Where do alpha testers download Google Play Android apps

Question

I have developed my app and have published it through Google Play for alpha testing  As one of the testers I get an opt-in link  where I signed in as a tester  After that I was hoping to download the app directly with my phone by going to the Play Store on my phone  But as it seems to turn out  I have to got to the app s web profile and then from there click download  only then does the Play Store download the app to my phone   I want to get other alpha testers involved and I was hoping to make the process easier for them  Is there an easier way  As in  once they opt-in  I would like them to just use their Android phone to download the app the way they would any other app  Is there a way   Clarifications    I am not looking for an alternative to Google Play I have already gone through the Google Group creation process  My question is concerning what happens after a group member opts-in  Can they use their phone directly  play-app on phone  or must they download from the website  So far I have not been successful using the play-app

User · Answer

Here is a check list for you   1  Is your app published   Production APK is not required for publishing   2  Did your alpha beta testers  Accept invitation  to Google  community or Google group   3  Are your alpha beta testers logged in their Google  account    4  Are your alpha beta testers using your link from Google Play developer console  It has format like this  https   play google com apps testing com yourdomain package

User · Answer

Google play store provides closed testing track to test your application with a limited set of testers pre-defined in the tester s list known as Alpha Testing  Here are some important things to be considered to use alpha testing      Important      After publishing an alpha beta app for the first time  it may take a few hours for your test link to be available to testers  If you publish additional changes  they may take several hours to be available for testers   Managing Testers for Alpha Testing     The Screenshot is most recent as of answering this question  You can see the manage testers for closed alpha testing  You can add and remove tester one by one or you can use CSV file to bulk add and remove  The list of defined email addresses will be eligible for testing the app  here you can a control whom to provide the app for testing  Hence  this is known as Closed Testing  You can see the link washed out by red line   once your app available to test  your testers can download and test the app by going to the below-given link  For that Google will ask once to the tester for joining the testing program  Once they have joined the program  they will receive an app update  As stated by store  it may take 24 hours to make an app available for testing  Once your app available  Your invited testers can join the test by going the link https   play google com apps testing YOUR PACKAGE NAME   Managing App Releases     After the Manage testers card  there is a card for manage release  from here you can manage your alpha releases and roll-out them to production by clicking the button at the top of the card once they well tested  This process of rolling out from testing to production public is known as stagged roll-out  In stagged roll-out  the publisher publishes by the percentage of users  to better analyze the user response  You can also manage multiple alpha release app versions from here  at the bottom of the screenshot you can see that I have once more apk build version being served as alpha test app    Managing Closed Track Testing Availability     Apart from the user based control  you have one more control over the availability of the app for a test in the country  You can add limited countries tester to the app  suppose your list of the testers are from multiple countries and you want the application to be tested in your country only  rather removing testers from the testing list  you can go through Alpha Country Availability  It gives more precise control over testers  Here  In Screenshot  my app is available worldwide states that my testers  from testers list  can test the app in all countries

User · Answer

Publish your alpha apk by pressing the submit button  Wait until it s published   e g   CURRENT APK published on Apr 28  2015  2 20 13AM  Select Alpha testers - click Manage list of testers   Share the link with your testers  by email    e g   https   play google com apps testing uk co xxxxx xxxxx

User · Answer

In my experience the flow is    you publish the app as beta in Google Play and create the Google  community invite the tester to the community once he has joined  send him the link of the test app in Google Play the tester opens the link in the browser  not google play app  registers as tester in the browser  install the apps to the device  the app will be magically pushed to the device

User · Answer

It should be noted that releasing an alpha app for the first time may take up to a few hours before an opt-in link is available and invitations are sent out to the email addresses in your testers list   From Google support      After publishing an alpha beta app for the first time  it may take a   few hours for your test link to be available to testers  If you   publish additional changes  they may take several hours to be   available for testers   source    You may want to wait until you have an initial opt-in link before publishing more changes to the app because doing so is likely to increase your wait time for receiving your tester link  or  may lead to your testers testing with the incorrect version   Hope that clears things up for anyone confused about why they don t have an opt-in link as depicted in screenshots in this SO thread

User · Answer

Under APK ALPHA TESTING MANAGE TESTERS you find    Choose the method you want   Then you need to first upload your Apk  Before it can be published you need to go to the usual steps in publishing which means  you need icons  the FSK ratings  screenshots etc   After you added it you click on publish   You find the link for your testers at

User · Answer

You need to publish the app before it becomes available for testing   if you publish the app and the apk is only in  alpha testing  section  then it is NOT available to general public  only for activated testers in the alpha section   EDIT  One additional note   normal  users will not find your app on Google Play  but also the activated tester can not find the application by using the search box   Only the direct link to the application package will work   only for the activated testers

User · Answer

You can use a Google Group and have your alpha testers just join the group  Everything else should just be handled through the Google Play Store App

User · Answer

Another issue of that page if you use multiple playstore accounts   In some cases you still get a 404  even if you are currently logged in with the right account  the one you joined the beta community with  As a workaround  you can clear the browser cache  use another browser for the beta signup  or just use the incognito mode of your browser

[android] Where do alpha testers download Google Play Android apps?

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