Just imagine Android without the Google Play Store. Meaningless, I would say.
I mean what could we possibly do without the Play Store?
Nothing! No apps, no games. We will stop calling our phones as ‘smartphones’.
But thank god, that’s not the case!
Now, what if the Play Store on your Android starts behaving abnormally? The app just won’t download. It just keeps on saying ‘Download Pending’.
The download doesn’t even begin. And this is not the case with a particular app, but the whole Play Store starts behaving in this manner.
There are various other Google Play errors but here our focus will only be on ‘How to fix the ‘Download Pending’ on the Play Store.
Also Read: Best Educational Apps for Android and iOS
So..Let’s get started.
How to get rid of ‘Download Pending’ on the Play Store?
There are four different methods and I am gonna take you through each of them one-by-one.
Method #1: The ‘STOP’ Method
This method is the easiest of all and it has worked almost all the time. Here’s what you’ve got to do:
1. See those three-horizontal-lines (also knows as the ‘hamburger icon’) at the top left on the home screen of the Play Store? Tap on it.
2. Tap on ‘My apps & games’.
3. Once you’re into ‘My apps & games’, check whether there is/are any pending update of an app/apps. If that’s the case, then you can do either of two things – Let the update finish first or You can tap on the green ‘STOP’ button to halt all the updates.
4. When you are done with the above step you can go ahead and try downloading that app which you were trying to download in the first place.
Most probably, it shall begin!
Also Read: Best Music Player Apps For Android
Like I said before, the above method has worked in most of the cases but if still your Play Store is stuck on downloading, then you can try the forthcoming methods.
Method #2: The ‘CLEAR DATA’ Method
Don’t start sweating if Method#1 didn’t work for you.
If ‘STOP’ing the updates didn’t work for you, then you can Clear App Data to get rid of this issue.
Here’s how you can do it:
1. Go to the device’s Settings.
2. Scroll down till you find ‘Apps’ and then tap on it.
3. On the next window, keep on scrolling till you want ‘Google Play Store’. Tap on it.
(DISCLAIMER: HERE I AM TALKING ABOUT GOOGLE PLAY STORE AND NOT GOOGLE PLAY SERVICES. PLEASE DO NOT, I REPEAT, DO NOT GET CONFUSED BETWEEN GOOGLE PLAY STORE AND GOOGLE PLAY SERVICES.)
4. Once you’ve tapped on Google Play Store, App Info will open up. There you’ll find ‘Storage‘. Tap on it.
5. Here you will notice two big green buttons namely – ‘CLEAR DATA‘ & ‘CLEAR CACHE‘.
6. Tap on both of those buttons and that’s it.
Now head back to the Play Store and try downloading that app again, it won’t show ‘Download Pending’ anymore.
Method #3: The ‘DOWNLOAD-THE-LATEST-VERSION’ Method
Google has a tendency of updating the army of its apps with latest versions. These updates, majority of the time, carry bug fixes and minor tweaks.
Google pushes updates to the Play Store as well once in a few months. So there might be a chance you’ve been using an outdated version of the Play Store.
Here’s the fix:
1. Go to APKMirror website.
2. Type ‘Google Play Store’ in the search box and click on the magnifying glass.
3. Click on the first link which comes on the result page as that will be the latest version available at the time.
4. On the next page, scroll down until you find a big box titled as ‘Download’. Click on the link just under ‘Variant’. (Refer the below Screenshot)
5. You’ll be taken to another page. Scroll down a little and you’ll find a blue ‘Download APK’ button, right at the centre of the page.
6. Click on it and your download will begin.
7. Once downloaded, transfer that apk file to your device and install it. (Remember that you’ll have to allow installation of apps from Unknown sources beforehand.)
8. That’s, pretty much, it. Your problem’s solved! Bingo!
Method #4: The ‘UNINSTALL’ Method
No, no. I am not telling you to uninstall the Play Store. In fact, you can’t even do it. By ‘UNINSTALL’ method I mean uninstalling the updates, if any.
Confused?
Here’s how you can do it:
1. Go into your device’s Settings.
2. Scroll down and tap on Apps.
3. Find Google Play Store and tap on it.
4. On the upper-right corner, you’ll see a three-dot button. Tap on it.
5. Tap on Uninstall updates.
That’s pretty much it!
What if none of the above works?
One of our readers, marcus2021, was in a similar situation. None of the above methods worked for him. He did his own trial and error and found a solution to the problem. Here are the steps which he followed in his own words:
STEP:
Open Settings> Apps> then clear cache and data of Google Play Store / Google Play Service / Google Play FrameWork / Download Manager/ then FORCE STOP.
Remain on the Application Settings then select one by one the applications that have been updated prior to the problem then uninstall the update
*uninstalling the google messenger and google play music works for me
*update of a certain application is the cause of the problem
*it prevents the play store from updating other application.
then after uninstalling the previous updates wait for at least 5 mins then try downloading a sample application on your play store.
Thank you marcus2021 for sharing this with us.
I am sure the above-shared methods will get the job done. But if in a very rare case, the problem still persists, feel free to get in touch with me through the comments section below. I’ll be very glad to help you out.
Either way, which of the methods worked for you? Do you know of some other method to fix the ‘Download Pending’ issue? Let me know in the comments section below.
And, as always, don’t forget to share this post with your friends and family to help them out.