My Boy! GBA Emulator APK (Full / Paid Version)

The description of My Boy! GBA Emulator APK (Full / Paid Version)

The My Boy full APK is the paid, full-featured build of one of the fastest Game Boy Advance emulators on Android, made by Fast Emulator (now Pixel Respawn LLC). The Full version drops the ads the free build shows and opens the advanced tools, quick save and load, multi-line cheat codes, link-cable play and Google Drive sync. One thing to be clear about up front: the emulator runs your games, it does not come with any. You bring your own ROMs.

The app itself sells for $4.99 on Google Play, and it is worth it. The file on this page is scanned for malware and installed on a real Android device by our editors before publishing, we have done this since 2018.

What is My Boy! GBA Emulator?

My Boy! is a Game Boy Advance emulator for Android. It runs GBA games on your phone or tablet with very high compatibility, somewhere around 90 to 95 percent of the library plays cleanly. Speed is the selling point. The app was built with tight, low-level code, so it stays smooth even on older or budget hardware where heavier emulators stutter.

It uses OpenGL for rendering and includes high-level BIOS emulation, which means you do not need a separate BIOS file to get most games running. You get on-screen controls you can move and resize, real gamepad support, fast-forward, slow-motion and battery-friendly playback. For a lot of people, this is the emulator they keep on their phone for years.

Full vs Free version

There are two builds on the store. The paid one is what this page is about; the free one has the package name com.fastemulator.gbafree. Here is what the Full version adds.

If you play now and then, the free build does the job. If you play often, the paid version pays off fast, mostly because the ad on every state load gets old quickly.

Is it legal? ROMs and BIOS (honest)

Short answer: the emulator is legal. My Boy! is just software that mimics GBA hardware, and running an emulator on your own device is fine. What matters is where your game files come from.

The legal way to use it is with ROMs and BIOS files you dumped yourself from cartridges you own. Downloading someone else's commercial ROM from the internet is piracy, and we are not going to point you at that. It is your call, but we would rather be straight with you than pretend otherwise. On the BIOS side you are covered anyway, since the built-in high-level emulation means no BIOS file is required for most titles. And the cheat codes here are the old-school retro kind, GameShark and Action Replay style codes you type into a single-player game. That is a classic feature, not online cheating.

How to download and install My Boy! Full APK

The download is a small APK, so this is quick. Everything starts from this page.

1. Tap the green Download APK button at the top of this page. The file downloads directly, no registration or SMS.
2. Allow installation from unknown sources for your browser or file manager (Settings → Security).
3. If the free version is already installed, you can keep it or remove it, the two use different package names and won't clash.
4. Open the file, tap Install, then launch the app.
5. Point the emulator at the folder that holds your own ROMs, pick a game and play.

The app is about 13 MB and needs Android 5.0 or newer. First time sideloading anything? Our APK install guide walks through the same steps with screenshots.

Tips

• Hold fast-forward through long story dialogue and grinding stretches, it saves real time in RPGs.
• Lean on save states. Drop a quick save before a boss or a tricky jump so a mistake costs you seconds, not an hour.
• Rearrange the on-screen buttons to fit your thumbs, and turn on multi-touch so you can press two buttons at once.
• For local multiplayer, use the link-cable feature over Wi-Fi with a friend running the same game.
• Switch on Google Drive sync so your saves survive a new phone.

Support the developer

My Boy! is a small paid app that a tiny team keeps updating. If it becomes part of your daily routine, buy the Full version on Google Play to back Fast Emulator / Pixel Respawn, it is a fair price for software you will use for years. Want to try other systems too? Browse the rest of our emulators and tools to find the right one for your handheld collection.