Steps to Install Google Apps on Custom Cyanogen Mod Roms

If you have flashed your Android Smartphone with custom roms especially Caynogen Mod Rom then you are likely to be puzzled at the beginning to find all your Google Apps such as Market, Gmail, You Tube, etc missing from your device. Also, you are likely to be in a situation where you can't add a Google Account to your android smartphone making the situation worse as you can't install any apps without adding a Google account to your device. So, in this article I will tell you how to get Android Market, Gmail, You Tube and many other Google apps that are lost while flashing cyanogen mod rom.

Google Apps contain the proprietary Google applications that come pre-installed with most android devices. Due to licensing restrictions, these apps cannot come pre-installed with Cyanogen Mod and must be installed separately. To make it easier a flash able zip of Google apps is made available which you can simply flash via clock work mod recovery. So, if your market is missing don't just sit there saying: there is no market on my phone or I can't add any Google Account to my smartphone or how do I get my market, you tube and (or) other Google apps back? Simply go through the steps below and get them on your smartphone right away.

1. Download latest version of Google Apps (aka. gapps)  from http://goo-inside.me/gapps/. You can flash this latest (at the time of writing) universal gapps if you have cyanogen mod 7. It is called universal since it is DPI and architecture-independent, and thus can be flashed on all android smartphones.

2. Copy the download gapps-gb-20110828-signed.zip file to your sd-card.

3. Reboot your android smartphone to clock work mod recovery. [Note:- Use Home Button to select and Volume Buttons to navigate in CWM recovery.]

4. Go to Mounts and Storage menu and choose mount /system and mount /data options.

5. Now, go to Install Zip From SD>>Choose Zip From SD Card>> and select the gapps-gb-20110828-signed.zip file  you downloaded earlier.

6. Wait till the Google apps are installed.

7. Once Google Apps are successfully flashed, Reboot your device.

Wait! We are not done yet. This will only install Android Market on your smartphone. This was done to make the package less heavy (on size) by reducing unnecessary app which can simply be installed via Android Market. But, instead tiny Pacman app is installed which will ask you to select the apps that are to be downloaded from market and installed. This is shown only one time just after you reboot your device after flashing appropriate gapps zip. If you are not presented with the Activity to add a Google Account you can do it manually from Settings>>Accounts and Sync>>Add another Account>>Google and then add your Google account and password and you are done.

Also, if you missed the window to select the Google Apps or you want more Google apps to be added in future simply search the market with the keyword 'pub: Google Inc.' and you will be presented with the Google apps that you can choose to install once again.  I hope this has replied to most of your queries regarding the lost Android Market and other Google apps. If you need further help on it please feel free to ask through the comments below.