You can remove an app from the App Store today, but only one of the two buttons can be undone.
To remove an app from the App Store, open it in App Store Connect, click Pricing and Availability in the sidebar, scroll to the bottom and click Remove App From Sale. That is the reversible one. Apple says the app leaves the App Store in all countries and regions within 24 hours, and everyone who already installed it keeps it and keeps getting updates. Deleting the app record is a different button in a different place, and it is close to permanent. Google Play splits the same way, with different names and one much harsher rule about the package name. Both belong to keeping an app running, and both are worth getting right the first time.
Every path, field name, role and limit below was read from Apple's and Google's own help pages on 3 October 2026. Where one store publishes a figure and the other does not, this page says that rather than guessing. The short version: hiding the listing is quick and safe on both stores, deleting the record is slower and conditional on both, and only Google publishes a recovery window.
Work out which button you needThe short version
Two buttons, and the stores do not warn you equally.
Apple puts its warning in capitals. Remove an app record and you lose ownership of the app name, the SKU cannot be reused inside the same organization, and once you have uploaded a build the bundle ID cannot be reused at all. Google's deletion page is calmer and the rule underneath it is harder: delete an app that ever had a single install and the package name is locked against every future app, including your own.
So the question is not how to remove the app. It is whether you ever want that name, that bundle ID or that package name again. If the answer is maybe, stop at the reversible step and leave the record where it is. A hidden app sitting in the console costs nothing to leave alone.
Hiding the listing and deleting the record are two different buttons
Each store has a reversible action and a near permanent one, and they sit in different places. On the App Store the reversible one is Remove App From Sale, at the bottom of Pricing and Availability. The permanent one is Remove App, in the Additional Information section of App Information. On Google Play the reversible one is Unpublish, on the App availability tab inside Advanced settings. The permanent one is Delete app, on that same tab, and it only appears if the app meets a list of conditions.
The reversible one does what most people actually want. New customers stop finding the app. Nothing happens to anyone who already has it. Apple's help says customers who previously downloaded the app continue to receive updates, and can download it again from their purchase history as long as the necessary contract remains active. Google's help says existing users can still use the app and still receive updates, while new users will not find it or download it.
Neither help page describes any action that takes the app off a phone. Unpublishing is not uninstalling. If you are pulling the app because a live version is doing something harmful, hiding the listing does nothing for the people already running it. That needs a shipped fix, or a conversation with the store's review team, and it needs to happen before or alongside the removal rather than after it.
The App Store, step by step
To take the app off sale everywhere: in Apps, select the app, click Pricing and Availability in the sidebar, scroll to the bottom of the page and click Remove App From Sale, then click Remove in the dialog. Apple says the app is removed from the App Store in all countries or regions within 24 hours. The roles allowed to do it are Account Holder, Admin and App Manager.
To pull it from some countries and not others, use App Availability instead. Under App Availability click Manage, then under Availability click Manage Availability, then deselect the countries or regions you want out of. Apple's App Store covers 175 countries and regions. The change takes effect immediately but can take up to 24 hours to be visible to all users, and the customers you just cut off still receive updates.
Deleting the record is a separate job with prerequisites, and it has its own help page, Remove an app. Apple says you must first remove the app from the App Store for every country and region, even if the app was never released, and remove any associated in-app purchases from sale. For alternative app distribution you also deselect the app from each marketplace in the Integrations tab under Users and Access. Then, in Apps, open the app, click App Information under General, scroll to the Additional Information section and click Remove App. Account Holder or Admin only.
Five statuses block it outright: Ready for Review, Waiting for Review, In Review, Metadata Rejected and Rejected. So does an active transfer to another account, and so does being part of an app bundle; app bundles themselves cannot be removed at all. A removed app can be restored from the Removed Apps filter in Apps, where you choose Restore App and then pick Limited Access or Full Access, but only while no other developer account has taken the name. Apple publishes no deadline on that, which also means no guarantee.
App Store Connect Help, Manage availability for your app on the App Store
Google Play, step by step, and the 1,000 device rule
Unpublishing is covered under Update or unpublish your app, and the path is short. Open Play Console, select the app, go to Test and release > Setup > Advanced settings, and on the App availability tab select Unpublish. Three things have to be true first. You have accepted the latest Developer Distribution Agreement, the app has no outstanding errors such as an unfinished content rating questionnaire or missing target audience details, and managed publishing is not active for that app. Google's instructions do not state how long the listing takes to disappear, so this page does not put a number on it.
Deletion is gated. Google's conditions are that the app is unpublished with any changes in review resolved, that it is installed on fewer than 1,000 active devices, counting devices turned on at least once in the past 30 days, and that it is not rejected, blocked or suspended. Self-service deletion also skips monetized apps, meaning paid apps and apps with in-app purchases or subscriptions, unless lifetime installs are zero; those go through Play support. One oddity worth knowing before you book the work: the deletion page says in its opening line that only the account owner can delete an app, and in its requirements that you must be an admin of the developer account. Both sentences were there on 3 October 2026, so plan for the owner to be the one pressing it.
