In a rather annoying move late last year, Google got rid of the Play Store notifications that showed up after your apps got automatically updated. The confusing removal process at first looked like a bug plaguing a handful of users, but Google soon clarified that it was all willful. Taking a U-turn on its initial stance, the company is bringing back those notifications in the Play Store and the associated settings, and they’ve already started appearing for some users.

Our tipster sent a handful of screenshots our way, showing the additional notification setting toggles along with the actual update notification. The Play Store also gives you a rundown of all the app updates it has missed since the last notification was pushed out, like it earlier did. In the included screenshots, the notification appears alongside a similar banner from AppNotifier, which is a workaround many have been using to bring back the removed feature.

These changes appeared in the Play Store version 20.7.16-all [0] [PR] 317546459 on the tipster’s Pixel 3a running the Android 11 beta. However, we couldn’t replicate them even with an identical setup, indicating a server-side switch. Hopefully, this doesn’t turn out to be one of Google’s limited tests that see an early demise.

Thanks: @etonawa