How to Change the Package Name of an Android App on Google Play

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

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.

May I change the package name of my published app on Google Play

According to this blog post from Android Developers blog, 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.

Change package name of android app in alpha version

  1. checkout this link : https://stackoverflow.com/a/29092698/5474351

2 & 3 : you should re-upload your application in google developer console, because your app being identified by the package name.

Change package name after publishing

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

you can read it here



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