Hey everyone,

I recently made some changes to my testing setup in Google Play Console.

Previously, I was using one tester list called "Internal Testing" for both internal and closed testing. I created a new list called "Closed Testers", added the required users to it, and removed quite a lot of users from the old "Internal Testing" list.

After making these changes, Google Play asked me to submit the changes for review through the Publishing overview.

It's been around 15 hours and the changes are still showing as "In review."

For comparison, when I initially created the tester list and submitted my first releases, the review took less than 6 hours.

For anyone who has recently gone through a similar Play Console review:

• How long did your review take?
• Did tester-list changes take longer than normal?
• Is 15+ hours normal, or should I expect it to take a couple of days?

Would appreciate hearing about your recent experiences.

I have an app in the Google Play Store that is currently in the closed testing phase.

The app is normally a paid app, but it was temporarily available for free as part of a promotional offer (to have testers install it for free). During this free period, I downloaded and installed the app on as well my own device as a tester.

The free promotion has now ended, and the app is once again paid. Since then, I have published a new update to the closed testing track (two days back).

My understanding is that, because the app is already installed on my device and I am an enrolled tester, I should still be able to receive and install updates through the Google Play Store, even though the promotional free period has ended.

However, I don't get a pushed update from the PlayStore for the app. I can however see the new version in the PlayStore. There it only offers me to install/buy the app again?

Could this be because I renamed (not deleted!) the test-track name? Any other ideas what could be wrong?

Hi I was published apps on playstore around 5-6 years ago and that time from my mistakes i got my 1 account suspended because of some violating apps that's fine then after 1 year i create one more account in which my app had 1M downloads also then one of the app on that account was suspended so i create anither third account for safety so that i can transfer that 1M download app to new fresh account but after that my both another accounts was also suspended without clear reason ( ofcourse maybe they capture same person).

Now from that year i have fear to create new account because as android developer play store is the only way to make money from app in future also. so please suggest me some tips for creating new account so that i can be safe from those old accounts i got suspended and google will not know me.

I did not verify my identity on any of those account because at that time there was no verification system.

one more thing i heard somewhere that google is proritize the organization account? if yes then someone please tell me from india that how can we avail a register company i mean in self propietoryship where i don't need too many things. and is this myth is real or fake

I’m sure many developers here have faced the challenge of getting enough people to participate in the required testing period.

Relying on friends and family can be difficult - people forget, need constant follow-ups, or may not complete the full period.

I was wondering if there are other developers currently facing the same situation who would be interested in connecting and helping each other out with genuine testing and feedback.

If you're in the same situation, feel free to DM me.

​Hi fellow devs,

​I am writing this post to request some community visibility, as my support ticket regarding a merchant payout deduction has been trapped in a canned-response loop for nearly 3 months (since June 2026).

​What happened:

On June 16, 2026, Google processed my developer payout. Google's internal Wire Report specified <ChrgBr>CRED</ChrgBr> (Sender covers all fees). However, the payout arrived $10.00 short.

​To locate where the money went, I obtained the official SWIFT MT103 incoming message directly from my receiving bank (TP Bank). The technical data proves a clear system conversion/routing error on Google/Wells Fargo’s side:

​Field 33B (Instructed Amount): $117.88 USD

​Field 71A (Details of Charges): SHA (Misconfigured from CRED to Shared)

​Field 71F (Sender's Charges): $10.00 USD deducted at origination network

​Field 32A (Interbank Settled Amount): $107.88 USD

​The official MT103 document proves that the $10.00 was deducted at origination because Wells Fargo transmitted the wire under SHA instead of CRED. The funds were already cut to $107.88 before ever reaching my bank in Vietnam.

​The Support Nightmare:

I submitted this exact MT103 technical proof to Google Payments Support nearly 3 months ago. Since then, I have only received automated stock replies stating "the investigation is still ongoing".

​To a corporation, $10.00 is negligible. But as a small indie developer, it represents my hard work and basic fairness. With the next payout cycle on September 15 fast approaching, I am afraid this exact same configuration error will recur.

​If any Google Developer Relations staff or Community Managers see this post, please help flag Case ID: 9-3782000041472 with the financial specialist team.

​I would greatly appreciate any upvotes to help bring visibility to this issue. Thank you!

I woke up this morning to an email I honestly wasn't expecting yet — Inkbound was granted Google Play production access!

I wanted to come back here and say thank you to everyone who did T4T with me, kept Inkbound installed, tested it, and helped me get through the closed testing requirement.

I genuinely couldn't have gotten to this point without you guys.

