When you try to download apps on Android, do you get an error message instead? Because of the problem, you might have to get apps from the web or places that aren’t official app stores. It’s not the safest or most convenient way to get Android apps. Instead, you can use the tips below to fix the Android problem where you can’t install apps.
Recently, we noticed that when we downloaded apps from the Play Store on our Pixel phone, they did not get installed. The Play Store finishes downloading quickly, but it doesn’t finish installing. If you have the same problem, check out the solutions below.
Ways to Fix Apps Not Installing on Android
1. CHECK PHONE STORAGE
Check how much space is left on your phone before you install a big app or game. If your phone has less internal memory, you’ll keep getting installation errors.
Step 1: Open Google Play Store and search for an app or game.
Step 2: Check the required storage space from the app info menu.
Now let’s check the remaining storage on your phone and delete irrelevant files.
Step 1: Open Settings on your phone.
Step 2: Scroll to Battery and device care menu.
Step 3: Tap on Storage.
Step 4: Check internal storage and scroll to large files.
Step 5: Delete large files on your phone and free up storage.
The steps above apply to Samsung phones only. If you have another company’s Android phone, use the Files app by Google.
Step 1: Launch the Files app on Android.
Step 2: Check storage details and use the suggestions to delete irrelevant files.
2. CHECK INTERNET CONNECTIVITY
If your phone is connected to a slow Wi-Fi network, it could mess up the process of downloading. If something goes wrong with the download, you might have trouble installing it.
You can check how fast the internet is by going to fast.com in the browser of your choice. For the best results, connect to a 5GHz Wi-Fi network instead of a slower 2.4GHz network and download apps from the Google Play Store.
3. FORCE STOP PLAY STORE ON ANDROID
When the Google Play Store misbehaves on Android, you can force stop the app and try again.
Step 1: Find the Google Play Store icon on the home screen or the app drawer menu.
Step 2: Long-tap on Google Play Store and open the app info (i button) menu.
Step 3: Tap force stop.
4. UNINSTALL PLAY STORE UPDATES
A recent Play Store update might mess up app functions on your phone. You can uninstall Play Store updates and try your luck with app installation.
Step 1: Open the Play Store info menu (refer to the steps above).
Step 2: Select the three-dot menu in the top right corner.
Step 3: Select uninstall updates.
5. DISABLE AND ENABLE PLAY STORE
It’s yet another way to fix Play Store and app installation problems on Android. You can temporarily disable Play Store and enable it again.
Step 1: Go to the Play Store info menu (check the steps above).
Step 2: Tap on disable and enable the app after a minute or two.
6. CLEAR GOOGLE PLAY STORE APP CACHE
Google Play Store stores your search history and personal information in cache files. When the app collects a cache that isn’t correct, you might see installation errors. Follow these steps to clear the cache on the Google Play Store.
Step 1: Go to the Play Store info menu.
Step 2: Select Storage.
Step 3: Clear cache from the following menu.
You may notice a slow loading time in the Play Store, but the app installation should work fine now.
7. SIDELOAD APPS FROM THE WEB
Because Android is open, users can download APK files (which are needed for Android apps) from the web. You shouldn’t download APK files from just any site, though. Stick with trusted sources like APKMirror and others. Before you install an app from a source other than the Google Play Store, you need to give Android the permission it needs to install apps from unknown sources. This is how.
Step 1: Long-tap on Google Chrome and open the app info menu.
Step 2: Open the Install unknown apps menu.
Step 3: Enable allow from this source toggle.
You can now use Google Chrome to download and install APK files on your Android phone.
8. CHECK IF THE APP IS AVAILABLE ON YOUR DEVICE
Some apps might not be available for you to download because they don’t work with your device or because you can’t get them in your area. Using the above trick, you can always sideload apps, but don’t be surprised if the app acts strangely on your phone.
ENJOY MILLIONS OF APPS AT YOUR FINGERTIPS
There are a lot of apps and games in the Google Play Store. If you can’t put apps on your Android phone, it doesn’t matter how big the library is. Before you try to sideload APK files from the web, you can fix the problem quickly by going through the tips above.