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You can now request help from the Help page in your Play Console account.  If you don't have access to Play Console, ask your account admin for an invite.

Set up early access testing

Note: The features described on this page are currently only available to select Play partners.

Using Play Console, you can test your app with specific groups or open your test to Google Play users.

Testing your app allows you to fix any technical or user experience issues with minimal user impact, so you can release the best version of your app on Google Play. This article explains how to use the combined Early access track for more flexible pre-launch testing. The Early access track is currently only available to select developers.

Before you start

  • Email requirements: Users need a Google Account (@gmail.com) or a Google Workspace account to join early access.
  • Monetization changes: If you make changes to your app’s pricing, it affects your app's current and future versions across all tracks.
  • Country/regional availability changes: If you make any changes to the countries and regions that your app is distributed in, it affects your app's current and future versions across all tracks.
    • Note: There are some monetization and country/regional availability exceptions for internal tests. For details, go to the section on setting up an internal test.
  • Release:
    • You must test your app before you can release it to production.
    • After publishing an Early access track for the first time, or an open, closed, or internal test, it may take a few hours for your test link to be available to testers. If you publish additional changes, they may not be available to testers for several hours.
  • Add organizations to a test:
    • To add testers associated with an organization that uses managed Google Play, go to the Managed Google Play tab on your app's Advanced settings page (Setup > Advanced settings) and tick the box next to "Turn on."
    • If your app is private, you also need to add the organization associated with your test to your targeted list.
  • Reviews: Feedback from your early access users won’t affect your app's public rating during the early access period.
  • Paid apps: If you’re using early access testing with a paid app, users will still need to purchase it. Not all user acquisition methods will be available for paid apps.

Difference between early access and other kinds of testing

Play Console offers internal, closed, and open testing. Each type of testing helps you gather feedback throughout development. Early access is intended to be used to gather feedback during your pre-launch phase, when you’re ready to let people use your app or game in near-complete state.

This new track differs from other kinds of testing in three main ways:

  • Early access users are automatically moved to production when your app launches.
  • Early access users can leave ratings and reviews for your app on Google Play.
  • You can acquire users through multiple methods in a single Early access track.

Step 1: Set up your Early access track

To set up your early access track:

  1. Open Play Console and go to the Early access page (Release > Early access).
  2. Click Countries and add the countries/regions you want the release to be available in using the modal selector.
  3. Click Create a release. For details on managing country/regional availability across your app's testing tracks, go to distribute app releases to specific countries.
  4. Once you've set up the details of your Early access track, you can prepare and roll out a release.

Step 2: Invite users

Once your Early access track is set up, you can start to invite users:

  1. Select the Users tab.
  2. You have three ways to invite users to your Early access track:
    • Pre-registration invites: You can invite batches of testers over time from your pre-registration pool of users, gradually increasing the number of testers. You can create more than one batch of invites. You must have at least 1000 pre-registered users to be able to send each batch of invites.
    • Access codes: You can generate and share access codes with groups of testers. Note the following:
      • Access codes are one-time redeemable; you cannot use a given access code more than once.
      • A single user can only redeem one access code per track for the app you're generating codes for.
    • Open invites: Once early access track is set up, testers can directly join the program through the app's store listing since app is publicly available.
      • Note: This option is selected by default when Open invites are enabled for the track.

Click on a section below to expand or collapse it.

Send invites to pre-registration users
  1. Open Play Console and go to the Early access page (Release > Early access).
  2. Click the Users tab, and then select Manage under "Pre-registration invites."
  3. Enter a name for your invite. This is just for your reference and is not shown to users.
  4. Select the countries/regions you want to invite users from to be testers. This always shows the countries/regions that are in active pre-registration, along with the following:
    • Eligible users: Users that have pre-registered for your app that match your device targeting and have not yet been invited to your pre-registration testing test.
    • Invited users: Users you have invited in the past.
  5. Enter the number of users you want to invite. This must be greater than 1000 and less than the total of eligible users for the countries/regions you have selected.
  6. Click Send invites.
    • Note: Once you send the invites, it may take up to 24 hours for testers to receive them. During this time, you can see the status on the pre-registration section of the Early access page. If invites have the status "Sending invites," they're still being processed and some users may have not yet received their notification. You can also see the history of your other invites.
Generate and share access codes
  1. Open Play Console and go to the Early access page (Release > Early access).
  2. Click the Users tab, and then select Manage under "Access codes."
  3. On the right side of the page, click Generate access codes.
  4. Follow the on-screen instructions to create a batch of access codes. First, enter a batch name. This is for your reference, and isn’t shown to testers.
  5. Select the countries/regions from your track to include in the batch. If you don’t see the countries/regions you’re looking for, add them to your track.
    • Note: Once you create a batch, you can’t add more countries/regions to it.
  6. Choose the amount of access codes to generate for the batch. You can create one million codes per app.
  7. Click Generate codes. After you've generated your access codes, you should note the following before using them:
    • They're one-time redeemable codes; you cannot use a given access code more than once.
    • A single user can only redeem one code per track for the app you're generating codes for.