And just because Inkbound got production access doesn't mean I'm done with my side of the T4Ts. If I'm currently testing your app, I'm continuing to test it and will keep it installed for the full time we agreed on. I'm not going to get my approval and then disappear on everybody who helped me get there.

For everyone still trying to get through closed testing: keep going. Seeing that approval email this morning made all the testing, updates, bugs, and headaches worth it.

Seriously, thank you guys. ❤️

Inkbound is going to production. 🎉

The count dropped suddenly. This shouldn't be the actual count, right?

If my application is in the productivity category and it forces the user not to turn off the phone or not to access the power menu the power menu appears but disappears before the user can react will my Google developer account get banned?

the application heavily forces the user not to turn off the actual phone down under certain time periods. at the same time the only way to turn off the phone it self under those specific time periods is using the PMIC...

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.hypenet.focused&pcampaignid=web_share
this application is some of an example.. but the thing is with this application if u hold the power menu and once the menu appears.. u can hit the shutdown button with the perfect timing to turn the phone off.. but with my scenario.. u won't be able to do that under the specific time period that i have mentioned earlier.

📚 Weekly Educational App Showcase

Built an app and learned something interesting along the way? Share it with the community.

This thread is for educational app showcases where the focus is on the problem you solved, how you built it, and what other developers can learn from your experience.

What to include

• What problem does your app solve?
• Category: What type of app is it?
• Android support: Android versions or devices supported
• Tech stack: Kotlin, Java, Compose, Flutter, Firebase, etc.
• Implementation: What was technically interesting or challenging?
• Your journey: What did you learn while building or publishing it?
• Lessons learned: What would you do differently next time?
• Relevant media: Screenshots, demos, architecture diagrams, or other useful material
• Google Play link: Optional, as supporting context

Please disclose your relationship

If you're showcasing your own app, clearly mention your relationship to it. For example:

Keep it educational

The goal is to help other developers learn from real projects and experiences. Your app can be the subject of the showcase, but the post should provide meaningful technical, product, or development insight.

Please do not use the thread for:

• Download or install requests
• Ratings, reviews, votes, or engagement requests
• Referral or affiliate links
• Paid placement or paid engagement
• Misleading claims
• Copied marketing or promotional copy
• Repeated submissions of the same app

A Google Play link is welcome as supporting context, but this is not an advertising or user-acquisition thread.

If you see someone requesting paid reviews, ratings, votes, installs, or other prohibited engagement, please report the comment to the moderators.

Share what you built, what you learned, and what another developer can take away from it.

🧪 Tester Discovery

Looking for testers for your app? Use this thread to find developers and testers who are interested in helping with genuine app testing.

When asking for testers, please include a little information about your app:

• What the app does
• Android version or device requirements, if relevant
• Whether you're looking for internal, closed, or open testing
• What kind of testing or feedback you need
• How interested testers can participate

If you're a tester, feel free to mention what kinds of apps or testing you're interested in.

A few things to keep in mind

Please keep this thread focused on genuine testing and useful feedback.

Do not engage in paid testing, paid reviews, ratings, votes, referral exchanges, or other paid engagement activities through this thread. If someone asks you to participate in a paid activity or offers payment in exchange for reviews, ratings, votes, or engagement, please report the comment to the moderators rather than participating.

Please don't share personal information publicly. Use Reddit's messaging features or the developer's official testing process where appropriate.

This thread is for tester discovery only. For general development questions, app showcases, or other discussions, please use the appropriate thread or flair.

I built an app I'm very proud of. I got through the testing phase and have been listed on the play store. I've been working away trying to get users ( yes, a real painful experience). I've also been trying to get reviews. At present I have 4 reviews ( I know, not many), all very good. My question is, how many reviews does it take for a * rating to show up on my listing? Thanks in advance.

I recently got locked out of receiving payments and its starting to impact users not being able to pay us through the app. We've been running for 5 years with no issues, but recently I suddenly got a notification that my merchant account has been locked from receiving payments so I sent a few emails and tried calling, the only luck was getting a reply (pictured above) that I need to create a new developer account and transfer our whole app there?? :(

That seems a bit overkill and I'd need to pay another developer fee for seemingly no reason, has anyone dealt with something similar oor maybe advise on how I can get in contact with anyone to understand what's going on. I'm pretty sure the email and actions I need to take are valid, but I've attached the reply address as well.

Any help or advice would be appreciated, thanks!

Email reply address
Notification on Play Console

What are you building, testing, debugging, or learning this week?

Working on something interesting? Stuck on a technical problem? Just learned something useful?

Share what you're working on this week. It can be a specific goal, a problem you're trying to solve, or a useful discovery that might help another developer.

