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Can I, simultaneously, run two instances of the same Facebook app (which is installed once in the system)?

I want to be active on two accounts (I also have iOS and Windows Phone devices if their support for multiple instances of an app is better than Android's. But my Android phone is my main phone, hence I prefer an Android solution.)

Also, can I get parallel notifications from both accounts (I don't need any chat messages, just the notifications from a specific Facebook group on my second account).

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  • You can change the source code to fool the system that an instance of the app is not present by changing the package name. Method here
    – Manu
    Commented Aug 18, 2015 at 15:15
  • Possible duplicate of How can I run multiple copies of the same app?
    – Rahul Bali
    Commented Apr 26, 2016 at 12:32
  • @RahulParashar I don't think this is quite a duplicate, because if there is some technique that's specific to Facebook, it couldn't be posted on the other question.
    – Dan Hulme
    Commented Apr 26, 2016 at 14:32
  • @DanHulme So, now, there is a technique, specific to facebook?
    – Rahul Bali
    Commented Apr 26, 2016 at 15:21
  • @RahulParashar For example, the top answer, which recommends a Facebook-specific app.
    – Dan Hulme
    Commented Apr 26, 2016 at 16:03

2 Answers 2

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You cannot run two instances of app with same package name because when you try to install it out of the box because the package installer checks if an instance of the package you are trying to install is already present and if present asks if you want to update the existing app.

You can however change the source code of an existing app to fool the system that it is some other app with a different package name by cloning the source code and have a different package name. Reference link here

Also there's another way by making use of the special Facebook lite app.
Facebook has provided a Lite app which is supposed to work for low-data-speed devices consuming less memory. You can install one Facebook native app and another Facebook lite app and use multiple accounts. So you'll be able to get notifications from both the apps.

NOTE: This is possible because Facebook-app and Facebook-lite are two different apps (with two different package names com.facebook.katana and com.facebook.lite respectively)

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  • Thanks, it wasn't exactly the answer I was looking for - I was more looking for something along the lines on how to launch an app twice (like you can do from CLI on a Mac) - but it solves my problem so that is good enough!
    – d-b
    Commented Aug 17, 2015 at 15:43
  • Hmm, when I try to install Facebook Lite it tells me that "This item cannot be installed in your device's country" (I'm in Europe). Any workaround for that?
    – d-b
    Commented Aug 17, 2015 at 15:45
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    @user23122 Download from apkmirror.com and install the APK. Enable unknown sources if necessary, you can disable it later.
    – rjt.rockx
    Commented Aug 17, 2015 at 16:34
  • @user23122 you cannot just launch an app from terminal in android although it is based on linux, it restricts users to launch an app in terminal to compulsorily have a particular Activity Name
    – Manu
    Commented Aug 17, 2015 at 17:53
  • to do that, goto terminal and type the "am" command with the syntax shown $ am start -n com.package.name/com.package.name.ActivityName
    – Manu
    Commented Aug 17, 2015 at 17:55
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You can use two Facebook account in a single Facebook application. For that you have to install first an application Parallel Space that is easy available from Google Play. There you will get an option for Facebook application, and that Facebook will work in Parallel Space application.

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