Mobile, Quick Tips

Can’t seem to download your favorite Android app? Here’s what you can do about it

Written by Hamza Zakir ·  1 min read >

The issue is immediately familiar to Android users out there: you navigate all the way to that immensely popular gaming app on Google Play Store that everyone’s been talking about, hoping to finally download it, but you simply aren’t able to.

The Wi-Fi connection is pretty stable, and you know you’ve got more than enough storage available on your phone, so what could be the issue? As it happens, quite a lot of things could be wrong with your phone at that time, but the good news is that there are always ways to fix them.

For starters, you need to ensure that the essentials are in place. This means that you should check if the Internet connection is indeed stable, and of your phone is connected in the first place. Obviously, if the Internet connection is suffering, the Play Store will keep displaying the dreaded “Pending” message.

SEE ALSO: How to delete your search history and app activity from Google’s saved records

Yet another important thing to bear in mind is the size of the app that you wish to download, as such apps require Wi-Fi connectivity. In this case, you should either uncheck the “Download over Wi-Fi” option that pops up as you begin to download the app or connect the phone to a Wi-Fi network.

Of course, if you’ve got the basics covered and the app refuses to budge, you will have to clear the cache and data of the Play Store in order to eliminate undesirable clutter and facilitate your download.

In order to accomplish this, you simply open the “Settings” app on your phone, navigate to the “Applications” or “Apps” option, search for the Google Play Store app and tap on it. This will open up a list of relevant options; select the “Storage” option and proceed to “Clear Cache”. After this, tap on the “Clear Data” option to finish the job.

This will hopefully solve the problem, but if it doesn’t, it’s worth noting that sometimes the Play Store stubbornly shows the “Pending” message because the Google Account is in sync mode. In this case, it’d be smart to wait for the sync to finish before proceeding to download that app.

Written by Hamza Zakir
Platonist. Humanist. Unusually edgy sometimes. Profile