Google Play

Google Play, also known as the digital distribution service's Google Play Store or Play Store, was once called the Android Market. Google runs and builds it. It is the official app store for approved devices that use the Android operating system and its derivatives, as well as ChromeOS. People can browse and download apps made with the Android software development kit and published through Google. Google Play has also sold things such as books, movies, musical singles, television programs, and video games. Some things are free.

Content bought on Google TV and Google Play Books can be opened in a web browser, such as Google Chrome, and through some Android and iOS apps. A person's Google Account can hold many things to listen to, read, watch, or enjoy. What Google Play offers has changed over time, following the history of the Android operating system.

Apps on Google Play can be free or cost money. They can be downloaded to an Android device through the proprietary Google Play Store mobile app, or by deploying the app to a device from the Google Play website. Some apps use special parts of a device, such as a motion sensor for motion-based games or a front-facing camera for video calls. The Google Play Store had over 82 billion app downloads in 2016. It has over 3 million apps today after a clean-up. Google Play has had some security problems, when malicious software was approved, uploaded to the store, and downloaded by users. These problems had different levels of seriousness.

Google Play was launched on March 6, 2012. It brought together Android Market, Google Music, Google Movies, and Google Books under one name. This was a change in Google's digital distribution plans. After the change, Google expanded where each of these services is supported. Since 2021, Google has slowly stopped using the Play name. Google Play Newsstand was shut down and replaced by Google News. Google Play Music was shut down on December 3, 2020, and replaced by YouTube Music. Play Movies & TV was renamed Google TV on November 11, 2021.

Catalog content

Further information: Android (operating system)

By the end of 2017, Google Play had more than 3.5 million Android apps. Google removed many apps starting in 2024, and by 2024 there were 1.68 million. As of 2017, developers in more than 150 locations could share apps on Google Play, but not every location could register as a seller. Developers get 85% of an app's price. The other 15% goes to the distribution partner and to operating costs. Developers can hold sales. They can also share early versions with a small group of users as alpha or beta tests. Users can order apps, movies, music, books, and games before they come out. Some network carriers let users pay for purchases on their monthly phone bill. Users can ask for a refund within 48 hours of buying something.

At the Google I/O 2013 Developer Conference, Google announced Google Play Games. It is an online gaming service for Android. It has multiplayer gaming, cloud saves, leaderboards, and achievements. Its mobile app launched on July 24, 2013.

Google Play Books is an ebook digital distribution service. It has over five million ebooks to buy. Users can upload up to 1,000 of their own ebooks in PDF or EPUB file formats. As of January 2017, it was available in 75 countries.

Main article: Google TV (service)

Google Play Movies & TV was a video on demand service for buying or renting movies and TV shows. In October 2020, it was renamed Google TV. On March 22, 2022, Google announced that Play Movies & TV would move to Google TV by May 2022.

On September 23, 2019, Google launched its Google Play Pass subscription service in the US. It offers games and apps. Subscribers could use them without ads or in-app purchases. Google introduced Project Mainline in Android 10. It let important parts of the system be updated through the Google Play Store without a full system update. On December 4, 2019, Qualcomm announced that its Snapdragon 865 supports GPU drivers updated this way. This feature was first added with Android Oreo. In 2020, Google also launched a "Teacher Approved" section for children. It includes apps that meet higher standards for learning.

History

Google Play (once written as Google play) began with three products: Android Market, Google Music, and Google Books (formerly Google eBookstore). Google announced Android Market on August 28, 2008, and made it available on October 22. In December 2010, content filtering was added, and the largest allowed app size went up from 25 megabytes to 50 megabytes. The Google eBookstore opened on December 6, 2010, with three million ebooks. In January 2011, it was renamed Google Books. Google announced Google Music in November 2011. In March 2012, Android Market was renamed Google Play. In September 2016, the Google Play Store, with all Android apps, became available on ChromeOS.

In 2021, Google announced plans for a section that shows privacy information for each app. In December 2023, Google agreed to pay $700 million, mostly to its customers, to settle complaints about anti-competitive behavior from U.S. states.

Google Play Music was a podcast and Streaming media service and an online music locker. It had over 40 million songs and free cloud storage for up to 50,000 songs. In June 2018, Google announced it would close the service by 2020 and invited users to move to YouTube Music. It closed in December 2020 and was replaced by YouTube Music and Google Podcasts.

Google Play Newsstand was a news aggregator and digital newsstand that offered subscriptions to digital magazines and news feeds. Google released it in November 2013. It combined Google Play Magazines and Google Currents. On May 15, 2018, the app joined with Google News & Weather to form Google News.

