Of the six things an app needs to keep shipping, only two can be lost for good, and the store listings need one approval from whoever holds them. Here's the order to recover the rest, from source code and signing keys to the Google Play and App Store listings.
Often, you can get most of it back. An app runs on six things: the source code, an Android signing key, a Google Play listing, an App Store listing, a server, and a few services such as Firebase. Only two of the six can be lost for good: source code that nobody kept, and an Android signing key on an older app that never turned on Play App Signing. Everything else moves into your name, though the two store listings need one approval from whoever holds those accounts today, and without it they stay put. Here's the order to work through it, starting with the step that costs nothing.
1. Write down what you can log into today
Before you email anyone, test every login you have. Can you open the Play Console? App Store Connect? The code repository? The hosting control panel? Firebase?
The answers decide everything after this. If the Play Console and App Store Connect accounts were opened in your company's name and you still have the password, the developer leaving is an inconvenience. If they were opened under the developer's own name, which happens a lot with freelancers, you're asking a favour of someone who has stopped answering.
The checklist on our page about what to do when your app developer disappears covers the same six items and shows which gaps are serious.
2. Send the old developer one short message
Ask for four things in one email: the full repository with its history, the Android keystore file and its passwords, a list of every service the app uses, and a date by which they'll start the store transfers. Keep it friendly. The store transfers in steps 5 and 6 need them to click a button.
Give them two weeks.
3. Get the source code, and check who owns it
Code lives in more places than people expect: GitHub, Bitbucket or GitLab, an old laptop, a CI build server, a zip file attached to an invoice. A repository with its commit history beats a folder of files, because the history shows which version is in the store.
Then read your contract. Under US law, a contractor's work is only a "work made for hire" if it falls into one of nine categories listed in the Copyright Act and both sides signed a written agreement saying so. Software isn't named among the nine listed in the Copyright Office's circular on works made for hire, so a contract that only says "work for hire" may not give you the copyright. A written assignment of copyright, signed by the developer, does. If yours doesn't have one, ask a lawyer before the relationship goes cold.
4. Find out how the Android app is signed
This step can end the whole effort, so check it early. Open the Play Console, go to the app signing page, and see whether Play App Signing is on.
If it is, you're fine. Google holds the key that signs the app for users, and the developer only ever had an upload key. Google's help page says plainly that a lost upload key doesn't lock you out: you generate a new one and request an upload key reset in the console. Any app first published from August 2021 onwards has this, because new apps have had to ship as app bundles since then, and bundles need Play App Signing.
If it's off, the app was created before August 2021 and the developer has been signing it with their own key. That key can't be reset or regenerated. Without it, you can't publish an update to the existing listing. If the developer still has the keystore, get it and turn Play App Signing on straight away.
iPhone apps don't have this problem. Apple's own documentation says a revoked or expired distribution certificate doesn't affect apps already on the App Store as long as the membership stays active, and the Account Holder or an Admin can create a new one whenever they like.
5. Move the Google Play listing into your account
You need your own Play developer account first. It's a one-time US$25 registration fee. Then the person who holds the current account submits the transfer request, and you approve it. Google's form asks for the registration transaction ID of both accounts, which you'll find by searching your inbox for "developer registration fee". According to the Play Console transfer page, support replies within two business days.
What comes across: users, ratings, comments, subscriptions, the store listing and past policy declarations. What stays behind: orders from before the transfer, earnings reports, promotions and every test group. Testers in a closed track may have to opt in again, and Firebase and AdMob links need setting up on your side afterwards.
6. Move the App Store listing
Apple's version is similar, with more preconditions. Your company needs its own Apple Developer Program membership, which is $99 a year, and an organisation enrolling needs a D-U-N-S number and a working website on its own domain. Start that now, it's the slowest part.
The current Account Holder starts the transfer and your Account Holder accepts it, within 60 days. The app must have at least one version live on the store, and it can't be sitting in review. TestFlight testing has to be switched off and its builds removed first. The app keeps its ratings, reviews, Bundle ID and App ID, and users keep getting updates. If the app sells auto-renewing subscriptions, ask the old account for an app-specific shared secret before they start, because you'll need it afterwards.
Once the app is yours, the next review may surface rules it has fallen behind on. Our post on the most common App Store rejection reasons covers what to expect.
7. Reclaim the server, Firebase and everything else
These are easier, because the business is normally the customer on the bill. Hosting companies, payment providers and email services mostly let the business that owns the account reclaim it, or the backend can be moved to a server you control.
Firebase is a Google Cloud project with owners. If the developer was the only owner and has gone quiet, Firebase's FAQ says support can assign a temporary owner when the project doesn't sit inside a Google Cloud organisation. Find out who the owners are first: the Users and permissions page in the Firebase console lists them.
8. Build it from source before you change anything
Once you hold the code and the keys, build the app and compare it with the one in the store. Same version number, same behaviour on the screens your customers use most. If they don't match, the code you have isn't the code your customers run, and every fix after this starts from the wrong place. We'd treat a clean build as the end of recovery.
What can't be recovered, and the way around it
Two cases have no store-side fix. The first is an Android app with Play App Signing off and the key gone. The only route is a new listing under a new package name, which installs as a separate app, so you lose the reviews and have to bring users across with an update notice in the old app, if you can still ship one, or by email. The second is no source code at all. Then the app gets rebuilt, and the old version is a working specification.
The same applies to the store listings if the developer never replies. You can't take an app out of someone else's account. You can publish a new one in yours. So if your two-week deadline from step 2 passes in silence, start the developer account enrolments anyway. Apple's D-U-N-S check takes time, and you'll need both accounts whichever way this goes.
Three questions owners ask first
Do I need the old developer's permission to move my app?
For the store listings, yes, in the sense that someone has to press the button. Google wants the request submitted from the account that holds the app, and Apple wants that account's Account Holder to start the transfer. If you can sign in to those accounts yourself, you don't need the developer at all.
Will my users lose the app or have to reinstall it?
Not with a store transfer. On both stores the app keeps its ratings and reviews, and users carry on getting updates. A reinstall only happens when the app has to go out as a new listing, which is the lost-key and no-cooperation case.
How long does all this take?
Google's support team answers transfer requests within two business days, and Apple gives the receiving account 60 days to accept. The slow part tends to be getting a reply from the old developer, which is why that message goes out first.
