Is restricting an app on Google Play Store to spec

Question

I have an app that is currently in public beta and I'm interested in publishing it to production but I want the production version to be restricted to specific countries ( due to localisation issues). I know there's an option to restrict the app to specific countries, what I can't find an answer to is whether it will restrict my public beta as well. I want to keep the public beta available to all countries.

Answer 1

You can have a separate access list for beta. Just go to MANAGE BETA, then select Manage country availability.

Answer 2

Quoting from Play Store support:

Pricing & Distribution changes: If you make any changes to your app's Pricing & Distribution page, it affects your app's current and future production, alpha, and beta versions.

Seems like restricting distribution by country also affects the alpha and beta testing.

Too bad.

Answer 3

As a workaround I would suggest to create a second app ID for doing Alpha and Beta testing, and keep your main App ID solely for Production. This is not ideal though for switching users from the Beta to the final release.

Answer 4

Distribute app releases to specific countries

Country targeting In addition to the availability configured for production, you can customize country targeting for alpha and beta releases. By default, your alpha and beta releases match the country availability you've set up for production.

Prerequisite: You can customize country availability for your app's alpha or beta track in the following cases:

Your app doesn't have an APK uploaded to production, or Your app has an APK uploaded to production and at least one country is available in the production track To change your app's alpha and beta release availability:

1.Go to your Play Console.

2.Select an app.

3.Select Release management > App releases.

4.Next to the track you want to update, select Manage.

5.In the "Country availability" section, select Manage availability.

6.Review the table that shows the countries enabled.

• Synced with production: Country availability for your alpha or beta release matches your app's production availability.

• Customize availability: You can select country availability for your app's alpha or beta tracks that's different from the production track.

7.Update the country availability.

8.Submit your app update.

See an example

Add or remove a country to tracks synced with production

After you add or remove the country on your app's Pricing & distribution page, the country is automatically added to or removed from tracks that are synced with production (as described above).

If you've set up custom country availability on the App releases page for an alpha or beta track, you'll need to add or remove the country separately for that track.

Add or remove a country only in alpha or beta

If you want to add a country to a beta release without changing other tracks, you can either:

On the Pricing & distribution page, mark the country as available but don't upload an APK to production. Then, your app's beta track matches that production availability by default. Or, On the Pricing & distribution page, select at least one country as available for your app's production track. Then, set up custom country targeting on the App releases page for your beta release. To remove a country that's only in beta:

1.Sign in to your Play Console.

2.Select an app.

3.Select Release management > App releases.

4.Next to the beta track, select Manage.

5.Select Custom availability.

6.Mark the country as unavailable.