A Windows program that downloads your own copy of Minecraft Bedrock from Google Play, ready to install on a handheld.
The Minecraft handheld ports don't include the game — they can't, legally. You supply your own copy, bought from Google Play. This program is how you get it onto your PC in the right format.
NOT AN OFFICIAL MINECRAFT PRODUCT. NOT APPROVED BY OR ASSOCIATED WITH MOJANG OR MICROSOFT. No game files are included with this program, and Google Play will only give you Minecraft if the account you sign in with already owns it.
Yes, if you are installing one of these and don't already have the game files:
- Minecraft Bedrock handheld port — RG34XX SP, RG DS, and other PortMaster devices
- Minecraft Bedrock for Miyoo Mini Plus — Miyoo Mini Plus on OnionOS
- A Windows PC (Windows 10 or 11, 64-bit). The handheld itself isn't involved yet — this all happens on the PC.
- The Google account that owns Minecraft on Android. If you bought Minecraft on a phone or tablet, that's the one. An account that doesn't own it will get nothing.
- About 5 GB of free disk space. Most of that is a one-time setup that stays on your PC — see what gets installed below. You can remove it afterwards.
- Download
mcbedrock-get-windows-*.zipfrom the latest release and unzip it. Keep all the files together in one folder — the program needs the others beside it. - Run
mcbedrock-get.exe. Windows may warn that it's from an unknown publisher; that's because the file isn't code-signed. Choose More info → Run anyway, or check the file againstSHA256SUMS.txtfirst if you'd rather be careful. - Press the button in step 1 of the window. It sets everything up by
itself and shows you what it's doing. It will:
- ask for Windows administrator permission once (Windows' own popup),
- possibly ask you to restart the PC — if so, restart and open the program again, and it picks up where it left off,
- take a few minutes.
- Press the button again when it says Sign in. Google's own sign-in page opens; enter the email and password of the account that owns Minecraft. The program never sees your password.
- Pick your device type, then choose a version and press Download. It's a few hundred MB.
- Copy every file it downloaded onto your handheld and install it from the port's own menu. Follow your port's instructions for where the files go.
You don't need to open a command prompt, type any commands, or create any accounts other than signing in to Google.
| Pick this | If you have |
|---|---|
| 64-bit | RG34XX SP, RG DS, and most modern handhelds |
| 32-bit | Miyoo Mini Plus, R36S, and other older 32-bit devices |
If you pick the wrong one the game won't run, and the port will tell you so rather than failing mysteriously. When in doubt, check your port's page.
Pick 1.16.221.01. It's marked with a ★ and it's the one the ports are tuned for. If you just want Minecraft working on your handheld, stop reading this section.
The list has hundreds of other versions because people like to experiment. Each row tells you what you're looking at:
- Renderer: RenderDragon (shown in red) — a newer graphics engine Minecraft switched to. Handhelds are far too slow for it, so these versions stutter badly and are not worth trying. This covers 1.18.30 and everything newer, with one odd exception noted below.
- Edition: Pocket Edition — versions below 1.2 are the older mobile game Minecraft Bedrock grew out of. It has touch controls only, so your handheld's buttons do nothing in it.
- Tiny UI — anything newer than 1.16.221.01 draws its menus and text much smaller, which is hard to read on a small screen.
- ★ Tested — someone has actually run these on a handheld. The note explains why you might pick each one.
The tested versions:
| Version | Why you might pick it |
|---|---|
| 1.16.221.01 | Recommended. Best-sized menus on a small screen |
| 1.21.51.01 | The newest version without the slow graphics engine, but smaller menus |
| 1.16.40.02 | An older, lighter version |
| 1.11.4.2 | The fastest measured on a Miyoo Mini Plus (about 7 fps) |
Anything without a ★ will download, but nobody has tried it on a handheld.
This is worth being upfront about, because it's a whole operating system rather than a small add-on. The program explains all of this and asks permission before installing anything, and you can read it again any time from the What gets installed? button.
Why: Google Play will only hand over Minecraft to a proper Play client, and the only one that still works is a Linux program. Windows can't run it directly, so the program installs Linux to run it inside.
| What | How big | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Windows Subsystem for Linux | A Windows feature | Needs administrator once, and maybe a restart |
| Ubuntu Linux | About 1.5 GB | A real Linux system, running quietly alongside Windows |
| The downloader itself | About 2 GB | Built on your PC, takes a few minutes |
Ubuntu only runs when something uses it, and it stays on your PC until you remove it. Other programs can use it too. To remove it completely afterwards, open PowerShell and run:
wsl --unregister Ubuntu
You won't be asked to make up a Linux username or password — the program doesn't need one.
