As Pokémon Go continues its massive surge of international popularity in gaming industry, there has been many attempts to trick Niantic systems by spoofing locations or using Joysticks.
Pokemon GO hack for Android, bonus & rewards sheet, cheat sheet to fight with Team GO Rocket have been flooding the internet since the launch of the augmented reality (AR) mobile game.
Even we published Pokemon GO hacks for rooted Android devices. But with hardware specs bumping up in latest Flagships and budget smartphones, Android rooting has become less popular. No one wants to void their smartphone’s warranty for a game.
In this article, we’ll cover working Pokemon GO Joystick Hack along with best GPS Spoofing/Hacking Apps of 2023. Now you might ask, why would you ruin the joy of game by doing so?
Well, if in case you’re tired, not feeling well or its raining outside & you can’t go out. Why miss the adventure? Enjoy it from your home, and you can still catch ‘em all. During regular days you can enjoy the original game. Sounds amazing, isn’t it? Let’s jump to the procedure.
If you follow all the steps as provided, you’ll get the GPS location spoofing, Joystick and Teleport feature which will allow you to catch Pokemon from anywhere in the world.
If you’re an iOS user, you can check our Pokemon GO iOS Hack which is pretty simple as compared to Android. Also, you can play it on your PC using the methods mentioned in our article on How To Play Pokemon GO On PC Using Arrow Keys
The hack was pretty easy but due to latest Google Play Services and Android security patches, there has been many issues in the working. Also, Pokemon GO detects if you have installed any GPS spoofing app on your Android. But it isn’t the same with all Android versions.
We have found different ways to still use the hack depending on your device & Android version. In order to find which method works for your phone, you need to know the Android version of your device & the security patch which is installed.
Pokemon GO Android Hack (2023)
Before starting with the tutorial, make sure you have installed the original game from PlayStore. You can choose any of the spoofing apps from below.
Currently this three are the only app that tends to work with all the security updates & allows you to change your location using arrow keys. You can try the free ones as it has worked for Galaxy S10’s latest security patch without any issue, but if that doesn’t work, you need to buy the 3rd app.
I know it’s a paid app now, but it’s better to spend few bucks rather than getting your Pokemon GO account banned. You can also try Fly GPS, but it does not have automated altitude and it rubber-bands a lot more, so it is prone to softbans.
1. Fake GPS GO Spoofer
2. FGL Pro
Using Pokemon GO GPS Spoofing on a Non-Rooted Android device doesn’t allow you to use the app to its full potential, due to which you will face Rubber Banding effect (You can avoid Rubber Banding effect by covering your phone in an Aluminium foil.
This blocks the original GPS to track your current location) but you might face “GPS Signal not found” or “Failed to Detect Location (12)” error. However, you can fix the errors using these guides on Pokemon GO GPS Signal Not Found & Pokemon GO Failed to Detect Location (12).
3. Pokemon Go Fake GPS Joystick & Routes Go
What is Pokemon GO Joystick Hack (Fake GPS Spoofing)?
Pokemon GO App is created using Google Maps’ API. It tracks your location with your phone’s GPS & shows different types of Pokemon as per assigned by Niantic based on location. Pokemon GO joystick apps makes the GPS believe that you are changing locations which in turn moves you in the game.
The app offers control buttons (similar to a joystick arrow keys) to move in any direction you want. You can also adjust your moving/running speed. The joystick appears as an overlay (PIP) in the Pokemon GO game so you can watch your character move live.
We don’t mean to ruin a game which was meant to make people walk and explore places around. But do you want to go everytime? During a pandemic like this, roaming outside can cost you your life. It’s for situations like this, this cheat can help you play and be safe at the same time.
Should you Root your Android for Spoofing?
Earlier in 2019, we used to install the Fake GPS app and enable the Mock location option, and we were all set to begin spoofing.
But now, whenever the mock locations checkbox is enabled, Niantic detects that you are spoofing. In order to avoid this, you need to install the Pokemon GO Android hack App either by Downgrading your phone or by Rooting and converting the App into System App or you don’t need to do anything depending on the Android version of your device.
