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I need to factory reset my phone. However, I need to know whether I will be able to download the applications I paid for on Google Play once I do the reset, and download them onto my phone at no additional cost.

If once I do a factory reset I need to pay again to download all the apps, then is there a way to back them up prior to doing a reset, and then reinstall them back again?

4 Answers 4

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Before doing factory reset, you can backup your phone settings to the cloud by going to Settings > Backup & reset and checking the box that says Backup my data.

Once done, you can reset your phone, and when you set it up again with your gmail ID it was backed up with, the settings and apps, everything will be restored (wifi APs as well).

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  • This has never ever worked, except on Google pixels. Mar 26, 2019 at 19:47
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Once bought, always yours. New device, factory-reset, does not matter -- as long as your account stays the same. Paid apps are bound to the Google-Account you've purchased them with.

To give some proof: I use several apps I bought once on 3 devices simultaneously. I never was asked to pay again when installing them on the next device. Provided I used the same account, of course.

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  • What about in-app purchases?
    – qed
    Jul 27, 2016 at 11:28
  • @qed Same AFAIK. All bound to the account they're made with.
    – Izzy
    Jul 27, 2016 at 11:34
  • This may have been true or intended at some point, however if the application has been removed (even a paid one!), you may no longer be able to download it. This happened with the "ConvertPad Plus" application on Google's Play Store.
    – david
    Jan 24, 2020 at 8:45
  • @ruquay which is why you should take care to have your own backups, and not rely on the built-in which saves to Google. The latter one AFAIK does not include the APK files, by the logic you could "always" get them from Play Store. You could e.g. grab them all easily using Adebar's getapk script: getapk user would extract all user-installed APKs from the connected device.
    – Izzy
    Jan 25, 2020 at 11:48
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Even if you don't back up downloaded applications you can still download them again, your play store will show you the list of all installed and downloaded applications even after factory reset you can download any paid or free application again. Once you have paid you don't need to pay again, you just log in by your google account and you can download all them again. But backing up applications is a better way, it will automatically install all your applications.

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Download Easy app backup & restore. It will create a backup folder in your memory card from where you can get all apps. Whenever you need the app you can install it from there.

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  • Given that you can download the apps from Google Play again, this seems a bit irrelevant. What's your relationship with this app?
    – Dan Hulme
    Oct 16, 2014 at 10:11
  • Are you sure you can back up paid apps from secure storage with this app? The reviewers on Google Play don't seem to think so.
    – Dan Hulme
    Oct 16, 2014 at 10:35
  • Please don't promote software piracy on this site.
    – Dan Hulme
    Oct 16, 2014 at 10:50
  • I was trying to help you .I dont know how to use this site coz am new user .thanks for giving suggestion. Oct 16, 2014 at 11:07
  • @DanHulme Is it "software piracy" to want to restore a purchased app that happens to have been removed from Google Play Store? Jul 16, 2015 at 1:56

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