Summary
- Google Play Store now allows simultaneous downloads of apps, marking a big shift from its previous one-at-a-time system.
- This multi-download capability is currently not live for app updates, but that could change soon.
- Google has been testing this particular functionality since at least 2019, and it’s only coming to fruition now.
The Google Play Store has seen a plethora of changes over the past couple of years, with the app hub recently enabling AI-generated FAQs for listings, with plans to also use AI to provide a quick summary of the app/game’s features. In the meantime, we learned that Google was also working on letting users download multiple apps at the same time, a big change from the Play Store’s previous behavior that allowed only one download at a time. It now looks like Google is widely rolling out this functionality to Android users, although it’s still far from perfect.
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The folks at 9to5Google first spotted this handy new feature’s wider rollout, and it’s already appearing on most devices, including on my Pixel smartphone running version 40.6.31 of the Play Store. But the limit is currently just two simultaneous downloads at a time, with any additional pending downloads marked as Pending until the others have finished.
By contrast, the initial leak that revealed this new multi-download functionality suggested that at least five apps could be downloaded at the same time, and not just two. Keeping this in mind, we presume Google will make some additional changes to the limit and hopefully allow users to choose how many apps can be simultaneously downloaded in this fashion.
But it’s not perfect just yet
As of right now, this multi-download functionality doesn’t extend to app updates, with the Play Store only downloading one update at a time and leaving the rest in Pending, as you can see above. As 9to5Google correctly notes, supporting simultaneous downloads for app updates would undoubtedly be more convenient, though it’s likely that Google will flip the switch on this fairly soon.
Google has been working on letting users download more than one app at a time since at least 2019. But the idea never really came to fruition, until now. To check if this new capability is available on your Android phone, download two or more large-sized apps/games at the same time. Users may need to ensure that newly downloaded apps appear on the home screen, which can be toggled on Pixel phones via Home settings > Add app icons to home screen.
