androidgoogle-playenvironmentpublishinggoogle-developers-console

Can i install different google play tracks on the same device at the same time?


We want to manage different environments for our app on the Google Play Store. The developer console provides the option to setup different tracks. (Internal, Open...) Now i was wondering if there would be a way to install all or some of these tracks on the same time on the same device. This would make things more easy for the QA which needs to test all of the tracks.

I haven't found anything on the web and presume that it wont be possible because every track shares the same bundle identifier. Right now my best guess would be to create different Apps for the different environments which would be ugly and i believe also not easy to maintain.

But maybe i lucky and someone else had the same problem and found a better solution.


Solution

  • You can't do this, unfortunately. Android identifies apps using the package name. Different package names mean the apps are installed separately, whereas the same name means the app will (try to) install over the existing one. On the play store, each track (internal, etc.) has the same package name so you can't install these apps side by side.

    One possible solution is to set up another app with a different name (probably using productFlavors and the applicationIdSuffix setting in build.gradle). You could then distribute that app either through a different non-public app in the play store, or using something like app centre or Firebase App Distribution that's designed for this kind of app delivery for QA purposes.