• General

  • Move from Aurora Store to Play Store

Hi,
I always used Aurora Store and installed many apps from there.
Now I decided to use Play Store instead.
But in the Play Store app, the apps I installed from Aurora are not shown. So I cannot update them in Play Store.
Is there a Workaround to move them to Play Store? Or do I have to install every single App again from Playstore and set them all up again?
Thank you very much and best regards!

    GraphyGraphy donovxn
    I believe this does work as you expect but you are right to observe that apps already installed with Aurora do not show up in the Sandboxed PlayStore (until you install an updated version of the app with PlayStore)..

    I just (re)tested your scenario: an Aurora installed app I had not updated, and not showing in PlayStore, was updated with PlayStore and now shows as installed by PlayStore and shows in the PlayStore' Manage Apps' list.

    Like you, I first started using GrapheneOS with Aurora. I have used Aurora for some years to avoid needing a Google account (and even on BB OS to get around the lack of GooglePlayStore). However, I have never liked using Aurora Store because I think it would be possible (in theory) for Aurora to install a compromised app. I wanted to avoid this threat when I started to use banking apps and travel apps with credit card payments.

    As I think you have also identified, it is very elegant to use a Primary Profile sandboxed Google PlayStore to install and update all apps for all profiles and then push them to a Secondary Profile. The Google Play stuff can be left disabled except when updating and installing. This also works for me using f-droid basic in the Primary Profile and the same too for an old manually installed BB keyboard app which I push out to a couple of secondary profiles.

        GraphyGraphy WORKS / SOLVED for this use case:

        I have tested this and made the same transition. Switching from Secondary Profile based Aurora and PlayStore installed apps > to > updating those apps using a Primary Profile PlayStore. This has worked fine for me. The updated apps still kept their app settings, data, fingerprint checks etc.

        Starting point:

        • a blank primary profile
        • secondary profile with Aurora+fdroid-basic installed and apps installed using Aurora+f-droid
        • banking secondary profile with sandboxed GPS and banking apps installed using GPStore

        Intention:
        Without uninstalling apps transition to using a Primary Profile with sandboxed GooglePlayStore and fdroid-basic to install & update all apps and push apps out to the Secondary Profiles. No PlayStore or f-droid in the secondary profiles.

        Procedure:

        • End sessions for all Secondary Profile, just in case an active profile could cause a glitch
        • In the Primary Profile (PP) use GrapheneOS-app app to install sandboxed Google Play Services and PlayStore
        • Apps installed with Aurora/GPS in Secondary Profiles will not show up in the PlayStore yet
        • Use GPS to search for & install the apps, disable these apps in the PP
        • go to the secondary profiles and check the AppInfo shows the updated app version and that the app was installed from the PlayStore. The AppInfo settings and data remain from the earlier Aurora installation.
        • from now on you can update and install all apps from the PP

        Extra steps taken for caution:

        • I have only done this with apps that have an updated newer version on the PlayStore
          I can't be sure what will happen if you do this with the same version of an app
        • take some screenshots of AppInfo dates/versions/origin-store before you start so you can confirm what has changed in the secondary profiles
          If you also do this in the Primary Profile, you will see that the Secondary Profile installed apps are 'greyed out'

          GraphyGraphy
          Please post here and confirm this works for you too and request your thread be marked as solved if you have the same success updating Aurora installed apps with PlayStore. Good luck.

            GraphyGraphy So, at least in my experience, the short answer is, no you don't need to reinstall the apps and set them up again.

              What I did is, I would check Aurora and every time they suggested an update I would open that app in the Play store and unless it was a beta update the Play store would give me an option to update after 2 seconds of waiting

              I understand wanting to update apps in those secondary profiles via PlayStore in the main. Installing ALL apps under one google account, though, means you're giving Google a pretty unique fingerprint through your complete app list. Is this a concern at all, even if the google account is annon? Wouldn't it make sense to subdivide at least a portion of that list across profiles?

                Such2938 In my case, the Google Account is used only for access to the PlayStore on only one device. That Google account is unique, so even though, as you rightly point out, a random selection of 20+ apps probably has a unique fingerprint, does it make a difference ?