Stop Android Apps from Auto-updating: A Visual How-to Guide

Article by George Norman (Cybersecurity Editor)

on 11 Mar 2016

While it is a good idea to keep your Android apps up-to-date, you may not want your apps updating whenever they want to. I’m not saying that you shouldn’t update your apps, I’m just saying that with a simple tweak, you can update them when you want to, not when they want to.

Here’s is a visual, step-by-step guide on how to stop Android apps from automatically updating.

Step 1. Open the Play Store app and click the Menu icon from the upper left hand corner.




Step 2. Scroll down to locate Settings, then access the Settings menu.




Step 3. Open the Auto-update apps menu.




Step 4. Select the 'Do not auto-update apps' option.




That's it, you're done!

Now that auto-updates are disabled, your Android phone will notify you when app updates are available. Tap the notification to launch the Play Store and see what updates are available. Don’t worry, you don’t have to manually update apps one by one, you can update them all at once.




Why it is a good idea to disable auto-updates

As mentioned at the start, your phone won’t do things on its own, it will update apps only when you tell it to. This is great if you’re a hands-on kind of person and it’s great because:
  • You know precisely what apps will be updated.
  • You can check out “what’s new” and decide if you want to update or not.




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