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The original was posted on /r/androiddev by /u/JustMrChops on 2024-10-23 20:02:24+00:00.

Hi Android devs,

Tl;dr, I’m wondering what’s the best way to retire my app (there’s a free and a paid version), not as in how do I remove it, but in a way that’s easiest on the users who’ve paid for the app.

I’m just a bloke in his back bedroom that 12 years ago (nearly 13, wow) saw a useful app and thought “I’d like to make one of those, but without the ads and with the features I want”. So with no Android dev experience I created an app for my own use. It evolved until I thought other people might find it useful and I put it on the Play Store.

It’s done pretty well over the years tbf. It’s had over 20m installs and for a time was consistently in the top 3 apps in its category. My wife is somewhat miffed I never put ads in it (I hate ads), nor created an iOS version (but yeah, this was MY hobby, and unlikely to ever enable me to give up work, sorry darling :))

For various reasons, it’s now not possible for me to maintain the apps. The recent update to comply with minimum SDK levels, and fix some Android 13+ bugs, will be the last.

So, I could just remove the apps and my account. I could remove the free version and make the paid one free for a period of time, at least until Google requires it to be updated and they remove it and my account. Either way I think I’ll archive it as a download on its website so anyone who has bought it, or just wants to use it, can hopefully find it. But I won’t be updating it again so at some point it’ll just not work on some devices.

With that said then, how do I play it? I guess I can’t avoid the emails “Hey I just bought it and now it’s free?!”. It’s a quid plus VAT, less than half a coffee lol.

Thoughts appreciated, thanks for reading :)

ps. I can’t handle selling it, or paying someone else to maintain it etc. There are also a million others out there that do the same thing (mostly with ads).