Using Floating Apps on NVidia Shield and Android TV

On some devices, standard system settings don’t contain a way how to grant Draw over other apps permission which is essential for Floating Apps to work correctly. Without this permission, it’s not possible to draw floating windows.

Fortunately, there is a way how to grant it by sending a specific command to the device via USB cable.

First, you must enable Developer options and install Android Debugging Bridge (ADB) and then send a single specific command to the device. The whole process is described in our freeform mode guide. Follow the steps for Android 8 and the only difference is that when in the guide you are supposed to type command

adb shell settings put global enable_freeform_support 1

use this command for the free version:

adb shell appops set com.lwi.android.flapps SYSTEM_ALERT_WINDOW allow

and this command for the full version:

adb shell appops set com.lwi.android.flappsfull SYSTEM_ALERT_WINDOW allow

And that’s it. You don’t even need to restart the device and Floating Apps will work from that moment. You’ve just granted the permission manually.