In the past, with a rooted Android phone, you could easily switch the Play Store country with the MarketAccess app. The app “simulates” another SIM card for the Play Store app, which used to make its decision on which country’s choice of content you should see based on the (now simulated) SIM card’s origin.
At some point this stopped working, and yesterday I found out that Google Play Store now gives you the Play Store experience of the country that your phone’s current public IP address indicates. Oh no! This is a really dumb decision if you ask me – because now if you travel to a country where no paid apps are available (e.g. China), you won’t see updates for all your paid apps. And of course you can’t buy any new paid apps while you are in that other country.
So now you need access to a VPN or similar technology in your home country, to get the Google Play Store you’re used to. The precise steps are as follows:
- Connect to your VPN
- Go to Settings / Application manager and tap the Google Play Store item in the list
- Tap the “Force stop” button and then the “Clear cache” button
- Open the Play Store app – now you should see a license agreement question (it comes up every time you switch countries), and after acknowledging it, you should see the content of the country your VPN endpoint is located in
Afterwards you can actually disconnect from the VPN, and Google Play will keep working with the VPN’s country content. But after some time (or a phone reboot, maybe), it will check the IP address again, and present you the content of the country you’re actually in.
Worked a treat on my NZ purchased samsung galaxy s4 to the US.
Recommend to all!!
Thanks
This hasn’t worked for me any other ideas i’m on galaxy s4
you also need to spoof your carrier, so hideman and market unlocker are both needed
Not for me. It was like that in the past, but now it just seems to care about the IP address.
Thanks
How do you do the first step?
Vpn,
Thanks
Well, that depends… maybe your company or university offers a VPN access, or a friend of yours, or you could make use of one of the commercial VPN providers for a few dollars per month (just Google for VPN and they will show up).
Thanks a lot for this tip! I’m living and working in China and it works like a charm.
hello may ı ask ıf your phone ıs rooted or not? ıhave the same problem and ı really am sıck and tıred of thıs problem. thanx
Mmmm nope, won’t work on mine. For info, I use astrill VPN and followed the steps above, but after license agreement question, I get a ‘connection time out’…..and no access to the play store 🙁
Hey thx for the tips but i have the same prob than David L. ‘connection time ou..’.. i just tried with 3 different VPN..
Please HELP =)
Some VPN services require authentication that the person is not doing illegal stuff. Just open your browser and open one page. Afterwards, you can do that..
Worked on my Nexus 7 2013, I used TunnelBear VPN.
Worked great galaxy purchased in Venezuela neading my north american apps, downloaded vpn app directly from google play!, follow the exact steps and worked, thanks for the help!,
yeah, There are many dumb app in top lists in our country
Thanks a ton! It really worked!
I used TunnelBear VPN and it worked on my Samsung Galaxy Duos.
Even easier way now: Download Softether VPN and use it to connect your computer to the country you want. After that, log into the Google Play store from your computer and purchase the app. Once you’re done, go into your Android device and hit “sync apps.” Worked like a charm for me.
Thank you for sharing you info. I rreally appreciate your efforts and I will bee waitung forr your next write ups thank you once again.
It doesnt work on my s4
After I tried the step that have been told above even cleared data on play store
But it jz seems the same
ntg change at all
Would be fine I’m sure but when I tried to click the Force Stop button as directed, it was greyed out so couldn’t do it
Ignore last message, like a Dumbo I tried to Force Stop Play Services not the Play App. Worked fine when I did as I was instructed!
Great Solution
Thanks ALot!
Thanks for this most useful trick. I will keep in mind all this things. I’m sure this would help my Maybe someday i’ll go in other country, and i know it well help me very well.
I’ve just tested it with NordVPN and it does work fine, thanks.