Google Play setup

Play is a Google sign-in, the same as Business Profile. There is no key to generate, no file to upload, and no service account to create.

Reading reviews and posting replies both run on the access you grant when you sign in. What decides whether replies can go out is the Play Console permission on that Google account. It needs Reply to reviews on the apps you care about.

So the question to answer before you start is not "which credential do I need", it is "does this Google account already have reply permission in the Play Console". If it does, you are three minutes from done.

Integrations → Google Play, sign in with the Google account that has Play Console access, then pick your apps.

Play lists apps through its Developer Reporting API. If an app you own does not appear in the picker, that API has not been enabled or reporting access was not granted to this account. You do not have to fix it to continue. Add the app manually by package name instead; the review sync works the same either way.

In the Play Console → Users and permissions, find the Google account you just connected and confirm it has Reply to reviews for each app you want answered.

An account can read reviews without being able to answer them, which is why this is worth checking before your first send rather than after a failed one.

Permission changes take a few minutes to take effect on Google's side. If a reply fails immediately after you granted access, wait and retry before assuming the connection is broken.

This is the single most common way a Play connection dies a week after it was set up.

If your Google Cloud OAuth consent screen is left in Testing, Google expires the refresh token after seven days. The connector then fails with a credentials-expired error and stops syncing, even though nothing on your side changed.

Move the consent screen to Production. It is the real fix. Reconnecting on a Testing-mode app just buys you another seven days.

Use Reconnect on the connector. It heals the existing connection in place, re-points the saved credential, and keeps your review history attached. Reconnect the account and all of its apps are healed together.

Deleting the connector and adding it again also works, and costs you everything the connector had collected. Reconnect first.

Reviews and ratings for the apps you selected, translated on arrival if they were not written in your language. A developer reply already posted in the Play Console comes in with the review, so the inbox does not ask you to answer something you have answered.

Play truncates developer replies at its own character limit, so drafts are written to fit rather than being cut off mid-sentence at send time.