While some might think downgrading and rooting are pretty much same, Downgrading and rooting are two separate things. You do not need to root to downgrade your version of Android.
Downgrading your version of OS would not void the warranty of your phone; as long as you use official firmware. Before jumping on whether you should root or not, let’s check if you really need to root your Android device.
To check Android version on your device, Go to Settings App > About Phone > Check Android version.
Pokemon GO Spoofing (Android) using Smali Patcher (New Method)
Smali Patcher pulls the android framework from your device and applies necessary patches to the source files and then generates a Magisk module with the applied patches systemlessly. In Simple words you don’t need to transfer the fake GPS routes app to the system folder and you can still spoof Spoof GPS in Pokemon GO without rubberbanding.
This method works for all the Android versions including Android 10, 11 & beyond. For GPS spoofing using Smali Patcher, you will at least need an unlocked bootloader and TWRP. You can refer our guide to unlock bootloader and install TWRP in almost all phones. Now follow the guide below to install Smali Patcher on your PC,
Step 1. Download Smali Patcher and extract it to C drive.
Step 2. Enable USB debugging in developer settings on your device and connect your device via USB to your PC.
Step 3. Run Smali Patcher with Admin Permission.
Step 4. Wait for the Smali Patcher to finish dumping and until it prompts Idle.
Step 5: Now, Click on ADB Patch. Once the process is completed, Magisk module will be generated in the same directory as Smali Patcher.
Now, if your device only has TWRP then follow the first dropdown or if you have rooted your device using Magisk follow the second dropdown.
Pokemon GO Hack For Android (No Root)
Note: This method will only work on Android 6, 7 and 8. This method will not work on Android 9, 10, 11 and some Android 8.1 devices with Google play services 12.8.x that cannot be downgraded.
If you have not yet updated your device to Android 8 and want to enjoy Pokemon GO Spoofing Android hack then this method is for you. This method doesn’t require rooting. This is amongst the least affective method however you can try your luck with this one.
Firstly, you need to downgrade your Google Play service. You need to downgrade to Google play service version 12.6.x. However, some versions are detected by Niantic. So, you can prefer 12.6.87, 12.6.88 or 12.6.8.9
Downgrading Google Play Services is restricted by Google to avoid old protocols used by devices. Since it’s restricted, there’s no 1 click go method to disable updates and downgrade to the version we want.
Follow the method to downgrade the app. Remember, some Google Apps might not work once you have downgraded. You will have to do this steps again if you update the Google Play Services app by mistake.
Step 1. Open this link, you’ll find many APK files. In order to find the right one, first download Droid Hardware Info app and check under “System” tab. Check the value of “Instruction Sets” (It would like something like arm64-v8a, armeabi-v7a, x86, x86 + x86_64).
Step 2. After checking the instruction sets value, depending on your device’s Android version (6,7 or 8), go into that part of downloads. For ex: My device runs on Android 8.0 so I’ll go to the part shown in the image below.
Step 3. Check for your Instruction sets value in the table. In my case, it’s arm64-v8a. There are 3 files of arm64-v8a. If you’re sure about your device’s DPI, you can download that or else download the nodpi one.
Step 4. Now, you need to setup Pokemon GO Spoofing App. To do that, navigate to this section.
Installing Magisk for Spoofing (Requires Root)
If you’re running Android 8.1 and above, you can’t downgrade your Google Play services app. Only solution is to root your device and install Magisk.
We can’t use the spoofing apps directly as Niantic detects any 3rd party apps with spoofing or joystick in their name. If you keep spoofing without putting the app in system, you might get banned.
I would suggest you to perform rooting and all this steps only if you’re using Pokemon GO on your secondary device. Rooting your device can cause instability with payment apps.
Step 1. Follow the ADB guide to install adb files and launch the adb.exe file from the adb folder. Move the downloaded TWRP file for your device into the ADB folder. (Change the TWRP file name to twrp.img)
Step 2. Connect your device with your computer using the USB cable provided with the device.
