Track App Uninstalls in GA4: A Step-by-Step Guide

💡 Here is how you can track App 📱 Uninstalls in GA4 🤯 👇

For example,

GA4’s “user_engagement” event offers a valuable alternative for estimating user inactivity on iOS devices.

The “user_engagement” event fires periodically when the app is in the foreground, and the user is actively engaged, which can indicate recent app usage.

Set a reasonable inactivity threshold to identify potential uninstalls.

If a user hasn’t triggered a “user_engagement” event in a significant period (e.g., 30, 60 days), it might indicate a potential uninstall, but factors like infrequent use should be considered.

Follow the steps below:

Step-1: Define inactivity criteria.

For instance, you might decide that if a user hasn’t triggered any “user_engagement” event for 30 days, it may indicate an uninstall.

Step-2: Set up a user property named 'last_engagement' in your GA4 property.

Step-3: Implement logic in your app to update the 'last_engagement' property every time a “user_engagement” event is triggered.

Step-4: Create a Firebase function to track inactivity (check the screenshot above for example code).

Step-5: Use Firebase Analytics to log a custom event named 'potential_uninstall'.

Example:

await admin.analytics().logEvent('potential_uninstall', { user_id: doc.id });

Step-6: In GA4, create a new exploration report and configure it to show the 'potential_uninstall' Events.