The easiest way to update all of your apps through Google Play is through a long-press shortcut on the Google Play icon on your home screen. It’s a handy trick many people don’t know about that will help you keep your apps up-to-date with even less work.

For years, I can tell you that updating the apps on all of the Android phones I use has been a borderline stressful adventure. Having to open Google Play, tap the account icon, then into the My Apps page, and then through to the page that would tell me how many updates were available, took far too long.

If you didn’t know about this little long-press trick, this post is for you.

How to update apps quickly on Google Play

Again, the normal process for updating apps would be by opening the Google Play app, tapping your account icon in the top right corner, choosing “Manage apps & device,” and then finding a button that would actually update everything.

Thanks to the introduction of quick actions menus on app shortcuts, your Android phone has some ways to make things so much faster.

The fastest way to update your Google Play apps is as follows:

Find the Google Play app icon on either your home screen or in your app drawer

Long-press on it to activate the quick actions menu

Choose “My Apps”

You’ll now be in Google Play and on the app updates page. Look for the “Update all” button just under the “Updates available” section – tap on “Update all”

And that’s it – your Google Play will now update all of the apps that have updates available

But what if you want to see which apps have updates before you tell your phone to update them all? You can find that out with one more tap.

If you tap on the “Updates available” section (yes, you can tap it), it’ll take you to the Google Play “Downloads” page where you can see which apps have updates available and also individually choose which apps to update. There’s an “Update all” button on this page too.

Bonus tip: Once your apps have all updated, the “Downloads” page will say “You’re all set” and that all of your apps are up-to-date. However, that isn’t always 100% true. On that same page, there is a “Check for updates” button that will force Google Play to go looking for additional updates. More often than not, this will return another handful of apps that have updates available.

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