How to download apps that are no longer in your phone’s app store.
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Smartphone app stores are well established at the moment, and as much as we love to see new apps available, that also means the inevitable: sometimes apps disappear. Here’s what you can do if your bookmarks go missing.
Why do the apps disappear?
Before we talk about how you can get apps that are no longer available for download from your phone’s respective app store, let’s first talk about why apps get removed in the first place.
Generally, this is a call from the developer; the app is retired because it is no longer supported. Case in point: Epic Games for that very reason. The company alleged a lack of resources to support the games “at a level that meets current standards.” It makes sense: if you’re going to do something, you better do it right, after all.
Most of the time, that’s how it works. The app becomes more problematic than it’s worth continuing to support, its features are moved to another app from the same developer (and there’s no need for redundancy), or the developer is disbanded altogether.
The good news is that if the app you’re looking for isn’t available for any of those reasons, you should still be able to download it again if you’ve downloaded it previously (this is especially true for paid apps).
That being said, it’s worth noting that if the app store company itself removes the app, Apple in the case of the iOS App Store or Google for the Play Store, it will most likely be gone forever. If they removed it, there’s a good reason for that, so you can’t expect to get it back easily.
However, if the app is no longer in the app store, this is the easiest way to get it back for Android or iOS devices.
How to Download Apps That Are No Longer in the iOS App Store
If you’re an iOS user, your options are pretty limited; you must get your apps from the App Store. Fortunately, if you purchased or downloaded an app that’s no longer available, you can probably still grab it.
First, turn on the App Store, then tap on the account icon in the top right corner.
From there, tap “Purchased.”
To see all the apps that aren’t already on your phone or iPad (which is the likely scenario if you’re trying to pull something that’s no longer in the App Store), tap “Not on this iPhone/iPad.”
From there, you can scroll through the list to find the app you want to install, then tap the little cloud icon on the right to download it. Easy peasy.
How to download apps that are no longer on Google Play
While you only have one option to download outdated apps on iOS, there are a couple of ways to do it on Android: Get it from the Google Play Store, or download the APK and download the app. While the former is the easiest way, the latter offers a way to install apps that have been removed from Google Play entirely.
How to install apps removed from Google Play
First, open the Play Store, then open the menu by tapping on the three lines at the top left (inside the search box).
From there, choose “My apps & games”.
Once this menu opens, choose “Library”. This will display a list of all the apps you have downloaded from Google Play.
Unfortunately, there’s no easy way to search this list, so if you’re looking for an older app, it can take quite a while to find it by scrolling through it.
The good news is that you have another option: download the APK.
How to download apps that are no longer on Google Play
Sorting through a crazy list of apps can be a huge pain, so in that case, it might be easier to just download the app.
If you’ve never downloaded an app before, you’ll probably want to take a look at our full tutorial. It’s not a complicated process, but how you do it will depend on the version of Android your phone is running.
If you’ve downloaded apps before and just need a good place to find something that’s no longer on the Play Store, that’s your answer. It is the best place on the net to download Android applications. It is a trusted source that only features free apps (no hacked apps on APK Mirror), and all apps are legitimate. It’s also worth mentioning that there are multiple versions of some apps depending on your phone model and hardware details. If you are not sure which APK to install, please refer to this manual.
So, for example, let’s say you want to install Skitch (a now-defunct Evernote app). You would simply grab and install it on your device by following the instructions above. Nothing of that!
