Google is killing Android Instant Apps, but you probably won't miss them

Joe Hindy / Android Authority

There are many different ways to interact with a digital service, but the average smartphone user tends to prefer using a mobile app over a website. However, installing a new app every time you want to try a service can be a hassle, which is why Google created the Android Instant Apps feature. Android Instant Apps allow users to try parts of a mobile app without fully installing it, speeding up content delivery, reducing data and storage use, and providing a more optimized mobile experience. The feature was rarely implemented by developers, though, so Google is discontinuing it by the end of 2025.

Google announced the Android Instant Apps feature back in 2016 and began rolling it out to users in early 2017. The way it works is that when you tap on a link, the Google Play Store checks if an instant app exists and runs it without installation. Instant apps are kept on your device temporarily and take up much less space than the full versions of the apps available on the Play Store.

Here’s a demo of the Android Instant Apps feature featuring Ilta-Sanomat, a prominent Finnish evening newspaper:

Companies like Vimeo and Wish were some of the earliest to use Android Instant Apps, allowing them to acquire new users by getting their apps in front of people casually browsing the web. While the format seems like an obvious win for developers and users, supporting it isn’t trivial. Developers must create a special “instant-enabled” version of their app that is under 15MB, allowing it to be pushed to a user’s device almost seamlessly. Trimming an app down to this size can be difficult, especially for those with large, complex dependencies. This difficulty may be why few developers added support for Android Instant Apps over the years and is likely why Google is comfortable shutting the feature down.

While using the latest canary build of Android Studio, developer Leon Omelan spotted a notice when hovering over the Instant Apps dependency. This notice reads as follows: “Instant Apps support will be removed by Google Play in December 2025. Publishing and all Google Play Instant APIs will no longer work. Tooling support will be removed in Android Studio Otter Feature Drop.” Android Authority can confirm this notice is present in Android Studio, as shown below.

Mishaal Rahman / Android Authority

Google hasn’t updated its online documentation yet to reflect the winding down of Android Instant Apps, but we imagine this notice will be published elsewhere soon. Since few developers used the feature anyway, most users probably won’t notice it’s gone.

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