Galaxy Store now requires a Samsung account, but doesn’t tell you until it’s too late [Gallery]

Ben Schoon | Sep 25 2024 - 9:15 am PT

The Samsung Galaxy Store has quietly enacted a new requirement that users have a Samsung account before downloading or even updating apps, but there’s no indication of this until the last minute.

Earlier this month, Samsung revealed through an announcement in some regions that the Galaxy Store would soon require a Samsung account to download apps or even update the ones pre-installed on your device – which includes many key components of One UI such as the camera app and more.

As of today, that requirement is in full effect.

True to its announcement, the Samsung Galaxy Store, in all regions, now requires a Samsung account to let you download or update apps. However, there’s absolutely no notice of this change until the last second.

Opening the Galaxy Store on a Samsung device, in our case a Galaxy Z Fold 6, functions as normal if there’s no signed-in Samsung account. You can browse the store, open app listings, and more without any notice that an account is required. It’s not until you actually go to download an app that a pop-up requires you to sign in, and there’s no way to skip. A link for “Forgot password or don’t have an account?” just prompts you to create an account, rather than letting you skip.

The same applies to app updates. Even if you have pending app updates for system apps, they won’t go through unless you sign in. In fact, you can’t even see available updates without signing in.

From what we can tell, this also applies to automatic updates.

This change doesn’t have the highest impact, frankly, as Samsung has been getting more and more aggressive about having Galaxy users make a Samsung account over the past few years. However, if you do continually skip setting one up, this change means you’ll miss out on One UI updates and features simply by not getting updates for system apps via the Galaxy Store – updates that usually can’t be found from the Play Store.

If you’ve not yet set up a Samsung account, you can create one with an email or phone number, or just link it with a Google account if you prefer.