How to Use FileLinked With Your Fire TV Stick to Download Apps
The Amazon Fire TV Stick offers a whole lot of streaming services in a rather affordable package. However, the true beauty of the Fire Stick is its ability to run Android apps that aren’t available in Amazon’s Appstore. FileLinked is a popular tool that makes downloading those apps easy.
What Is FileLinked?
There are many ways to install non-Appstore apps on the Fire Stick. In fact, you’ll use one of them to install FileLinked in this tutorial. That may seem redundant, but once you have FileLinked on your Fire Stick, downloading other apps becomes a lot easier.
That’s because downloading apps from outside the Appstore usually requires you to visit a web page or type a long URL that links to the installer. If you’re on a computer or a phone, that’s fine, because those devices were designed to browse the web and download files. Your TV, on the other hand, was not.
FileLinked is a service that turns download links into a numeric code, like “26648310.” It’s become a popular tool in the Fire Stick community for downloading apps from outside the Amazon Appstore-people can create a code for their favorite app, share it with the community, and make downloading that app a lot easier. In fact, people can even bundle multiple apps into a single FileLinked code, allowing you to get a ton of useful tools with as few button presses as possible.
However, this comes with a caveat: anyone can create a FileLinked code for any URL, so as with any file sharing service, there’s a possibility of downloading malware. Only use FileLinked codes from developers or friends that you trust, and if you’re going to stream movies and shows through less-than-official apps, you may want to use a VPN to hide your activity from those that might track you.
How to Install FileLinked
Installing FileLinked requires a slightly more roundabout method and involves a tool appropriately named Downloader. On your Fire TV, press the Up button until the main menu appears at the top of the screen. Then, scroll over to Settings, press the Select button, and scroll over to the My Fire TV icon. In that menu, scroll down to Developer Options, and turn Apps from Unknown Sources on. You’ll get a warning similar to the one I’ve already given you above, at which point you can click Turn On.
Now, go back to that top menu bar and go left until you reach the search function. Type in “Downloader,” and click the Downloader option that appears from the Apps & Games section. (You can also use the Alexa remote to say “Download the Downloader app,” which is a bit faster).
Install the Downloader app, open it, and allow it to access files on your device when prompted-it needs this permission to store the files it downloads.
From Downloader’s home screen, click the text bar and type https://get.filelinked.com in the box. This is the official URL to download FileLinked from its developer.
Once you click Go, it’ll download the FileLinked installer-which uses the file extension APK-and you can use your remote’s arrow keys to click the Install button.
How to Download Apps With FileLinked
Now that you have FileLinked on your Fire Stick, you can download other apps and files without typing in long URLs.
For example, let’s say I’d like to download Kodi, a library-focused media player that allows me to watch my own Blu-ray rips or stream from a number of different services. I could use Downloader and grab the installer from Kodi’s web site…or I could just open FileLinked and type in the code 56975628, which links to the latest version of the Kodi installer at the time of this writing. (I know this because I created the FileLinked code myself.)
To download the file, head to your Apps list on the Fire TV and open FileLinked. From the main menu, just type 56975628 into the box, click Continue, and it will download Kodi’s APK file, allowing you to install it just like you did FileLinked earlier. That’s a lot easier than using Downloader with long URLs, isn’t it?
Note that you can turn off FileLinked’s ads by clicking the Settings cog in the upper right-hand corner, and turning off “Show Hints and Useful Information.” This will make the home screen a little cleaner, which is nice if you plan on using FileLinked often. Be sure to move it to a convenient spot in your Fire Stick’s Apps list for easy access, too.
Originally published at https://www.pcmag.com on December 26, 2019.