Step 3. Make sure to enable USB debugging and allow adb access (Everything is mentioned in the ADB guide)
Step 4. Type the following command in adb command window to check if everything is working perfectly.
adb devices
Step 5. Reboot your phone into bootloader mode. Some phones will bring you to download mode instead of bootloader mode. Usually you should be able to get into bootloader mode from download mode. To boot into bootloader/fastboot mode, type the following command:
adb reboot fastboot
Step 6. Boot the device into TWRP mode, by typing following command:
fastboot boot twrp.img
Wait a few seconds and your phone will reboot into the TWRP custom recovery. Now watch the following video and do as explained:
After moving the Pokemon GO joystick app into the “/system/priv-app” folder, you should be able to restart your phone normally. Open your joystick app and make sure that either “system mode” or “root mode” is enabled.
If you’re running on Android Nougat/ 7 or lower you can skip this step. Or if expert mode is available after moving the app to system/priv-app without changing the permissions, don’t change xml files. After the device has booted back up, go to your root file manage of choice, grant it root permissions and then browse to “/etc/permissions/”
Step 1. Edit the file that corresponds to “privapp-permissions-DEVICE_NAME.xml” Where DEVICE_NAME corresponds to the code/model name of your device or edit “privapp-permissions-platform.xml” if it exists.
Step 2. Copy and paste the following into the bottom of the file (second to last line, press ENTER a few times if you need to):
<privapp-permissions package="com.incorporateapps.fakegps_route"><permission name="android.permission.INSTALL_LOCATION_PROVIDER"/> <permission name="android.permission.UPDATE_APP_OPS_STATS"/> <permission name="android.permission.WRITE_SECURE_SETTINGS"/> <permission name="android.permission.CHANGE_COMPONENT_ENABLED_STATE"/> <permission name="android.permission.ACCESS_MOCK_LOCATION"/> </privapp-permissions>
Step 3. Make sure that beneath the lines pasted is the “</permissions>” tag and not above it. If you do not have the “</permissions>” tag as the very last line and it appears in the file ONLY ONCE, you’re gonna break things. Please be EXACT about this.
Step 4. Save your changes and exit the file.
If you want to use TWRP again, you have to repeat this process. The TWRP recovery was not actually installed or flashed on your device.
If you have rooted your device, Niantic won’t allow you to play Pokemon GO on that rooted device. As rooted devices are considered home to spoofers and other hacks. If you have rooted your device to enjoy other root benefits and don’t want to unroot just for Pokemon GO, follow the below steps to hide the root from Pokemon GO App.
Step 1. Install Magisk Manager from here and follow the guide to install Magisk Installer via Magisk Manager App.
Step 2. Once you have installed Magisk in your device, you need to hide root from Pokemon GO so that the app can’t detect if your device is rooted.
Step 3. Open Magisk manager, click on “Magisk Hide” and enable it. Now you can tap on it to view all the apps installed in your device.
Step 4. Find Pokemon GO in the list and check it to hide root from Pokemon GO.
Step 5. Now restart your device and launch Pokemon GO. To install the GPS Spoofing app, you can refer the below “How to Setup Pokemon GO Fake GPS App” section.
How to Setup Pokemon GO Fake GPS App – Android
Step 1. Download and install any Pokemon GO Spoofing App mentioned above. Here, we are using Pokemon GO Fake GPS Joystick & Routes GO
Step 2. Go to Settings App > About Phone > Tap on build number 7 times (Until it says, you’re now a developer) to activate Developer options in your device.
Step 3. (For Android 6.0 and above with Security patch before March 2017) Go to Settings > Developer options. Locate “Select mock location app” & select Fake GPS Route.
Step 4. Again go to Settings > Location & set GPS mode to High accuracy (Use GPS, WiFi, Bluetooth or mobile data) to allow the Fake GPS app to function properly.
Step 5. Now launch Fake GPS Routes and enable your device’s GPS. You can search any location or Point the pointer to any spot you want to spawn.
Step 6. Go to Fake GPS App Settings, make sure Expert Mode is greyed out. Now, make the following changes,
For Android 10 & beyond
- Enable Smali Patcher Mode
- Enable or disable FusedLocationApi
For Android 9 & below
- Uncheck No-Root Mode (Smali Patcher Method) or Check No-Root Mode for Pokemon GO Spoofing No root Method
- Uncheck Wait Dialog No-root mode / Check for Pokemon GO No Root Method
- Enable Joystick
- Uncheck Catch-A-Rex
- Choose your Joicestick Size
- GPS accuracy: 1
- GPS Speed: I use 9.0, which is the max
- Update interval: 500
- “Move around Fake location” must be disabled, or there is a risk of Red Warning/strike.
