Currently, the Google Play Store doesn’t allow you to update apps that have been sideloaded or downloaded from third-party stores. However, this may change soon. Some evidence in the latest Play Store beta suggests Google could soon let you update sideloaded apps via Play Store.
According to an APK Teardown post (via Android Authority), changes in the latest Play Store version 42.0.18 suggest that the Play Store will show a new option on the app’s listing page which will allow you to update apps downloaded from third-party app stores.
This would negate the need to manually download the updated version of the app or use the third-party source to update the app. With Android 14, Google added the feature to let an app store set update ownership for apps downloaded from it. Notably, this prevents installing an update from a different source that may change functionality.
A new flag spotted in the latest version of the Google Play Store adds a new “Update from Play” button for sideloaded apps (shown in the screenshot below).
You will also notice that in the app listing, there is an alert saying, “The app installed on your device didn’t come from Google Play. You can update the app from the original source or from Google Play.”
For now, there is no clarity if tapping the Update from Play button would set Play Store the default app store to install future updates for that app or not. Moreover, Google hasn’t pushed the new feature to normal users as of yet. We may see the change appear via a server-side update very soon.