Until March 2015, Google Play had a "Devices" section for buying Google Nexus devices, Chromebooks, Chromecasts, and other Google-branded hardware. Main article: Google Store On March 11, 2015, the Google Store took over that section as its own online hardware store.

User interface

"Google Play Console" redirects here. Do not confuse it with Google Search Console or Google Stadia.

People can search for apps by name or by keywords from developers. They can also use suggested filters to narrow their results. To help apps be found, the store has lists such as "Top Free," "Top Paid," "Top Grossing," "Trending Apps," "Featured," "Staff Picks," and "Editors' Choice." Each app shows a colored badge with its download count, so people can see how popular it is. Users can rate apps on a scale of 1 to 5 and write reviews. Developers can reply to these reviews using the Google Play Console.

Google has changed how Google Play looks many times. In February 2011, it introduced a website interface for the Android Market. This let people buy apps on a computer and install them on their Android devices. In 2014, the Android app was redesigned to match Material Design, a design language. In July 2022, Google announced a new logo for the Google Play Store. The logo matches the colors of its other services more closely.

Google Play Instant Apps

In 2017, Google launched Google Play Instant, also known as Google Instant Apps. It let people use an app or game without installing it first.

Google stopped this feature in December 2025 because not many people used it.

App monetization

Google says that Google Play lets developers and users earn and spend money in different ways. These include paid downloads, in-app products, subscriptions, and apps that show ads. Developers who charge for apps or downloads must use Google Play's payment system. In-app purchases must use it too, with some exceptions. Paid apps first became available in February 2009 in the United States and the United Kingdom. In September 2010, they became available in 29 more countries. Since September 2014, all developers must show a physical address on the app's page in Google Play. Users can pay with credit or debit cards, carrier billing, gift cards, or PayPal. Google Play gift cards became official in August 2012. Since June 2021, Google has stopped people from using gift cards from other countries. This applies even when they use VPNs, and Google checks location history and device fingerprint activity.

Google added in-app subscriptions in May 2012. In 2016, Google changed how subscription money is shared. Developers received 85% and Google kept 15%. Before this, the split was 70/30. In August 2020, Epic Games sued Google about how the Play Store works. In 2023, a jury decided that Google had broken competition laws. On July 31, 2025, the Ninth Circuit court agreed with that decision. The court said Google must allow rival app stores on the Play Store, share its app catalog, and stop certain billing rules that limited competition. Epic's CEO, Tim Sweeney, called it a "total victory." The Epic Games Store is set to launch on Google Play. Google plans to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. Until then, it must still make these changes. Google's subscription model is similar to Apple's.

Google Play Store on Android

The Google Play Store, called Play Store on the Home screen and App screen, is Google's official app store. It comes pre-installed on Android-certified devices. It gives access to apps, books, magazines, music, movies, and television programs. Devices sold in China do not come with the Google Play Store. Manufacturers there offer their own alternative. The store only shows apps that work with the user's device. Developers can target specific hardware parts (such as compass), software parts (such as widget), and Android versions (such as 7.0 Nougat). Carriers can also stop certain apps, such as tethering apps, from being installed on users' devices. Users do not have to get Android apps from the Google Play Store. They can download them from a developer's website or from a third-party app store. Play Store apps are self-contained Android Package files (APK), similar to .exe files used to install programs on Microsoft Windows computers. An "Unknown sources" setting lets users install APKs from other places. Depending on the developer, some apps can be moved to a phone's external storage card.

The Play Store app keeps a history of all installed apps. Users can remove apps from this list, and the changes also show up on the Google Play website, though the website does not offer that option. Google publishes the source code for Android, so anyone can make changed versions of the system. However, only devices that meet Google's compatibility requirements may install and use the Google Play Store. In 2020, Google decided to rewrite the Play Store app's interface code using Jetpack Compose. This technology was in pre-alpha at the time. The old code was more than 10 years old. Since August 2019, new and updated Google Play apps must have 64-bit versions, with some exceptions. Since August 2021, Google Play will not offer apps that only have 32-bit versions to devices that can run 64-bit apps. This requirement does not apply to Android TV or Wear OS apps.

Google Play Services

In 2012, Google started separating some parts of its Android operating system, especially its main apps. This meant these parts could be updated through the Google Play store without updating the whole operating system. One of these parts, Google Play Services, is a closed-source system process. It provides APIs for Google services. It is installed automatically on almost all devices that run Android 2.2 "Froyo" or newer.

Because of these changes, Google can add new features through Play Services and update apps without releasing a new version of the operating system. So Android 4.2 and 4.3 "Jelly Bean" had fewer changes that users could see. Most of the work was small improvements behind the scenes.

