Are any other app developers seeing a sudden anomaly in their uninstall metrics over the past two months?
As shown in the attached chart, our app’s average time-to-uninstall (lifespan) was stable at around 30 days throughout 2025. However, in March and April 2026, it suddenly spiked to over 250–300 days. The median lifespan also jumped significantly, ruling out just a few extreme outliers.
Hey @Baobao - I can share a bit of info from the Shopify side of things on this if it’s helpful! I can’t say for sure without knowing your specific app, but your hunch that it might be related to dormant/closed store is for sure one reason you might see a spike like this.
I can’t share specifics, but if an app wasn’t uninstalled before the shop went into a deactivated state, we do technically consider those apps as still “installed” (for example, a merchant could close their shop but later decide to reopen, so we don’t want too add to much friction to that process). After some time though, we do remove unused, deactivated shops, so this could contribute to what you’re seeing here.
Thanks so much for the context—that makes a lot of sense and helps clear things up!
I do have a quick follow-up question: Is this routine cleanup of deactivated stores a newly implemented process, or has it always been in place? Our app has been active since 2023, but this is the first time we’ve noticed such a sudden, concentrated spike in uninstalls specifically tied to long-dormant stores. I’m just curious if Shopify recently adjusted the frequency of these purges, or if this might be a larger, one-off cleanup event.
This type of cleanup isn’t a brand new concept on our end. Stores can stay in a deactivated/closed state for a fairly long period of time, and apps may still be considered installed during that window. When those shops are eventually cleaned up or fully removed from the platform, that can result in uninstall events being emitted for apps that were still installed on those shops like we’re seeing here
I can’t confirm from the forum thread alone whether your specific March/April spike maps to one particular cleanup event or schedule change, but these processes can be batched, so it would make sense for the impact to show up as a concentrated spike rather than a smooth day-by-day trend.
If you’re open to sharing your app ID, I can see if there’s anything more concrete I’m able to confirm on our end. Hope this helps!
- I can share a bit of info from the Shopify side of things on this if it’s helpful! I can’t say for sure without knowing your specific app, but your hunch that it might be related to dormant/closed store is for sure one reason you might see a spike like this.