Google Removes 1.8 Million Apps from Play Store in 2024, Bans 158,000 Developers

In 2024, Google undertook a significant cleanup of its Play Store, resulting in the removal of approximately 1.8 million apps, which accounts for a whopping 47% of its total offerings.

Yes, a reduction of about half of its total apps on the Play Store just to make sure that the end users get access to secure and trusted apps only.

This swift action reduced the number of available apps from around 3.4 million to 1.8 million.

But to further enhance the security and boost the trust of Android users, the company also banned over 158,000 developer accounts during this period.

Have a look at the original report and data shared by Appfigures:

The purge targeted apps with limited functionality, such as single-wallpaper apps, text-only apps, spammy apps, and those lacking meaningful content.

Google's enhanced policies included stricter developer verification, mandatory testing for new personal developer accounts, and expanded human reviews to identify deceptive or harmful apps with near to to no meaning of being there on the Play Store.

• Despite the reduction in total apps, the Play Store saw a 7.1% year-over-year increase in new app releases as of April 2025.

It is something that suggests that while low-quality apps are being removed massively, developers continue to contribute valuable content to the platform.

In contrast, Apple's App Store experienced a slight growth during the same period, increasing from 1.6 million to 1.64 million apps, all thanks to Apple's own terms and conditions, such as not allowing apps with the same codebase to be uploaded more than a certain number of times.