For years, Thursday was a little holiday for iPhone owners. Apple would pick one paid app, make it free for seven days, and feature it at the top of the App Store. That ritual, the free app of the week, quietly disappeared, and many people still search for it wondering where it went.
This article explains what the promotion was, why it ended, and most importantly, how to keep getting paid apps for free today, because developers never stopped running the deals. Apple just stopped being the one to announce them.
What Was the Free App of the Week?
Apple launched the promotion in 2012 as a headline feature of the App Store. Every Thursday, editors selected a single app or game that normally cost money, anything from a beloved puzzle game to a serious productivity tool, and dropped its price to zero until the following Wednesday night.
The mechanics were generous. Once you downloaded the featured app, it was yours permanently, tied to your account for re-download on any device, just as if you had paid for it. For developers, being chosen meant a flood of downloads and chart visibility that money could not easily buy.
Over its roughly five-year run, the promotion gave away hundreds of apps. It trained a generation of users to check the store weekly, and it is a big reason the phrase still gets searched for today. The promotion lived on the storefront of what is now the modern App Store, alongside other departed features like the Wish List.
Why Apple Ended It
The Free App of the Week died with the great App Store redesign that arrived with iOS 11 in September 2017. Apple rebuilt the store around editorial storytelling: a Today tab with articles, interviews, and daily features. In that new design, there was simply no slot for a weekly freebie banner.
In its place came two daily features:
- App of the Day — an editorial spotlight on one app, with a short article about why it is worth your time
- Game of the Day — the same treatment for a game
The catch, immediately noticed by deal hunters: a featured app keeps its normal price. If the App of the Day costs money, the article is just a recommendation, not a giveaway. Apple later experimented with a “This Weekend Only” section offering in-app discounts on things like hotel bookings and food delivery, but the simple joy of “this paid app is free this week” was gone from Apple’s own storefront.
Do Free App Deals Still Exist? Absolutely
Here is the part that matters: the deals never stopped. Developers still drop paid apps to free for a few days at a time to climb the charts, gather reviews, and build an audience. They simply announce it themselves now, in places like these:
- The App Store Today tab and Apps tab collections, where limited-time promotions are sometimes surfaced by Apple’s editors
- Deal-tracking websites and apps that monitor price drops across the store and list every app that has gone free today
- Developer social accounts and newsletters, where indie makers announce their own promotions
- Reddit communities and deal sites dedicated to app sales, where users post finds within hours
The economics work the same as they did under Apple. A week at free can push an app into the charts, and chart position is advertising that keeps working after the price goes back up. Your job is just to check a tracker regularly instead of waiting for a banner.
If you would rather simply pay for quality occasionally, our guide to good paid apps lists the ones that are actually worth money, so a missed freebie stings less.
Which Apps Go Free Most Often?
Knowing the pattern helps you watch the right shelves. The apps most likely to run a free promotion are:
- Indie games, especially premium puzzle and adventure titles, which depend on chart visibility because they have no advertising budget
- Photo and video editors from small studios, hoping a free week converts into word of mouth
- Productivity utilities such as scanners, unit converters, and specialized calculators, which use free weeks to harvest ratings
- Kids’ apps around school holidays, when parents are shopping
The apps that almost never go free are the giants. Anything published by a major studio, and any app whose business is a subscription, has no reason to give away the store. For those, the realistic discount is a seasonal sale price or a bundled offer, not zero, which is worth knowing so you do not waste months waiting for a drop that is never coming.
How to Find This Week’s Free Apps: A Practical Routine
- Bookmark one price-tracking site and check it on Thursdays, a habit that deliberately mirrors the old promotion’s rhythm. Most trackers split their lists into “free today,” games, and productivity, so a scan takes two minutes.
- Check the Today tab in the App Store while you are there. Even without a giveaway section, editors frequently build collections around sales events, holidays, and new-device launches.
- Keep a wishlist habit. Apple removed the old Wish List, but you can keep a simple note of apps you want. When a tracker shows one at zero, you will recognize it instantly.
- Grab first, evaluate later. A free app in your library costs nothing and can be deleted freely; a missed deal cannot be downloaded retroactively. Download anything that looks even mildly interesting, then try it on the weekend.
- Watch the in-app purchase fine print. Some “free” promotions are actually free downloads with the real content behind a subscription. The tracker listings usually flag this; read one or two recent reviews before committing storage.
The same routine works beyond Apple. Comparing stores is easier when you understand the broader landscape of must have apps, most of which are free to begin with.
Set a calendar reminder if habits are not your strength: the first Thursday of each month takes two minutes and reliably surfaces at least one app worth claiming. Deal hunters who keep the habit for a year typically build a library worth hundreds of dollars in list prices, which is a satisfying return on roughly half an hour of total effort.
Free App Deals on Google Play
Android users have their own history here. Google Play ran a “free app of the week” section in the US store around 2017, tucked inside the family section at first, though it was never as prominent as Apple’s version and it too faded away.
Today, Google Play handles promotions more openly: app listings show strikethrough sale prices directly, and the store’s Offers tab collects current deals and discounts in one place. Many Android developers also run the same temporary-free promotions as their iOS counterparts, and the same tracking websites cover both stores.
One Android-specific warning: stick to Google Play itself or equally reputable stores for deal hunting. Third-party sites promising free versions of paid apps are the classic route to malware, which is the opposite of a bargain. Keeping your installs inside the world of legitimate android applications sources is the single best safety rule.
Mistakes to Avoid When Chasing Free Apps
- Downloading everything. Fifty free apps you never open are not savings; they are storage debt and notification noise. Be a little choosy even at zero cost.
- Ignoring the subscription swap. Some apps went “free” permanently by moving their real features behind a weekly subscription. A genuinely free paid app keeps its features.
- Trusting fake deal sites. If a site asks you to install a profile, complete surveys, or sideload files to claim a free app, close the tab. Real promotions happen inside the official stores.
- Forgetting the library trick. Downloading a temporarily free app adds it to your account forever. Even if you delete it today, it remains free for you to reclaim later, so claim deals on your main account.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does Apple still have a free app of the week?
No. Apple ended the promotion with the iOS 11 App Store redesign in 2017 and replaced it with App of the Day and Game of the Day features, which spotlight apps without making them free.
How can I get paid apps for free legally today?
Watch price-tracking sites and the stores’ own sale sections. Developers regularly drop paid apps to free for a few days, and downloading during that window adds the app to your library permanently.
Once I download a free promotional app, do I keep it?
Yes. An app downloaded while free is registered to your account like a purchase. You can delete it and re-download it later at no charge, on any of your devices.
Is there a free app of the week on Google Play?
Not as a named weekly feature anymore. Google Play instead shows sale prices directly on listings and gathers promotions in its Offers section, and third-party trackers cover Android price drops daily.
Why do developers make paid apps free temporarily?
For visibility. A surge of downloads pushes an app up the charts and earns reviews and ratings, which keeps driving installs after the price returns to normal.
Conclusion
The free app of the week as an official App Store ceremony is gone, but the underlying bargains are alive and well. Developers still give away paid apps every single week; you just need a tracker, a Thursday habit, and the library trick of claiming deals while they last. Set that routine up once, and your app library will quietly fill with quality software you never paid a cent for.
Think of it as the modern version of the old ritual: Apple used to bring the free app to you, and now you go and find it yourself. The apps are the same quality, the price is the same zero, and the only real cost is remembering to look, which is a fair trade for a library that keeps growing.
