How to remove an app from the Play store?
I have some test apps that I never intend to publish to the official Play store (aka Android Market), via this website. I need to remove them and use new ones instead, as I've also forgotten where I've put the signing key of the test apps.
So, how do I remove the old test apps from the account?
I just can't understand why they have this strict behavior. They said that if the key is not found, the app becomes an orphan. Why couldn't they just check in the server if the app was deleted and notify the user that the app won't get any updates, and give him an alternative for the app via the same publisher.
For example: "Dear user of App1, this app was removed from the market by the publisher, here're other apps by the publisher that might replace App1 (or: "here's App2 which the publisher intended to replace App1")".
Speaking of test apps, is there a way to do small publishing of the app, so that only specific accounts will be able to download the app from the market?
Answer
There is no such functionality to remove an application from Developer's Console. You can remove it from Google Play Store by pressing Unpublish button.
Although, in the new Developer Console you can leave a feedback, and Google developers are reacting to those feedbacks.
I left a feedback and you can do the same: There are people (including me) added apps which they want to to remove from All Applications list. Could you please add a button to hide (or delete) the application from All Applications? Thanks.
Go to https://play.google.com/apps/publish/v2 and click "Give us feedback" orange button on the top right corner.