I've been working on my first app but haven't yet submitted it for review on the Play Console, only internal testing. Long story short, I trashed my project folder that had been configured with signing keys and am now trying to re-upload my app (recovered via Git) to the Play Console. I resigned it with new keys and as expected this prevents me from uploading my current app as a newer version of the original (now trashed) app. If I try to submit my app as a new app I receive an error:
You need to use a different package name because "com.example.app" is already used by one of your other applications.
I have a strong preference to keep this package name. Is there any way to delete the existing draft app? The only workaround I have found so far would be to create a new Google account and start fresh. Any help is appreciated.
I googled "delete app google play console". This led me to this SO post that had this answer which points to this help article that says:
Delete an app or game
You can permanently remove draft apps or games from Play Console. You can also delete:
Published apps or games that haven't been installed on any devices Published apps or games that no users are entitled to re-installIn these cases, contact our support team to request that your app's or game's data be permanently deleted.
Where "contact our support team" lead to this page.