How to Turn Off automatic App Updates on Android and Install Manually

BY GreenBot Staff

Published 18 Nov 2014

As convenient as having your phone automatically install app updates as they become available, there are some good reasons for wanting to install them manually. You may want to conserve your data plan usage, for example. Or you may simply want to keep tighter control over what gets installed on your Android device. Sometimes the new version of a popular app might be buggy, but there’s no easy way to revert to the old one, for example. No matter your reasoning, it’s easy enough to toggle this setting to gain more control over the app updating process.

Turn Off Automatic App Updates

Start by opening the Play Store app. Next, tap the slide-out menu button in the upper left corner, as denoted by three horizontal lines, then tap Settings. On the settings screen, tap Auto-update apps. On the next screen, you’ll be able to choose whether you want to allow apps to automatically receive updates over Wi-Fi. If you wish to allow, apps to update at any time or whether you want to manually install all updates. For the sake of this how-to, we want to turn off auto updates altogether, so tap Do not auto-update apps.

At this point, the Auto-update apps option picker screen will close, taking you back to the main Play Settings screen. Tap your Android device’s back button to return to the Play Store home screen. It may be a hardware or onscreen button, depending on your device.

Manually Download App Updates

To install any app updates, go back to the slide-out menu in the Play Store app. Then select My apps from the list. Go to the Installed screen. If you aren’t there already, look for the Updates subheading, which appears when you have apps with available updates.

The My apps screen lets you manually update apps on an individual basis.

If you want to install updates for all apps, tap the green Update all button. If you’re going to install updates one by one, tap on the app name under Updates. Then tap the Update button on the next screen that appears. Repeat this process for all apps you want to update.