Is it possible to change the package name of an Android app on Google Play

Question

I would like to know whether it is technically possible  not whether it is easy or not  to change the actual package name of an Android app that is on Google Play  What I mean by package name is the name that will show up in the URL  Please  can anyone tell me why this is   is not possible  Thanks

User · Answer

Never  you can t do it since package name is the unique name Identifier for your app

User · Answer

Nope  you cannot just change it  you would have to upload a new package as a new app  Have a look at the Google s app Talk  its name was changed to Hangouts  but the package name is still com google android talk  Because it is not doable    Cheers

User · Answer

As far as I can tell what you could do is  retire  your previous app and redirect all users to your new app  This procedure is not supported by Google  tsk    tsk      but it could be implemented in four steps    Change the current application to show a message to the users about the upgrade and redirect them to the new app listing  Probably a full screen message would do with some friendly text  This message could be triggered remotely ideally  but a cut-off date can be used too   But then that will be a hard deadline for you  so be careful        Release the modified old app as an upgrade  maybe with some feature upgrades bug fixes too  to  sweeten the deal  to the users  Still there is no guarantee that all users will upgrade  but probably the majority will do  Prepare your new app with the updated package name and upload it to the store  then trigger the message in the old app  or just wait until it expires  if that was your choice   Unpublish the old app in Play Store to avoid any new installs  Unpublishing an app doesn t mean the users who already installed it won t have access to it anymore  but at least the potential new users won t find it on the market    Not ideal and can be annoying to the users  sometimes even impossible to implement due to the status possibilities of the app  But since Google left us no choice this is the only way to migrate the users of the old apps to a  new  one  even if it is not really new   Not to mention that if you don t have access to the sources and code signing details for the old app then all you could do is hoping that he users will notice the new app     If anybody figured out a better way by all means  please do tell

User · Answer

From Dianne Hackborn   Things That Cannot Change  The most obvious and visible of these is the    manifest package name     the unique name you give to your application in its AndroidManifest xml  The name uses a Java-language-style naming convention  with Internet domain ownership helping to avoid name collisions  For example  since Google owns the domain    google com     the manifest package names of all of our applications should start with    com google     It   s important for developers to follow this convention in order to avoid conflicts with other developers  Once you publish your application under its manifest package name  this is the unique identity of the application forever more  Switching to a different name results in an entirely new application  one that can   t be installed as an update to the existing application   More on things you cannot change here Regarding your question on the URL from Google Play  the package defined there is linked to the app s fully qualified package you have in your AndroidManifest xml file  More on Google Play s link formats here

User · Answer

Complete guide   https   developer android com studio build application-id html  As per Android official Blogs   https   android-developers googleblog com 2011 06 things-that-cannot-change html  We can say that    If the manifest package name has changed  the new application will be installed alongside the old application  so they both co-exist on the user   s device at the same time  If the signing certificate changes  trying to install the new application on to the device will fail until the old version is uninstalled    As per Google App Update check list   https   support google com googleplay android-developer answer 113476 hl en  Update your apps  Prepare your APK  When you re ready to make changes to your APK  make sure to update your app   s version code as well so that existing users will receive your update   Use the following checklist to make sure your new APK is ready to update your existing users    The package name of the updated APK needs to be the same as the current version  The version code needs to be greater than that current version  Learn more about versioning your applications  The updated APK needs to be signed with the same signature as the current version    To verify that your APK is using the same certification as the previous version  you can run the following command on both APKs and compare the results     jarsigner -verify -verbose -certs my application apk   If the results are identical  you   re using the same key and are ready to continue  If the results are different  you will need to re-sign the APK with the correct key   Learn more about signing your applications  Upload your APK Once your APK is ready  you can create a new release

User · Answer

If you are referring to com example app  no I understand you can t it would be considered a new app

User · Answer

No  you cannot change package name unless you re okay with publishing it as a new app in Play Store   Once you publish your application under its manifest package name  this is the unique identity of the application forever more  Switching to a different name results in an entirely new application  one that can   t be installed as an update to the existing application  Android manual confirms it as well here   Caution  Once you publish your application  you cannot change the package name  The package name defines your application s identity  so if you change it  then it is considered to be a different application and users of the previous version cannot update to the new version  If you re okay with publishing new version of your app as a completely new entity  you can do it of course - just remove old app from Play Store  if you want  and publish new one  with different package name

[android] Is it possible to change the package name of an Android app on Google Play?

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