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How to Clone any Application (Dual Apps) with EMUI’s App Twin Feature [No Root]

Huawei introduced the App Twin feature with Version 5.0 of Huawei’s EMUI, their Android skin. I believe that Huawei must consider this feature one of EMUI’s biggest selling points, since they present it in the topmost layer of the Settings application.

App Twin allows you to create a duplicate instance of an installed application so you can log-in to two different accounts at the same time. On Huawei Smartphones destined for the European Market with the Global Rom you’re able to clone WhatsApp or Facebook. On the equivalent Model for the Chinese Market you’re able to duplicate QQ or Wechat. Unfortunately these are your only options by default. I expect Huawei to add more applications to this list with upcoming version of EMUI.

When you duplicate one of those applications, a new app icon will be created on your home to start the cloned instance of the app. A small number is added to the original application icon to indicate which instance you’re using the cloned or the original application. Unfortunately, the duplicate application can only exist on Huawei’s stock launcher, and when the icon is cleared from the home screen, all the data associated with the App Twin instance is deleted.

The App Twin feature isn’t an innovative, never to be seen before concept on part of Huawei. There are several applications that perform the same function on the Google Play Store. Some of the most popular ones include App Cloner and Paralllel Space. In addition, Xiaomi’s MUI offers the same feature with greater compatibility and a larger selection of Applications. However, I would argue that by default, the third-party application alternatives are to some extent superior to Huwai’s implementation. Any application which you duplicate isn’t tied to Huawei’s stock EMUI launcher and even more importantly you aren’t limited to only 2 predetermined applications which Huawei has set.

In contrast, the third-party applications (with the exception of Xiaomi’s MIU implementation) have their own faire share of disadvantages. For example, App Cloner doesn’t work well on many applications including most Google Apps. Parallel Space is a pretty bloated application and quite the resource hog and is slow to launch any given cloned application.

I have to give Huawei credit to its implementation of the App Twin feature since it doesn’t suffer from either of this issues. However, for some odd reason Huawei decided to restrict the feature to a few apps. Despite their official claim that App Twin only works with WhatsApp/Facebook or QQ/Wechat it can actually work with pretty much any application on your device (with the exception of a few system application)

Clone any App with EMUI’s APP-Twin Feature

To clone any app you need access to the ADB shell and the application’s full package name.

First download the android SDK with the included ADB and fastboot tools or download the separate ADB binaries straight from Google:

Next install Huawei’s HiSuite which also installs the necessary drivers for ADB to work correctly. In order to be able to see the your Huawei smartphone you need to enable USB debugging in the developer settings:

Settings –> Developer options –> USB Debugging
(Tap on Build Number 7 times in Settings –> About Phone to unlock Developer options if you haven’t already done so)

Verify that ADB is set up properly by checking if adb recognises your device. Open up a command prompt and type adb devices . If you see your phone’s serial number and it doesn’t state ‘unauthorised’ then you’re good to go.

The first step in enabling the App-Twin Feature for your specific app is to find the package name of the specific application. The easiest way to accomplish this using an app like App Inspector From the Google Play Store

The package name is the first line underneath the app’s name e.g. com.google.android.apps.plus

If you don’t want to install another app just to see the package name of an installed application you can also see a list of all installed application using the following adb shell command: adb shell 'pm list packages -f

With the package name we can now enable the App-Twin feature. Start an adb shell with adb shell

Once in the adb shell enter the following command:

settings get secure clone_app_list

If you are already using the App Twin feature, then you should see either one or two package names returned with this command. If you aren’t using this feature, this string will be empty. Now, we will either append to the existing list or create a new list of apps to clone.

settings put secure clone_app_list "PACKAGE#1;PACKAGE#2;PACKAGE#3"

where PACKAGE#1…PACKAGE#3…PACKAGE#N is the full semi-colon separated list of app packagesyou want cloned. Make sure that you don’t forget to put the package list in-between quotation marks, otherwise the command won’t work.

If you are already using the App Twin feature and you received a list of packages during the“get”command, then be sure to APPEND your list to the ones that were returned. Otherwise, the existing apps will be deleted.

For example, if I want to clone Gmail, Solid Explorer, Chromium, and Reddit is Fun, I would enter the following command:

settings put secure clone_app_list "com.google.android.gm;pl.solidexplorer2;org.chromium.chrome;com.andrewshu.android.reddit"

Immediately after entering this command, you should see a toast message telling you that a cloned app has been placed on your home screen.

One reply on “How to Clone any Application (Dual Apps) with EMUI’s App Twin Feature [No Root]”

I haven’t tested this on the latest EMUI since I don’t have a device available for testing. Based on the feedback I’ve received this doesn’t work on the latest EMUI anymore. I am sure there is a way of duplicating any app. I will need to do further research and testing.

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