How to rename an app without losing your reviews

Sometimes a rename is unavoidable: a complaint from a business with an older claim, a name that keeps getting confused with a bigger app, or a pivot. The good news is that renaming a live app doesn’t mean starting over. You keep the same listing, so your ratings, reviews, downloads and users stay with you.

What carries over

• Your App Store or Google Play listing, with its ratings, reviews and download history.
• Your users. Installed apps update to the new name with the next update.
• Your bundle ID or package name. This can’t change, and doesn’t need to. Users never see it.
• In-app purchases and subscriptions, which belong to the listing, not the name.

What changes

• The store name and the name under the icon. They are set in different places: the store name in App Store Connect or the Play Console, the home-screen name in your app build. Update both so they match.
• Search ranking. Some of your store search traffic is people typing the old name. Expect a dip while the new name builds up.
• Everything outside the stores: domain, website, social handles, emails, support pages, screenshots and press kit.

How it works in each store

On the App Store, the name is part of each version’s metadata, so a rename goes out with a new version through App Review. Submit it together with a build that updates the home-screen name.

On Google Play, you change the title in your store listing in the Play Console. It goes through Google’s review, but doesn’t need a new release. Ship an update with the new name under the icon soon after.

A rename checklist

1. Vet the new name properly first. A second rename is much worse than the first.
2. Register the domain and the social handles before you announce.
3. Update the store names, the home-screen name and the screenshots in one release.
4. Redirect the old domain to the new one, and keep the old one registered.
5. Tell your users in the app and by email, and say why in one sentence.
6. Mention the old name in your store description for a few months.

Step one is where Renameproof helps: check the new name across domains, both app stores, bundle IDs and live websites before you commit, so the next name is the last one.