, like any money on your “Play Wallet” will get locked, you’ll only be able to change country again in a year, and so on. It’s a bit more extreme than I thought.

10

I know this is 5 years old. But dude you are my hero :heart_eyes:

11

Thank you! After I created new gmail account, it bound via my IP to my country. Then I added that account on my phone but it was still bound to my country, and I could not change it. So I went to play store via browser, used vpn there, connected to a different country, clicked install desired app and it got downloaded to my phone without making a fuss. Note this was the first download from the store, might also be important.

12

Thanks for the tip, I’ll try that. It sounds like a pretty valid solution. Sure, it’d be much nicer if those country restrictions weren’t there to begin with, but as they are, having multiple accounts may be the solution I was looking for.

13

I’ve did the exact same thing mentioned in your main comment. But still when I try to buy a pro version it shows in dollars rather than in rupees.

14

Thanks for the reply!
This post is from many years ago, and I’ve since found other ways to handle this issue.
One of which is to use an app called Aurora Store, an open-source Google Play Store substitute that allows one to download apps from the Play Store, bypassing device or location restrictions, and even without a Google Account. This app isn’t available on the Play Store and must be downloaded from somewhere else.

15

Yeah, I know this is an option, but I really wanted to download from the Play Store.

And wow, I didn’t knew Spotify wasn’t available in India. I hate country restrictions so much. Not only for apps, but for anything. I’ve heard there are country restricted songs on Spotify, country restricted games and so on. That’s so ridiculous on my opinion. Yes, I know most of those things are because of some law or things like that, but come on.

16

Bro do you know the definition of racism?

17

You might want to take a look at Aurora Store. It’s like a custom Play Store client, sort of. Could be of help.

18

One thing you can do if its very necessary. Just make a random Gmail account. Use it in an old or useless phone. Do the above procedures and extract the apk using ‘app sharer’ etc. That way it would be safe.

Also apkmirror is a highly trusted site. So if your app is available there, then get the apk.

19

Be glad that you are not on Apple ecosystem like me currently. Android works fantastic with multiple accounts from different countries and you don’t even require a credit card from each country.

In Apple world, there is no multi-account or multi-country support at all without going through convoluted and hard to do workarounds. Even to change the iCloud country, you need a valid payment method.

Google is relatively balancing this well between developers/companies and users very well with reasonable compromises for both unlike Apple.

20

i like how it was 5 years ago and youre still using the same account