Step 7. Point the red dot to any desired location and click on the “Play” button to enable the Fake GPS.
Step 8. To ensure that everything is working, check your notification Panel, you’ll find a Fake GPS notification. (The notification also has the option to Enable/Disable Arrow keys on the go). Open Google Maps and check if your location is being shown as your selected location.
Step 9. Now, once you start the Pokemon GO App, you’ll find yourself at the desired location. In this case, I would consider you have not enabled Joystick (Recommended), to move forward, you can switch to Fake GPS App, move the pointer to the desired point and hit “Play” button. Switch to Pokemon GO, and you’ll see your character running to the location.
Also Read: Pokemon GO Search Terms & Strings (Full List)
Spoofing Pokemon GO Using VMOS (Parallel OS)
To play Pokemon Go on Android 10, you need to download an app called VMOS. It’s a software based on Virtual Machine (VM). The VMOS system can activate the root in a single click without actually rooting your main Android.
It can be regarded as a virtual box for Android. VMOS can be installed in the form of a normal app in Android. It is an emulator and also a one click App cloner, moreover, VMOS is not controlled by the host system. (Android On The Phone).
VMOS APK: Download
VMOS creates a virtual Android environment and runs on Android 5.1.1 with a working Google play store and network connectivity. You can sign in with your Gmail account and access the full play store and download new apps as well.
VMOS allows to use two Android systems on one phone; so, you can use it to run duplicate apps with different accounts. VMOS can also be used to separate your work account from your personal accounts.
Apps/Files you Need To Play Pokemon Go With VMOS
Steps to Play Pokemon GO on VMOS
- Start VMOS.
- Go to the settings of the Virtual android using VMOS > about phone > enable developer mode by clicking on the build number 5-7 times.
- Go to developer option > Disable Mock Locations > Turn on Root.
- Restart VMOS.
- Open Import Manager > Find pokemon GO.apk, Fake GPS.apk and ES File Explorer.apk or install the apps from the playstore while using VMOS. Press on the file you want to import and install it
- Open ES Explorer > Enable root explorer oprion in the menu > Cut Fake GPS from data/app/com.incorporateapps.fakegps_route-1 > Paste Fake GPS to system.priv-app/com.incorpoateapps.fakegps_route
- Open fake gps > go to settings > Enable Expert Mode > Go To developer settings and make sure that mock location is disabled.
- Delete system/xbin.
- Go to settings > developer options > Disable Root.
- Create You Pokemon Go Account on the primary OS before you play it on VMOS.
- Open Pokemon Go on the primary OS and then open it in VMOS. Close pokemon Go on Primary OS.
- Go and find your very own mewtwo.
Note: Restart VMOS or restart your phone (same thing) after you move the fake gps app to /system/priv-app. Otherwise you will see the error “Fake GPS has stopped”, because the app was not installed.
Spoofing Tips
With all of the hype around the three strikes rule, there are a lot of spoofers that are getting nervous. If you use the hack mentioned below properly, there are very less chances of getting banned.
- When moving form v1.x to 2.x, Clear data before launching the updated app. Make sure you ‘Allow mock locations‘ or Select this app in ‘Select mock location app’ (Marshmallow) before launching the module
- Set location mode to ‘Device only‘ in case you are troubled when fighting/capturing.
- Set speed to slow/slower if you want to search for Pokemons. Running faster may not give adequate time for a Pokemon to spawn in that location.
- Don’t start at far off locations. You might get banned.
- Don’t change locations too frequently (Like every 2-3 secs).
- If you’re using Joystick, whenever you get “GPS Signal not found”, just move the arrow keys frame & it the warning would disappear.
- If you keep getting “GPS Signal not found”, just close Pokemon GO and relaunch it.