| What you see | What it means |
|---|---|
| Windows warns about an unknown publisher | The file isn't code-signed. Check it against SHA256SUMS.txt and choose Run anyway |
| Windows asks to restart during setup | Normal. Restart, reopen the program, press the step 1 button again |
| "Setup is not finished yet" | Press the button in step 1 — it always does whatever is still missing |
| Google offers to sell you Minecraft | You're signed in with an account that doesn't own it. Press Sign out and sign in with the right one |
| The game won't start on the handheld | You may have picked the wrong device type, or a version marked in red |
| Something else | Open an issue and say what the window showed |
Your Google sign-in is stored on your own PC only, at
%LOCALAPPDATA%\mcbedrock-get\account.json, and inside Ubuntu at
/root/.local/share/mcbedrock-get/. Sign out removes both. Nothing —
no password, no sign-in details, no downloaded file — is ever uploaded anywhere
by this program. Your password is only ever typed into Google's own page.
Technical details — how it works, and why the version rules are what they are
This is not a fork of mcpelauncher and shares no code with it. It's an independent companion built on two things minecraft-linux publishes, and would not exist without either:
- Google-Play-API —
gplaydl, the only Play client still able to fetch Minecraft. It's Linux software, which this program builds and drives. - mcpelauncher-versiondb — the map from Minecraft version
names to Google Play version codes. The codes can't be derived by pattern:
the encoding changed several times (1.11/1.12 use an
87prefix, 1.13.0.16+ switch to94, 1.16.221 uses95on 32-bit and97on 64-bit), so they are always looked up.
Neither project is affiliated with this one and neither endorses it. Report problems seen here to this repository, not to them.
RenderDragon shipped platform by platform: Xbox at 1.13, PlayStation 4 at 1.14, Windows 10 at 1.16.200. Android came last, after being switched on and off through the 1.17.40, 1.18.10 and 1.18.20 betas, and only stuck at 1.18.30. So an Android 1.17 build does not have it, however modern the number looks.
1.21.51.01 is the exception: the original Android release of 9 December 2024 shipped with RenderDragon disabled on 64-bit by mistake, which is the only reason a build that recent is usable. 32-bit was unaffected and kept it. Two days later Mojang re-uploaded Android as 1.21.51.02 with it switched back on. Those are two separate builds with two separate Play codes (972105101 and 972105102), so asking for one gets exactly that one.
Sources: minecraft.wiki/w/RenderDragon, Bedrock Edition 1.21.51.
Update names ("Nether Update", "Better Together Update") come from the minecraft.wiki release infoboxes. Releases that were never given a name are left blank rather than invented. The Pocket Edition boundary is 1.2, the Better Together Update, where the "Pocket Edition" subtitle was dropped.
The version list is cached under %LOCALAPPDATA%\mcbedrock-get\versiondb\ for
a day; Refresh list re-reads it. With no network and no cache, the list
falls back to the tested builds, whose version codes are compiled into the
program.
A download must produce a base APK plus the matching config.arm64_v8a or
config.armeabi_v7a split before it is published into your chosen folder.
Pre-App-Bundle builds (roughly 1.12 and older) ship as one APK carrying
lib/<abi>/ inside instead, and are accepted once that library is confirmed
present. Downloads are staged in a temporary directory, so a failed or partial
download can never be mistaken for a good one.
Everything run inside Ubuntu runs as root, which Windows permits without a
password — that's why no Linux account is created. wsl --install is passed
--no-launch so its first-run wizard, whose only job is to invent a username
and password, never appears. An install made by an older version of this
program under a normal user's home is adopted rather than rebuilt.
mcbedrock-get --check # report setup state
mcbedrock-get --list --abi armhf # add --all for beta builds
mcbedrock-get --login
mcbedrock-get --logout
mcbedrock-get --download 1.16.221.01 --out D:\apk
--download accepts any version --list prints. --refresh re-reads the
version list from GitHub instead of the saved copy. --login only needs an
address (--login you@example.com) if the program could not read one back from
the completed sign-in. Set MCBEDROCK_WSL_DISTRO if your Ubuntu installation
has a custom name; otherwise Ubuntu, then a versioned Ubuntu-*, is used.
Run build.bat with Python 3.11. It installs the pinned dependencies, builds
the one-file executable, generates third-party notices, and creates
dist\mcbedrock-get-windows-vX.Y.Z.zip.
python -m unittest discover -s tests -p "test_*.py"
The source of truth is tools/mcbedrock-get/ in
minecraft-bedrock-handheld-port, where CI builds it and verifies it
builds reproducibly. This repository is its published home for releases and
issues; changes are made upstream and mirrored here.
GPL-3.0, the same as both ports. See LICENSE. Third-party components
are listed in the -NOTICES.txt file in every release.