PublishingPublish to app stores
Easy way: Android
Put your app on Google Play the easy way.
Six steps, each with the link you need. The window ticks the ones it can see for itself; the others you tick with Mark as done, and the window remembers them.
Make the Android package
PWA Builder opens with your address filled in. Choose Package for stores, then Android, and download the ZIP. About two minutes.
Link the app to your site
Give the window that ZIP. It reads the one file it needs and publishes it with your app, so the phone app opens full screen, without a browser's address bar.
Open a Google Play developer account
$25 once, as a person or as a company.
Upload it and test it
Create the app in Play Console and upload the .aab file from the ZIP to Internal testing.
Add Google Play's key
After the first upload, Google Play signs the app with a key of its own. Paste it into the window, or the address bar comes back for the people who install it.
Fill the store page and release
Screenshots, a description, the content rating and the Data safety answers, then send it to production. Review takes a few hours to two days.
A personal Google Play account opened after November 2023 has to run a closed test with at least 12 testers, opted in for 14 days in a row, before it can release to everyone. A company account skips this.
Keep the ZIP from PWA Builder somewhere safe. It holds the signing key (signing.keystore and signing-key-info.txt), and every update of the app needs the same key.
Step 2 in detail: giving the window the ZIP
Press Choose the ZIP from PWA Builder, or drop the ZIP on it. Only the app link file (assetlinks.json) is read from it, and your signing key stays on your computer. If you would rather not use the ZIP, