16

I'm fairly new to app development and I uploaded a couple of instances of an app to closed testing in Google Play Console. The first reviews from Google went quite fast and was approved, but now it is over 4 hours since I uploaded the most recent APK for closed testing and it still says that it is under review. I think I published around 5 APKs today for closed testing. I was just wondering if this is common? How long does it usually take? Does it take longer for them to review if you upload more APKs in a short amount of time? If so, is there a way to avoid this kind of behaviour?

Best regards

user134489
  • 355
  • 1
  • 3
  • 10

2 Answers2

21

The time of review can vary a lot. From an hour to a few days.

If one of your APK is in the queue for review and you upload another APK that overrides the first one (i.e. on the same track), the first APK will no longer be reviewed, only the last one will be reviewed and enters the queue again. So if you upload APKs faster than they can be reviewed, nothing gets published.

I would suggest not to publish so frequently. Use the internal test track rather than a closed track if you want to iterate quickly within the same day. There's no review time for this track so it will be much faster. Use a closed track for the first round of testing within the company, internal QA, etc., by uploading an APK only every few days.

Pierre
  • 15,865
  • 4
  • 36
  • 50
  • 2
    I'm a huge android fan but Google Play really has a lot to be desired for testing. TestFlight is far better. I have noticed that closed track testing and internal testing both are highly variable. You can however test yourself by downloading the APK from the "App Bundle Explorer" if you package and deliver AABs – spartygw Sep 30 '21 at 02:53
  • 1
    "Use the internal test track rather than a closed track if you want to iterate quickly within the same day" I would just like to point out that our internal test track is also being halted until google reviews our app. Hopefully it doesn't take too long, but very surprising that not even internal testers can get updates until this review has completed. – BooleanCheese Jul 28 '22 at 14:30
1

Play Console and fast releases are not compatible things, at the end of 2022 our apps sometimes getting published within 10 minutes, and sometimes it takes more than 10 days to review new update, sometimes some apps age getting rejected with reasons like "You app should not have in app deposits, kinda looks like you are casino app and so on" when in fact we develop crypto wallet, sometime we just republish app and it getting approved. Some updates are still fast but when we add something like referral program it takes weeks. That is why many apps like Telegram who deliver via Play store ask users to download APK directly from their website (with a message like "If you want to receive updates faster") and then they have auto-update component which re-downloads APK and shows user APK installation system dialog. This works pretty fine, no additional permissions apart of the allowing Android to install pure APK files, which has a "risk" warning.

Ivan Borshchov
  • 3,036
  • 5
  • 40
  • 62