Back in 2017, OnePlus introduced a new feature in an OxygenOS Open Beta for the OnePlus 3/3T called "Parallel Apps". This feature lets you clone select applications so you can run a separate account on them, even if the app itself did not support quick account switching. Supported apps include Facebook, Facebook Messenger, Instagram, WhatsApp, Twitter, LinkedIn, Quora, and others. However, not every app is supported in parallel space. Fortunately, there's an easy workaround.

What Parallel Apps does is create a new user profile with the ID "999". OxygenOS integrates apps installed on this user profile onto the main user profile and also hides this profile from the lockscreen so you can't sign into it. This hidden user profile has Google Play Services installed, but not the Google Play Store. Thankfully, it's possible to sideload apps onto the user profile for Parallel Space. For the purposes of getting whatever app we want running as a Parallel App, we're going to install the "Aurora Store" app, which is a fully open-source unofficial client of the Google Play Store. In case you wonder why we are not preferring the actual Google Play Store to be installed under the Parallel App user profile, it's due to a bug with the Play Store and Parallel Apps that won't let you install any apps that have already been installed on the main profile since the Play Store thinks those apps have already been installed on the Parallel Apps profile.

To install the Aurora Store app to Parallel Apps and thus enable the ability to install any other app, simply do the following:

  1. Download the APK file for the Aurora Store from its XDA Thread.
  2. Set up ADB shell access. You can find a handy guide by clicking here.
  3. Run the following ADB command: adb install --user 999 <aurora_store_apk_name>.apk
  4. This will install the Aurora Store to user profile 999, which is the profile for Parallel Apps. Now you can simply open the Aurora Store and download whatever other apps you want.
  5. Alternatively, you can download the APK file for whatever app you want to be cloned and run the command in step #3.
OxygenOS Parallel Apps any app
Credits go to XDA Recognized Developer Quinny899 for this screenshot!

If you don't want to go down this route, you can also use a third-party app like Shelter or Island to create a work profile on your device and then install whatever app you want.

Do you find this feature useful? Let us know in the comments below!