On this day I am presented with a somewhat serious problem on which I must make a decision:
I have published an App in the Google Play Store in its beta version . It has a few thousand users... because it is a beta that everyone can download.
It is an App that I created in my beginnings in Android, making some mistakes such as the way of signing it, the name of the package that I gave it, etc, etc. Many of those errors are irreversible, especially the package name.
Over time the App has grown, it works generally well, but it has some behaviors that I don't like and for which I have looked for the causes without finding a satisfactory solution.
The fact is that I would now like to delete that App and replace it with a totally new one, already made with more conscience :), starting from scratch and incorporating all the functionalities of the old App (another problem with that old one is that I have been doing many tests on it and at the end it is full of code that I have not been cleaning at the time). Anyway, I am determined to publish a new definitive App and not already in beta version.
So, after this long introduction, so that you can understand the situation a little, I would like to know:
Is it possible to permanently delete an App that is published in beta version? What would be the correct procedure?
What I don't want is for the App to appear twice in the Play Store and users get confused about which one they should install. My hope is that since I haven't made a definitive release of the old App yet, I can delete it.
Thanks for your help.
It is not possible , in fact, an application version is added precisely to test and change from Alpha to Beta, later if everything works correctly, it is published in production.
You can unpublish your app and it won't be available to users in either Alpha, Beta, or production, but the .APK record is recorded and cannot be removed.
It can be removed by uploading the .apk without having saved it:
When we save it, it is registered in the development console and cannot be deleted:
In this case it is not possible to delete the .apk, what you would need to do is upload another .apk to Alpha testing again but with a higher versionCode.
If you do not want the application you have in Alpha or Beta Testing to be visible to users, it is important to disable testing:
In the case of typing an incorrect package name, the package name is actually an application id. What you can do is upload the app with the correct package name but it would be a new app.
Regarding the signature you can now use the new method and upload your application.