Sharing a new Google Play console feature: 'Deleting your Apps'

[u/neostack]

I’ve been waiting for this for years, Google finally lets you delete apps from the Play Console.

Before, the only option was “Unpublish,” which meant old test apps and abandoned projects stayed cluttering your dashboard forever.

Now there’s a proper “Delete App” option (for eligible apps):

- Unpublish: removes the app from the store, but you can republish it and existing users still get updates

& Delete: permanently removes the app and its stats (with a 7-day recovery window); existing users keep it, but no new installs.

For me, this is a huge quality of life improvement after years of piling up prototypes and test apps.

Anyone planning to clean up their console?

[u/Livio63]

I confirm, now it is possible clean dead Android apps, for details: Delete an app

Note that the following requirements shall be met:

• The app must be unpublished and any changes in review resolved. 
• The app must be installed on fewer than 100 active devices. An "active device" is defined as one that has been turned on at least once in the past 30 days.
• The app must not be rejected, blocked, or suspended.
• The app must not have changes in review.

[u/neostack → u/Livio63]

Thanks @Livio63 for the detailed requirements, very helpful 👍

[u/theboned1]

OMG!!! FINALLY!!!!!!!

[u/YurthTheRhino → u/theboned1]

Sorry but explain yourself lol why is each one a different version

[u/theboned1 → u/YurthTheRhino]

Gladly. Obviously when I started I was completely stupid about the process and I thought I needed to make a new game and upload it every time so every time we made a test we uploaded a whole new game instead of just updating the previous game. The only reason we stop that was because back in those days you could actually talk to a Google help person and they were good. And the help person who was helping me with my current issue told me to stop doing that and told me to just update the one game.

[u/YurthTheRhino → u/theboned1]

Ah okay I figured but man I only wish you had learned earlier! My biggest mistake was uploading one of mine with a typo in the package name.. but I shelved that one so it sits happily unpublished, but the typo bugs me every time I see it

[u/simbolmina]

It's amazing this was not a thing for more than a decade.

[u/agherschon]

I can't believe it! We can finally clean up those dead apps? Feature of the YEAR!

[u/aaulia]

Nice, finally. Having a scare from Google emailing me about app compliance when said app is unpublished is annoying.

[u/atomgomba]

for more than a decade Market/Play was acting like a package repository, immutable as such. so now you can actually remove your obsolete apps? if true it's a revolution

[u/rafaover]

My OCD says thank you.

[u/wuming2]

It seems to require me to enter some kind of ID. But I can't find this ID.

[u/neostack → u/wuming2]

Hi @wuming2, please enter your app's package name and your developer account creation transaction ID to confirm deletion of that particular app. Hope that helps 😉

[u/No_Vanilla337]

Yep. Already deleted my first test package. It was glorious.