Manage private Android apps in Google Play

Supported editions for this feature: Frontline Starter and Frontline Standard; Business Starter, Business Standard, and Business Plus; Enterprise Standard and Enterprise Plus; Education Fundamentals, Education Standard, Teaching and Learning Upgrade, Education Plus, and Endpoint Education Upgrade; Essentials, Enterprise Essentials, and Enterprise Essentials Plus; G Suite Basic and G Suite Business; Cloud Identity Free and Cloud Identity Premium. Compare your edition

You can host Android apps specifically for your organization in the managed Google Play store and control who can download them. With managed Google Play, you also get security checks, such as user authentication and malware detection.

You can publish private apps to the Play store from the Google Admin console or the Google Play Console. After you add a private app to the apps list, users can download it from the managed Play Store on their Android device. It can take a few hours for the app to be available to users.

Before you begin

Read the following sections to decide how to publish your app and important considerations.

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Option 1: Publish private apps from the Admin console

To upload and publish private apps in the Admin console, you only need an Android application package (APK) and a title. When you publish a private app for the first time, a Play Console account is created on behalf of your organization. Private apps are automatically approved for your organization and are typically ready for distribution within 10 minutes. You can upload up to 15 private apps per day.

1. Sign in with an administrator account to the Google Admin console.

   If you aren’t using an administrator account, you can’t access the Admin console.

2. Go to Menu  Apps > Web and mobile apps.

   Requires having the Mobile Device Management administrator privilege.

3. Click Add appAdd private Android app.
4. At the bottom, click Create .
5. Enter a title.
6. Click Upload APK.
7. Select an APK and click Open.
8. Click Select.
9. Set who can find and download the app.
   • To let all users in your organization install the app, select Entire organization.
   • To allow only certain users to install the app, click Select groups or Select organizational units. You can add both groups and organizational units. Supported editions for this feature: Frontline Starter and Frontline Standard; Business Plus; Enterprise Standard and Enterprise Plus; Education Standard, Education Plus, and Endpoint Education Upgrade; Enterprise Essentials and Enterprise Essentials Plus; G Suite Basic and G Suite Business; Cloud Identity Premium. Compare your edition

     Groups settings are applied at the top organizational unit level and override organizational unit settings. If a user belongs to multiple groups with conflicting configurations, the settings are applied in order of group precedence, which you can set after you add the app.

10. Click Continue.
11. Set app options.

    • Access method–Choose how users get the app. To apply a managed configuration before you force install an app, select Available, complete app setup, apply the managed configuration, then edit the app settings to force install the app.
      • Available—Let users install the app themselves. Users who don’t need the app don’t have to download it.
      • Force install—Automatically install the app on all managed devices with no option to opt out. Optionally, you can prevent users from uninstalling a force-installed app.
        Force install is also supported for basic mobile management with Business Plus, Enterprise, G Suite Business, and Cloud Identity Premium editions.
    • Allow users to add widgets to home screen–Let users create a home screen shortcut when a widget is available.
    • Use as the always-on VPN app–When turned on, app traffic from a work profile or managed device must pass through this app. Requires Android 7.0 or later. This setting creates a more secure network connection for work profile traffic.
    • App auto-update timing—Choose when app updates should be installed:
      • Default—Update the app automatically when the device is connected to a Wi-Fi network, is charging, is not actively in use, and the app is not running in the foreground.
      • High priority—Update the app as soon as the developer publishes a new version and Google Play reviews it. If the device is offline at that time, the app immediately updates the next time the device connects to the internet.
      • Postpone—Postpone app updates for 90 days after the update first becomes available. After 90 days, automatically install the latest available version of the app. For details, see Support app updates.
      Supported editions for this feature: Frontline Starter and Frontline Standard; Business Plus; Enterprise Standard and Enterprise Plus; Education Standard, Education Plus, and Endpoint Education Upgrade; Enterprise Essentials and Enterprise Essentials Plus; Cloud Identity Premium. Compare your edition
    • Testing tracks (optional)—Select prerelease test versions of the app that you want to make available to users. Selecting multiple tracks makes the highest version code available. To learn how to make an app available to organizations, see Closed test: manage testers by organization. 
      Supported editions for this feature: Frontline Starter and Frontline Standard; Business Plus; Enterprise Standard and Enterprise Plus; Education Standard, Education Plus, and Endpoint Education Upgrade; Enterprise Essentials and Enterprise Essentials Plus; Cloud Identity Premium. Compare your edition
12. Click Finish.

Edit and unpublish private apps from the Admin console

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Option 2: Publish private apps from the Play Console

For instructions, see Publish private apps from the Play Console. Note: To avoid the registration fee, follow the instructions in this article to publish private apps from the Admin console.

Set who can publish and access private apps

If you aren't the one who publishes private apps, you can allow other users or third-party developers to publish private apps. If your organization uses managed Play without an EMM (formerly called Google Play Private Channel) to grant access to private apps, you must explicitly allow users to access and download private apps. For instructions, see the following sections.

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Related topics

• Manage private apps (Managed Google Play)