What Happens During Google Play App Review, Step by Step
Review starts with automated checks — malware scanning, policy keyword matching, Data Safety cross-referencing against SDK fingerprints — before any human involvement. Most apps that pass automated checks cleanly are approved without ever reaching a human reviewer.
Apps get escalated to manual review for specific triggers: sensitive permissions, Families Policy classification, prior policy violations on the account, or automated flags that need human judgment to resolve.
The fix
Fix: understand which of your app's characteristics (permissions, target audience, account history) are likely to trigger manual review, and plan your timeline accordingly rather than assuming every submission takes the same amount of time.
The same check runs automatically when you upload your bundle to the AAB analyzer — permissions, SDK fingerprints, and version info in one pass, free.
Keep going
Run this check on your own AAB
Free analysis, exports when you need them.