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I am about to release an update for my companies android app. The previous guy who wrote the app has now left, and I was just wondering how I change what appears in the What's New section in google play.

I can't find any guides anywhere!? I read somewhere it's to do with a changelog?? But is that something I should've compiled within the apk? Is it something I should upload separately to the developer console?

Thanks

Russ Wheeler
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    No, it's just a text box in the Google Play Developer console for your app, under the Store Listing. – kaderud Nov 29 '13 at 00:07

7 Answers7

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As of early May 2017, the release process has been in constant flux. The current way of modifying release notes of an app that you've already released, is to:

  • Choose your app
  • click the Release Management dropdown from the left menu
  • click App Releases
  • click Manage Production

On the resulting page, tap the small (i) (info) icon next to your APK, as also shown in this screenshot, and you'll find the notes at the bottom of the dialog that pops up, along with an Edit button.

If you don't see the circled "ℹ", it might be pushed off too far right and clipped by the browser. It changed a couple of days after I took this screenshot.

Modify APK "What's New" (release notes)

mm2001
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    What's strange is that the "What's new in this release" section above the APKs doesn't seem to have any bearing on the Store page. – NicJ May 03 '17 at 15:10
  • @NicJ I had a problem with this yesterday, though it worked a few days ago. The store retained the last release notes, but the blurred section in my image showed what I wanted. In the end I just copied-pasted to edit the APK details and then it showed up ok. Go figure... – mm2001 May 03 '17 at 19:03
  • Thankyou!!! this happened to me today - it seems like there's two redundant copies of the what's new text and you need to update the one here (by clicking the info icon as shown above) for it to show up on the play store. The what's new text update showed up immediately for me, even though the message said it may take hours to show up. – dodgy_coder May 05 '17 at 04:07
  • Thanks for this. On my equivalent page, the page formatting was incorrect so that the "i" symbol was pushed off the screen, to the right, so I couldn't even see it at first. Is anyone else finding this new release management process really cumbersome? What used to take 3 clicks now takes about 20. And even then, I somehow ended up with an incorrect "What's New" description, and I am pretty darn sure I entered a correct description at the time of release. – drmrbrewer May 09 '17 at 07:20
  • Hi, @drmrbrewer, it's not you. I just did another update on Google Play and the exact same thing happened. (Though it has worked at least once for me since I wrote this answer). This time around, my ℹ was far to the right as well - I've added a note to the post. I really hope Google doesn't remove the ability to tweak the "What's New" message - especially with this clearly buggy update behaviour! – mm2001 May 10 '17 at 04:51
  • Hi @mm2991... with the most recent release I did, I made sure to check more carefully. It seems that there are two different places to put the "what's new" information... firstly on the release summary page, and secondly you can open up the details (via the "i" link) for the apk itself, where there is *another* "what's new" entry, which can apparently be different to (and in my case *was* different to) the other one! Are you finding this? I really hope they sort this out. – drmrbrewer May 10 '17 at 08:07
  • Yes @drmrbrewer I am finding exactly that. The regular flow fills in the top section, and sometimes that works for me. But if it doesn't, then I can go to the "i" link, and update it. It may be a coincidence, but the releases that seem to work ok are where I only have 1 language. When I have 2, it fails to update as expected. – mm2001 May 13 '17 at 20:47
  • @mm2001 whats the difference between the "whats new" section and the "release notes" section? – JK. Jul 26 '17 at 21:50
  • Hi @JK. Yes, they're meant to be the same, but that's the bug. The What's New wasn't matching the release notes. That said, this page has been changing a lot lately... I definitely see a trend towards "once you make the release you can't change the text". We'll see... – mm2001 Aug 18 '17 at 17:31
  • Seems like this is constantly evolving... as of today, there's an "Edit release notes" link on this page. – tenprint Aug 23 '18 at 14:40
  • Even "Edit release notes" aren't seems to be working for me. – P-RAD May 09 '19 at 10:23
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    obsolete again in 2020 with the new Dashboard. Now you can manage Production and Tests separatley and the changes in Release notes get updated in a few minutes – afe Nov 18 '20 at 08:27
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In what's new section you must have to write text in between

What's New:

<en-US>
Write text here
</en-US>
Derlin
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Ahamadullah Saikat
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15

In your application store listing there's a section "Recent Changes". This is just a text box where you can put your text (up to 500 characters). You don't need to have anything built into your app.

If your listing is translated into different languages, you should update that section for each language separately.

Szymon
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    This info is now obsolete - you need to input your changes when you upload a new version. I'm still looking for a way to edit it afterwards! – Marc Jun 14 '15 at 10:47
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    @Marc You can update it by clicking on the APK tab and select the latest one in production - Which would show a popup with APK details, including the what's new and an option to edit it. – Archie.bpgc Jan 13 '16 at 08:48
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    Thanks @Archie.bpgc, this has been tweaked again in Google Play, but your notes helped me find it. I took a screengrab for the current situation (May 2017) and added it as an answer below. (I fear this will eventually disappear... ) – mm2001 May 03 '17 at 02:56
12

You now need to go to the APK section and click on the relevant build. From there you can edit the "What's New in this version" text.

Warwick Allison
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8

Steps for Google Play Console in 2021:

  • Go to App
  • In menu, there is Releases section, click on Production
  • There will be tab bar, click on (2nd) tab Releases
  • Find that latest Release (it will be on top) and click on on View release details button
  • This will open new screen with title is your APK version - e.g. "11 (1.1.0)" and sections Release summary, Release performance and Release notes
  • Scroll down, there is button Edit release details.
Matej Hlatky
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4

The current way of modifying release notes of an app that you've already released, is to:

Choose your app

Click the Release Management dropdown from the left menu

Click App Releases

Click Manage Production

Click 'Edit release notes'

Now you can modify your "WHAT'S NEW"

Arnold Brown
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1

Just follow the steps as follows:

-> Dashboard

-> Release management

-> App releases

-> click on Manage for the channel(production,alpha,beta,internal)

-> in new page look for what's new in this release section click Add release notes it to add details.

Here are some assets added for the same:

enter image description here

enter image description here

vikas kumar
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