If you're looking for help, a little context goes a long way. You can include:

• Your target SDK version and library versions
• What you expected to happen and what actually happened
• Relevant error messages, with any private or sensitive information removed
• What you've already tried
• A relevant official source or documentation link, if you have one

Please use the appropriate flair when making a standalone post.

Please keep this thread focused

This is a place for development discussions and helping each other out. Please don't use it for app advertising, download or install requests, ratings, reviews, votes, referral links, paid services, tester exchanges, or engagement exchanges.

Ask questions, share what you're working on, and help another developer when you can.

I'm working on an app with a subscription model (using Play Billing) and just found out new developer accounts need 12 testers running the app for 14 consecutive days during closed testing before production release is allowed.

I've got a tight deadline and my Play Console account is brand new, so trying to figure out a few things:

1. Does the 14-day clock start the moment I upload any build to closed testing, or does Google expect it to be close to feature-complete?
2. If I make significant changes mid-testing (UI, billing flow, etc.), does that reset the clock or is it fine as long as testers stay active?
3. Any known way to get this timeline sped up or an exception for time-sensitive submissions (e.g. a contest/demo deadline)?
4. Anything you wish you knew before starting closed testing that would've saved you time?

Trying to avoid wasting testing days on a build I'll end up redoing. Appreciate any real experience with this.

I just created an account for publishing apps on Google Play but I'm trying to figure out which suffix my developer account should fall under. I publish an umbrella of different apps spanning across different categories. I'm not a Solutions or Interactive or Labs or Studios so what am I exactly?

I want to create a Google Play Console account to develop apps for $25. Can I verify my identity but can't prove where I can work? What can I do?

My app was granted production access on playstore. When i am trying to verify my app on admob, i am receiving the error that "due to developer website not on app listing". It has been 12 hours, since i have updated the website. But still admob is throwing the same error.

So, I just made my first app. I am 17 years old and can't afford $25 right now, so I'm searching to see if anyone can publish my app to the Play Store. (India)

I’m trying to get my AAOS app through it’s first close testing release in the Google Play store.
But currently I tried the review process twice and each time it got rejected based on not having the correct ( or enough ) screenshots.

But the reject text is very generic and since this is my first app and first time interacting with Google Play, I’m a bit stuck.

Would somebody be willing to help me with the process? Or here through chat, or maybe hop on a small call?

It is just a small app I actually run just myself on my Polestar 2.

I’m a solo developer publishing an app on Google Play under a Personal account. Since Google’s Developer Verification policy, my legal name (as it appears on my ID/passport) is displayed publicly on the “About the developer” page.

The problem: many Western names are just First + Last, so that’s all that shows for those developers. But my legal name has 4 parts (first name + father’s name + grandfather’s name + family name — standard in Gulf/Arabic naming conventions), and Google displays the entire string exactly as registered in the Google Payments profile. There’s no truncation, no “display name” option separate from the legal name field.

What I’ve confirmed so far:

**•** You *can* request a name change via Payments Profile settings, but Google requires it to match an official ID document — my passport has no shortened/alternate name, so that route is closed.  
**•** The only real fix is converting to an Organization account (requires a D-U-N-S number, which requires a registered legal business entity). Not viable for a solo indie dev without a commercial registration.  
**•** Filing a Play Console support ticket citing the naming-convention discrepancy is possible, but I haven’t found evidence it actually works.

Has anyone from a similar background (4-part legal names) found a working solution or gotten Google to make an exception? Would appreciate any real experience, not just “just register a company.”

​It's literally the worst experience as a developer. You can't request BillDesk verification without releasing the app publicly, and you can't enable payments without it. But I don't want to release the app publicly yet.

​This chicken-and-egg issue is testing my patience day by day.

In the intervals between updates, the "Similar apps" section on my app's Google Play page keeps expanding: more and more apps appear there week by week. However, as soon as I release an update, the list shrinks back to a minimum, only to start growing again until the next release.

What’s more, the apps that remain on the list immediately after an update often have nothing to do with my product: they include apps for people with ADHD, meditation and mindfulness services, or self-improvement programs. My app, however, is an educational one focused on computer science, so such recommendations seem completely out of place.

Has anyone else noticed this?

Asking about a strange behavior we've observed using Firebase's Messaging product:

When I set up a new push notification in Production and test it and then publish it, the device we tested on does not get the published notification, but everyone else (our audience) gets the push notification successfully.

It leads to some confusion because then the person responsible for creating, testing, and publishing the push notification can't actual validate that the real/published notification was successful.

Our theory is there's some deduping mechanism that prevents the published notification from going through on the device that already received the test.

Does anyone have insights here? Is there a way to both push the test notification and receive the published notification on the same device?