How to recover deleted / uninstalled apps on an Android phone

How to find apps you’ve deleted on an Android device: for Samsung Galaxy and other models, is it possible to recover deleted apps that were uninstalled a long time ago or lost after a hard reset?

The main reasons for deleting apps

Phone apps are deleted for a number of reasons. We're going to consider the following cases:

• Buying a new phone: you need to restore all your settings right from the onset, connect your Google account, and reinstall all the apps.
• Deletion of apps after a factory reset: after performing a factory reset, your device will be restored to  its original condition, with default settings and no applications besides the pre-installed ones.
• You deleted apps a long time ago and decided to restore them, but cannot remember the names of the apps you want.
• Apps were deleted accidentally or the user wasn't involved in the deletion. The apps need to be found and restored.
• Viruses have deleted or damaged apps.

As you can see, there are various reasons you might want to restore deleted apps, and fortunately it's much easier to retrieve deleted apps than files. You won't need any additional Android recovery programs in order to do it. You just have to follow a few simple steps, which we're going to describe here.

How to recover deleted apps on Android via Google Play

Video guide on how to check recently deleted apps and recover them via Play Market:

Google Play is suitable for restoring apps on a smartphone or a tablet. You don't have to download it as it's pre-installed on Android devices.

1. Open the Google Play app

Find Google Play on the list of your phone apps. This can be done via the search bar of your device.

2. Run Google Play on your phone

Open Google Play and click on the icon with three lines. The main menu of the app will open.

3. Find the "My apps and games" section

To find deleted apps, go to the "My apps and games" tab. All applications, including those which have been deleted and those that are installed on the phone at the moment, are listed in the tab "All". If the application is already installed, you'll see the words "Installed" or "Updates" written next to it.

4. Find deleted apps

You can find deleted applications in the "Library" tab. If you want to find an old app, it's easier to search for it by the date of the installation. You can find the newest apps at the top of the list and the oldest ones at the bottom, or vice versa depending  on the way the list is sorted.

5. Recover needed Android apps

Find the desired items on the list. To recover uninstalled apps, just click the "Install" button and install them one by one.

How to restore apps: Questions and Answers

I accidentally deleted an old app (paid version) on my Google library account and now I can't download it anymore or find it anywhere at all. Is it possible to undo the deletion from the Google library and restore the application?

A paid app is bound to your Google account and you don't have to pay for it again if you reinstall it. In some cases, if only a short amount of time has passed between installation and deletion, you'll get a refund after a while. If this isn’t the case and you're still being asked to pay for the app when using your account, please contact the support team.

I've deleted the system apps Phone and Contacts on my Samsung Galaxy smartphone. As a result, the connection was lost. It shows an error message "android process acore". What should I do? I can't reinstall the apps.

There are two options:

1. Download system apps for your firmware;
2. Perform a hard reset on Android, but remember to save your personal data to a memory card first.

If I delete a game, can I download it again and continue playing from where I was?

You'll be able to download the game again. If you downloaded it through Google Play, it will be saved in the "My apps" library.

In terms of settings and saves, it depends on where the game saves were stored. If they were stored on your device then you probably cannot recover them. If they were stored on the game server then you should be able to restore them.

How can I restore the system apps I've deleted?

Some apps can be downloaded from Google Play (or any other source) and installed instead of the deleted ones.

1. Perform a hard reset.

2. Take the files you need from the backup (if available) and, using Root Explorer, put them in the directories they were deleted from;
3. Search for copies of deleted data on the Internet, but be aware that some system files can be designed for certain device specifications, like the processor model and the screen resolution.

How can I find the apps that have been deleted from Play Market? Where can I download them?

There are other app stores available. For example, F-Droid is a free software repository. If you can remember the names of the applications you want to install, search for them using Google.

During a phone clean up, apps were deleted along with trash. I want to restore an app via Google Play, but Android says that the program is already installed. Вщ I need to reset to factory settings and then reinstall everything, or is it possible to restore an app without resetting?

1. If you have deleted preinstalled apps without a root, they'll be restored after a factory reset.
2. If you installed the application on your own, it won't be restored by a factory reset.
3. You can find the missing apk files (if there are any on the phone) by searching through the phone memory and the memory card.