History of app growth

Google Play Awards and yearly lists

In April 2016, Google started the Google Play Awards to thank its developers and show off some of the best apps and games. Each of ten award categories had five nominees, and the winners were announced in May. A panel of experts on the Google Play team picked the nominees. They looked at app quality, new ideas, and whether an app had launched or had a big update in the last 12 months. Google also made yearly lists of the apps it thought were the "best" on Google Play.

On March 6, 2017, five years after Google Play launched, Google shared lists of the best-selling apps, games, movies, music, and books from those five years. In June 2017, Google started "Android Excellence," a new program that highlights top-quality apps picked by Google Play editors. In 2020, Google named Disney+ the top app of the year for users in the US. SpongeBob: Krusty Cook-Off won in the gaming category.

Application approval

Google does not allow some kinds of apps in its store. These include apps meant only for adults, apps that could put children in danger, violent apps, apps about bullying or harassment, apps that spread hate, gambling apps, apps for illegal activities, and apps that need rules for content made by users. In March 2015, Google said it had started using automatic tools and human reviewers to check apps for malware and rule breaking before they are published. It also began an age-based rating system based on each region's official rating group, such as ESRB in most of the Americas and PEGI in Europe. Later changes included a system to catch developers who cheat with fake reviews or fake installs (2016), longer reviews for new developers (2019), and strict rules for personal loan apps (2023).

Some mobile carriers can block their users from installing certain apps. In 2009, several tethering apps were removed from the store. They were later restored, but with a ban only for T-Mobile customers. In 2011, Google removed the Grooveshark app after CNET pointed out that some music labels had accused the service of breaking copyright law. TechCrunch later reported that Grooveshark had returned to Android outside the official store. That year, Google also banned the account of a developer of several video game emulators. In 2013, it began removing ad blocking apps. Apps that avoid power management rules on Android Marshmallow are also banned. In 2018, Google banned more kinds of apps, including those that do cryptocurrency mining on the device itself.

Application security

In February 2012, Google introduced an automated antivirus system called Google Bouncer. It checked new and existing apps for malware, such as spyware or trojan horses. In 2017, Bouncer and other safety features on Android were renamed Google Play Protect. This system regularly checks apps for threats. Apps can ask for certain permissions on a device, such as access to the camera, contacts, location, or storage. In July 2017, Google introduced "peer grouping," which compares apps that do similar jobs, such as calculator apps. If one app asks for more permissions than the others, Google's systems flag it so security experts can check it. This is based on app descriptions, metadata, and download counts.

Google Play has also had many security problems. In 2011, a rootkit trojan called DroidDream spread through several free apps. Many of these were pirated versions of paid apps. It could steal information, such as IMEI and IMSI numbers, and it installed a backdoor that hackers could use. Google removed the apps, but they had already been downloaded more than 50,000 times. At the Black Hat conference in 2012, the security firm Trustwave showed it could upload an app that got past Bouncer. It used a JavaScript exploit and might have launched denial-of-service attacks. A 2014 study by RiskIQ found that harmful apps on Google Play rose 388% between 2011 and 2013. According to PC World, Google said it needed more information about the study before it could comment. In 2016, Engadget reported that a freelance Android hacker found serious password errors in two photo-hiding apps. In 2017, Check Point found a botnet malware called FalseGuide hidden in about 40 game guide apps. Sophos found 47 apps that showed unwanted ads. In August 2017, 500 apps containing a software development kit for harmful advertising were removed after the security firm Lookout found them. In 2020, Check Point found a malware program called Tekya. It was designed to avoid detection by Google Play Protect and VirusTotal, and it fraudulently clicked on ads. Dr. Web found Android.Circle.1, which could act as adware and carry out phishing attacks. Dr. Web also found apps that stole Facebook logins.

Patent issues

Some developers who publish apps on Google Play have been sued for patent infringement by "patent trolls." These are people who own broad or vaguely worded patents and use them to go after small developers. If a developer wins against the first claim, the patent troll may change the claim and accuse the developer of breaking a different part of the patent. This can keep going until the case reaches the courts, which can be very expensive, so some developers choose to settle.

In February 2013, Austin Meyer, a developer of flight simulator games, was sued for using a copy-protection system in his app. He said Google had given developers this system, and he said Google would not help with the lawsuit. He said he would not settle. His fight with the troll went on for several years. In June 2016, he posted a video saying he was being sued for putting his app on Google Play, because "the patent troll apparently owns the idea [sic] of the Google Play Store itself." Android Authority wrote that this has happened to many app developers over many years. It has led to talks about a bigger problem: developers may stop making apps because they are afraid of patent problems.

Availability

If you live outside the countries and regions listed below, you can only get free apps and games from Google Play.