The route is Advanced settings again, reached from Test and release > Advanced settings, where a Delete app section appears on the App availability tab if you qualify. Confirming takes two strings: the app's package name, and your developer account registration transaction ID. That second one is not in the console. Google says to find it by searching the account owner's inbox for the developer registration fee receipt, or in the Activity Log in Google Payments, and to drop the prefix in front of the token or registration part of the order ID.
Then the consequences, which are the reason to be certain. The app leaves Google Play and you lose access to all of its user data and metrics. Play Console navigation for that app is restricted and the publishing options are hidden. You have seven days to recover it, after which it is permanently deleted. A deleted app cannot be transferred either, so if handing it over was ever an option, transfer an app to another developer account is a decision you make before deletion, not after. And the package name only returns if lifetime installs were zero. With even one install it is locked against every other app forever, including apps from the account that created it.
Which button you need, by reason
Four reasons cover almost every removal, and only one of them calls for deletion. Nobody uses it: hide the listing, keep the record, decide again later. A legal or policy problem: hide it now and ship a fix, because hiding never reaches installed copies. A rebrand or a replacement app: hide the old one and leave it hidden, since deleting it hands the name to whoever asks for it next. Handing the app to a client or another company: delete nothing, transfer it, because deletion closes that door for good.
Leaving a hidden app alone is cheap but not free. Apple attaches a condition to the purchase history download, which is that the necessary contract stays active, so the paperwork behind a hidden listing still matters. That is the line item people forget when they weigh removal against ongoing app maintenance cost, and it is almost always cheaper than the identifiers a deletion would burn.
If the real reason is that the app earns nothing, removal is the last step rather than the first. A listing nobody can find earns nothing either, and the things worth trying before you give up on it cost less than a fresh bundle ID and a new launch. Hiding reverses. Deleting mostly does not. Do the cheap experiments while both doors are still open.
Check first
Hide it, or delete the record
Tick anything that is true of your app. Each one is a published reason to stop at the reversible step.
Both buttons are open to you
Nothing ticked, so Remove App From Sale then Remove App on the App Store, and Unpublish then Delete app on Google Play, are both available. Export the code first. Google gives seven days to recover a deleted app; Apple publishes no deadline, only the condition that the name is still free.
The same four decisions, on each store
| What you want to do | App Store Connect | Google Play Console | Can you undo it | What existing users see |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hide it from the store | Remove App From Sale, bottom of Pricing and Availability | Unpublish, App availability tab in Advanced settings | Yes, set availability again | Nothing changes; the app runs and still updates |
| Hide it in some countries only | Manage Availability, deselect countries or regions | Not covered in the unpublish instructions | Yes | Those users keep the app and keep getting updates |
| Delete the record | Remove App, Additional Information in App Information | Delete app, same App availability tab, if eligible | Apple: only while the name is free. Google: 7 days | Nothing on the device changes either way |
| Reuse the identifier later | Bundle ID no, once a build was uploaded; SKU no in the same organization | Package name only if lifetime installs were zero | No | Not applicable |
| Know how long it takes | Within 24 hours, Apple's own figure | Not published | Not applicable | Not applicable |
What you keep after the listing goes
Removing a listing is not the same as losing an app. The code, the signed build and the store record are three separate things, and these buttons touch only the third. If you wrote the app yourself you still have all of it. If a service built it for you, find out what you can take with you before you press anything, because the console view you were using to get at it may be the thing that disappears.
Newly is an AI app builder: you describe an app in plain English and it writes a real React Native and TypeScript project you own. It runs on cloud iOS and Android simulators while it builds, then uploads to App Store Connect and TestFlight and publishes to Google Play internal testing, and it builds a standalone Android APK as well. It is $25 a month and there is no free plan. It never submits to review for you, so the listing is always yours to pull. The code leaves as a ZIP from project Settings or through two-way GitHub sync in the Deploy tab, which means a hidden app can be rebuilt and relaunched later, under a new bundle ID if the old one is burned.
One order of operations saves grief. Export the code, confirm you can build it, then take the app off sale, then sit with the record for a while before deciding. Reversed, you can find yourself locked out of a console screen you still needed, holding a package name nobody can ever use again.
Questions people ask about removing an app
In App Store Connect, open Apps, select the app, click Pricing and Availability in the sidebar, scroll to the bottom of the page and click Remove App From Sale, then click Remove in the dialog. Apple says the app is removed from the App Store in all countries or regions within 24 hours. You need the Account Holder, Admin or App Manager role. This hides the listing; it does not delete the app record.
If it was the wrong app, describe the right one
Take the code out, put the listing out of sale, and leave the record alone. Then write down in plain English what the app should have done, and build that instead of rebuilding this.
Start building