After you’ve generated a new batch of access codes, you can usually download them in CSV format within a couple of hours. To download access codes:

  1. On the closed testing track page, select the Access codes tab.
  2. In the table, find the batch of access codes you want to download, and click Download CSV.

For greater control over your closed test, you can pause and resume batches of access codes. When you pause a batch of access codes, testers won’t be able to redeem codes on Google Play. When you resume a batch of access codes, testers will be able to redeem codes on Google Play.

To pause a batch of access codes:

  1. Click the Users tab, and then select Manage under "Access codes."
  2. In the table, find the batch of access codes you want to pause, and click the blue arrow to see more.
  3. Near the top-right corner, click Pause codes.
    • Note: Testers who have already redeemed codes from a paused batch can still install and update your app.

To resume a batch of access codes:

  1. Click the Users tab, and then select Manage under "Access codes."
  2. In the table, find the batch of access codes you want to resume, and click the blue arrow to see more.
  3. Near the top-right corner, click Resume codes.

Step 3: Share your app with testers

If you’re using open invites, testers can find your test app on Google Play using their device. Otherwise your test app will still only be available to testers you invite with access codes or pre-registration invites.

If for some reason your testers are unable to find your app on Google Play, you also have the option of sharing an opt-in link with them. Below are some notes when using an opt-in link:

  • The opt-in link only shows when an app is "Published." Apps in "Draft" or "Pending publication" won't show the opt-in link.
  • After clicking the opt-in link, your testers will get an explanation of what it means to be a tester and a link to opt in. Each tester needs to opt in using the link.
  • If you're running a closed test with a Google Group, users need to join the group before opting in to your test.

Step 4: Get feedback

Once your early access users have installed your app, they'll automatically be updated to use the early access version within a few minutes.

  • Early access users can leave private reviews on Google Play for your app during the early access period, but it is usually a good idea to include a feedback channel or let your users know how they can provide you with feedback (by email, website, or a message forum).
  • For both testing and Early access tracks, reviews and ratings remain private. Only any new reviews (post launch) become public. The only difference between Early access and testing tracks ratings and reviews is that:
    • Testers on open/close test cannot leave public reviews on launch—they need to opt out (leave beta) to do so. This may be a lost opportunity because developers may want to get reviews from such users after Production launch.
    • Early access users can leave ratings and reviews on launch, as they become production users as soon as production is launched in the country.

Step 5: End early access testing

Migrating from early access testing to production

When you launch to production in a country/region, any Early access track in that country/region will end and users in that country/region will see the production release instead.

Ending early access testing without migrating to production

  1. Open Play Console and go to the Early access page (Release > Early access).
  2. Find the track that you want to end and select Manage track.
  3. Near the top right of the page, select Pause track. Afterwards, no new users will be able to join early access testing. Existing users won't receive updates but the app will remain installed on their device.

Version codes and testing track statuses

Version code requirements

Users receive the version of the app that has:

  • The highest version code that’s compatible with their device, and
  • Been published to a track they're eligible to receive.

All users are always eligible to receive the production track. If an app bundle with a higher version code is published in production than in the test track where the user opted in, the user will receive the production release.

Users eligible to receive multiple tracks will receive the highest version code release published on those tracks.

For a user to be eligible to receive a test track, the user must:

  • Be included in the managed track configuration, and
  • Have opted in to the corresponding test program.

For example, all users who opted in to the test program are eligible for the open test track. Users who opted in to the internal test program are not eligible for the open and closed test tracks, even if they're included in the managed testers configuration. These users would not receive the higher version code release published on those tracks.

For more information, learn about versioning your apps.

Testing track statuses

When you're rolling out your release, you may see validation messages that note when users of a given track receive app updates from another track—known as the track's fallback status.

Fallback terms and statuses

  • Shadowed: One app bundle shadows another app bundle when it serves part or all of the same device configuration and it has a higher version code.
  • Promoted: All of the track's active app bundles are contained in the fallback track's active app bundles (for example, all of the active Open testing tracks app bundles are also active in production). You may see this if you first release to a testing track and then release the tested app bundles to a more stable release.
  • Superseded: All of the active app bundles in a track is completely shadowed by active app bundles with higher version codes in its fallback track. None of the app bundles in the track are being used to serve users, as they all will be served by an app bundle from the fallback track. This means the testing program represented by the superseded track was abandoned.
  • Partially shadowed: At least one of the active app bundles in a track is shadowed by an app bundle with a higher version code in its fallback track. This means that some of the Open testing tracks users will be served an app bundle from the Open testing track, while others may be served by an app bundle from production. This is most likely an error in assigning version codes.

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