Launch your Android app on Google Play

Google charges a one-time $25 registration fee for a Play Developer account. As of November 2023, new personal accounts have to complete a closed test with at least 12 testers for 14 continuous days before they can publish to production. Organization accounts skip that requirement. Pick the account type carefully: switching later is a manual support ticket.

Google Play accepts Android App Bundles (.aab), not raw APKs, for new apps since August 2021. Create the app record in Play Console, configure Play App Signing (Google manages the signing key for you), then upload your first AAB to the Internal testing track. Internal testing is the fastest path to a working install link.

If your account is personal, you cannot publish to production until you run a closed test with at least 12 opted-in testers for 14 continuous days. The clock only counts days where 12+ testers have actually accepted the opt-in link, not 12+ invited. Recruit early.

Help me recruit 12+ testers for the closed test.

Read the Brief for context on the app + audience. Output:

1. A 5-sentence personal pitch I can paste into emails / DMs to friends, ex-colleagues, beta-list signups
2. A 2-paragraph public post for r/androidapps, r/SideProject, or my own social — community-friendly, not spammy
3. A short FAQ for testers: what they're agreeing to, what to test, how to leave feedback, how long the commitment is
4. A spreadsheet template tracking name / email / opted-in (yes/no) / first feedback / dropped (yes/no)

Constraint: assume testers are doing me a favour. No marketing voice, no buzzwords.

Play Store search is keyword-driven, but unlike Apple, Google indexes your full description, not just a keyword field. Title (30 chars), short description (80 chars), and full description (4000 chars) are the ranking surface. Graphics matter for conversion: the icon, feature graphic (1024x500), and 2-8 screenshots per form factor.

Draft the Google Play store listing for this app.

Read the README + the public landing page. Output:

1. App title (30 chars max, no 'free' / 'app' / emoji / copyright terms)
2. Short description (80 chars max, the elevator pitch a stranger reads first)
3. Full description (4000 chars max, lead with value, weave keywords naturally, end with a clear call to action)
4. 5 candidate screenshot captions (overlay text for the screenshots)

Constraints: no superlatives, no exclamation marks. Write like a user describing the app to a friend. Repeat keywords 3-5 times across the full description, naturally.

Return as a Brief surface section so the user can edit before pasting into Play Console.

The Data Safety form is what Google shows users on the Play listing. It has to match what your app actually does: what you collect, why, whether it's shared, whether it's encrypted in transit, whether users can request deletion. Under-claiming is a top rejection reason and can result in a temporary listing takedown if discovered post-launch.

Audit this Android codebase for every external data flow.

For each:
1. What data the app collects (e.g. "user email", "device advertising ID", "approximate location", "purchase history")
2. Where it's sent (e.g. "Firebase Analytics", "AdMob", "your own backend at api.example.com")
3. Why it's collected (analytics, ads, crash reporting, fraud prevention)
4. Whether it's required for the app to function or optional
5. Whether the data is encrypted in transit and whether users can request deletion

Walk every Gradle dependency in build.gradle / build.gradle.kts. For each third-party SDK, read its data-safety disclosure (most major SDKs publish one) and add what it sends.

Output a table mapped to Google's Data Safety categories. Then draft the actual answers to the form's questions, ready to paste into Play Console.

Google sets a hard Target API level deadline every August. Apps targeting an older API level cannot be published or updated by new users after the deadline. As of 2025, new apps must target Android 14 (API 34) or higher. The deadline ratchets every year. Set targetSdk in your Gradle to the latest stable Android.

Play Console asks a series of compliance questionnaires before you can submit: IARC content rating, ads declaration (does the app show ads?), target audience and content (do you target under-13?), and government / financial / health declarations if relevant. Answer them honestly. Lying triggers manual review and account flags.

Google Play Billing takes 15-30% of every transaction (15% on the first $1M of earnings per developer per year, 30% above). Subscriptions get 15% from the first day after switching to Play Billing v5+. Set up products and subscriptions in Play Console BEFORE submitting — the catalog is reviewed alongside the app.

Once Internal + Closed tests are green and every dashboard item is checked, promote your AAB from Closed testing to Production. Reviews take 1-7 days for new apps; subsequent updates clear in hours. Rejections cite the specific Developer Program Policy you violated. Read the email carefully and don't argue.

Google Play surfaces Android Vitals: ANR rate, crash rate, slow-start rate, excessive battery / wakelock. Apps above the bad-behaviour thresholds get demoted in search and may show a warning to users. Read every review the day it's posted, fix the top crash within 7 days, and ship a 1.0.1 within 14 days.