How do multiple accounts on Play Store work?

Question

I have 2 accounts on the device:

[email protected] - Main Account

[email protected]

---

1. With account [email protected] selected on the Play Store, I've downloaded app XPTO and bought some stuff via In App Billing.
2. I then uninstall it
3. Change to account [email protected] on the Play Store
4. Downloaded the app with that account.

What I'm seeing is that all bought items by account [email protected] are present, although I've downloaded with the account [email protected], is this a normal behaviour?

Besides that whenever I try to buy a new product via In App Billing, the Play Store popup to buy it, shows the account [email protected] and not [email protected]

Can someone explain this behaviour?

---

Update:

I've found another thread about this: Change Gmail account to make in-app purchase?

Answer 1

To answer the first part of your question, your list of purchased apps in the Play Store is a union of all of the purchased apps on all of your Google accounts. As long as your [email protected] account is logged in on your phone you will have access to all apps purchased on that account. This does NOT mean that they in any way become affiliated with any other account, as removing the purchasing account from your device will disable any paid app that checks for a license and it will no longer show up as PURCHASED in the Play Store. Migrating paid apps from one account to another is a task that Google has left up to app developers to handle and you have to appeal to them to grant your other account access.

So in summary, the list of purchased apps in Google Play is completely independent of which account you have currently selected within the Play Store.

As far as changing your main account, the only way to do this is to perform a Factory Reset and sign in initially with your other account. The main account is so tightly ingrained in Google services that it cannot be changed without wiping your phone. And this process affects a lot more than just In-App purchases.

Answer 2

I assume [email protected] was the first account you added to the device presumable at the initial Android setup on first run. What Android does is it makes this account the primary account unless removed. All other accounts are secondary to that. In earlier versions of Android, it was difficult to remove the Primary account, if my memory serves me right. So, I think what you experience is normal.