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So recently a favorite app of mine has been taken down from Google Play Store. But even though the app is no longer available on Play Store, it is still on my phone and tablet (both from Samsung company) and works perfectly fine on both of my devices. Also, when I go to 'My Apps and Games', I still see the app on 'Library' and 'Installed' options.

I'm aware that in order for my favorite app to function properly, I must ignore software updates on my devices. Hence, I've been ignoring software update notifications ever since.

But what I really want to know is that, will I be able to install the app from 'Library' on a new device from Samsung or any other company even when it is no longer in Play Store? Or doing so will cause the app to malfunction across all my devices? Will the app still be safe on my old devices?

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If an app developer removed the app from Google Play Store this does not change anything for device which have the app already installed. Google only discards apps from devices if the app is known to behaving malicious (and may be if the app is violating some Google [business] rules, but I am not sure about that). Therefore your favorite app will stay on your old device unless you device to delete it.

On a device you won't be able to install the app anymore. Therefore if you want to continue using the app on a new phone you have to extract it's APK(s) from the old device and install it/them on the new phone.

If you want to keep your favorite app I strongly recommend to you to backup the app now. However it may happen that the app is not compatible with the newer Android version of a new device or the CPU architectures supported by your new device (ABIs). In such a case you have to let the app go.

To backup an app I recommend to you not only backup the app but also the app data (if the app allows to do so). This can be done on a non-rooted device using Android Debug Bridge (ADB) using the command adb backup. See various posts here on Stackexchange on that topic.

The app APK itself can be retrieved by various file explorer tools. Extract the APK and save it to a secure location e.g. on your PC and/or an external flash drive.

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  • Thanks a lot. So did you mean if the app is not compatible with the new Android version, it will go away from even my old devices?
    – CS2020
    Commented Feb 14, 2021 at 17:55
  • @CS2020 May be? But that is usually a theoretical question because devices that get Android updates are usually not modified in a way that would make old apps totally incompatible so that Play Store would filter them. Such apps will just stop working after the device received a major Android version update. Normal apps that are maintained would be updated by the developer via Play Store so that it works again. But again an app will not be removed.
    – Robert
    Commented Feb 14, 2021 at 19:35
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I've purchased several apps over the years that no longer show up when searching for them on the play store but I could always reinstall them on a new device from the Google Play library. Some no longer worked but others still work fine.

Those that I can reinstall are listed in the library even on devices, where I have not yet installed them (even a game from about 10 years ago, that has not been available for purchase in a long time). I can't say for sure that it'll be the same for your app, but if you have another device where it is not installed you could check if it shows up (not sure if it shows up in a browser when logged into Google Play). So there is at least a good chance, you'll be able to reinstall it from Google Play, I would stil go with the other answer and make a back up to make sure though.

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