While Pokemon GO started in the early days of release & the hacks remained the same while the App got updated many times with fixes to catch spoofers. One might think spoofing would get their account banned; some players have been spoofing for months & jumping around different regions without any problem.
Earlier players in different communities concluded that Pokemon GO servers ban player by analyzing their behavior, i.e. Behavioral analysis. As per this, the servers keep track of your location and open the alert flag if you have been jumping to a different location in a short time span. While this sounded sensible, many players have been spoofing randomly & have never faced any ban. So this Analysis theory was discarded.
My understanding is that no permanent bans were handed out for spoofing, just botting. Many players stopped spoofing and went legit, others continued spoofing through the warnings because almost no bans were being handed out, and many others changed their setups in hopes of getting unshadow banned/remove notice (some were successful, and some were not, but I did not see a significant consensus on what spoofing methods worked better than others).
Some players mentioned that they have multiple accounts and spoof using the same phone. All they do is fighting one raid within their city (within 1-hour actual driving distance) which probably take 5 to 15 mins a day. And they log in one account after another to fight the same gym RAID.
When you are under a softban you will not be able to see nearby mons, the mons will flee, the pokestops will not give you goodies, and in some cases, nothing will load on the map. However if you are getting a “Pokemon GO Failed to get Game Data from the Server” error then you can use this guide to fix it.
To avoid soft bans respect the teleportation cooldown chart. Some of the accounts received a warning, and some didn’t since Niantic is giving out RED warning. Pretty much the only explanation is either they don’t monitor all accounts around the same time (still use behavioral analysis). It is also possible that few of those accounts take longer to fight raid because of the need to wait for people. So the accounts that spend more time spoofing were able to get more GPS data for analysis. Either case, this has something to do with behavioral analysis.
If you think about it, for people that spoof around the world to snip, it may only take a few seconds to a min to catch one pokemon, and there is not enough data to analysis. But if you spoof few miles around locally, but you spoof for more than 15 to 30 mins, they probably get enough of your GPS data to analyze your behavior.
A recent update, of the hidden service called Google play services, which is a separate app and not the same as the Google Play Store (the Android equivalent to the App Store), is causing issues with these modes. So far the best method is to uninstall updates.
- Go to Android Settings – Device admin apps (use the settings search) and uncheck “Find My Device” (you can check it again after you are done). Do the same for Google Pay if it is available and selected.
- Uninstall updates via the Play services info (Update) app. Open the app and navigate to the App Info page and press the menu (3 dots at top right) and choose uninstall updates.
- Services will go back to an older date. You will have to repeat the process each time the services app updates itself.
- If the Google play services uninstalls to a very old version find a newer version from May 2018 and install it over the default one (use “adb install -r” command)
- Clear all data from the services app afterwards and verify the date of your Google play services using this helper app.(“STORAGE” -> “MANAGE SPACE” -> “CLEAR ALL DATA”)
Unfortunately, moving forward, the only effective way to work around these limitations will be to enable Expert mode which involves either rooting with Magisk and hiding root or using twrp custom recovery – modify the app to be a system/priv-app.
FAQs
Note: In order to enjoy uninterrupted spoofing without worrying about your getting banned, I would suggest you to perform “temporary root” & install this App. Everything is explained in our Pokemon GO Hack (Root) article. The advantage of this root is, your warranty won’t be void as we will show you how to restore your device back to normal so that your device remains completely safe!
Real-time Pokemon GO Maps
You can level up easily & faster using this. If you live in a small town or somewhere, where there’s not much Pokemon to catch, this hack could be very beneficial. This hack is for those who don’t want to root their device.
Don’t forget; the rooted hack has much more features & advantages over non-rooted Hack. But don’t worry! The app developer may come up with a lot more features in Non-rooted version too.
I did everything. It fakes GPS location but the joystick doesn’t work. I can’t move around using it. Please help.
This works perfectly! I did get soft banned on my first try because I went to another town but I’ve been using my other account for the past 2 hrs or so while I’ve been at work and it’s great! I can hit all the PokeStops up and down main street while I’m at work or just wander around to hatch eggs and get buddy eggs. Awesome! Thank you!
In the Fake GPS app, there’re tones of options. Try everything 🙂