Google deletes 1.6 million apps from Play Store in 2024 to make it safer and easier to use

Google Play Store

If you’ve been browsing the Google Play Store lately and felt like there aren’t as many apps as before, you’re right. Google has quietly done a major clean-up—and it’s a big one. Nearly half of the apps that were available earlier this year are no longer there.

In numbers, that means the Play Store has gone from around 3.4 million apps down to 1.8 million. That’s a 47% drop since the beginning of 2024, according to Appfigures. But don’t panic—this isn’t about Android slowing down or running out of developers.

It’s actually part of a serious effort by Google to improve what’s on offer. The company has been cracking down on apps that don’t meet quality standards, don’t work properly, or might pose a security risk. It’s also made life tougher for developers who aren’t playing by the rules.

Google has introduced stricter checks for developers, added more steps for verification, and used both human reviewers and AI to scan apps more thoroughly. In fact, just in 2024, over 2.3 million apps were blocked and more than 158,000 developer accounts were banned.

Some developers may have also pulled their apps due to new rules in Europe, which now require them to share their addresses publicly. While Apple faced the same rule, its App Store didn’t see the same kind of drop.

Interestingly, even before Google officially rolled out these changes last year, the number of apps was already going down—so this clean-up may have been in the works for a while.

But here’s the silver lining: despite deleting so many apps, Google Play is still growing in some ways. The number of new apps being added has gone up by 7% compared to last year. So developers are still building, and users can expect fresh content.

Fewer apps might actually be a good thing—it means less clutter, fewer risks, and an easier time finding apps that are genuinely worth downloading.