- The official Google Play Store offers books, magazines, movies, games, etc
- Updating the Play Store itself isn’t an easy task
- You need not update the Play Store frequently unless you face a situation where apps are not installing on your phone
Method 1: Update Google Play Store From the Settings Menu
Step 1: Open the Play Store app on your phone. Tap on your profile picture at the top-right corner and head to the Settings page.
Step 2: Here, expand the About tab. Then, tap on Update Play Store as shown below,
You will now see a prompt telling you that a new version of the Google Play Store will be downloaded and installed. Connect to a Wi-Fi network and let your phone rest for a while. The Google Play Store update will take place in the background.
Also See : How to Fix Apps Not Installing on Android
Method 2: Clear Play Store Data
Another way to force an automatic Play Store update is to clear its data. When you do that, Google will automatically check for the latest update. To clear Google Play Store data, follow these steps.
Step 1: Open the Settings app on your Android phone. Navigate to the Apps section. If you don’t see a list of your apps, tap on See all apps , look for the Google Play Store app, and tap on it.
Step 2: Head over to the Storage section and tap on Clear Cache followed by Clear Data .
Connect to a Wi-Fi network and wait for a while. The Play Store should now be updated to the latest version. You can also restart your phone once if the Play Store does not update even after waiting for a while.
Method 3: How to Update Google Play Store Using an APK File
If the above two methods don’t work, the last resort is installing the latest Play Store APK to update it. Here’s how to do that.
Step 1: Find the latest version of the Play Store as per your Android version.
Step 2 : On your Browser, navigate to the Play Store APK on APKMirror . Once in, scroll down and tap on the relevant version of the Play Store. Now, tap on the Download button to begin the process.
Note : Ensure you download the latest version of the app. Otherwise, you may face the problem of parsing the package error . Once the APK gets downloaded, tap on it to install the app.
While updating the Google Play Store via an APK file is easy, we recommend only resorting to this method if the previous two methods fail.
If Google Play Store isn’t opening on your phone, try updating it via the clear data or APK method. Clearing the data should ideally restart the Play Store app and let you open it.
Google Play Store and Google Play Services work in tandem. So, it’s always best to update Google Play Services along with the Play Store.
There’s no harm in using an older version of the Play Store. However, you will miss out on new and useful features that are introduced with newer versions of the app.
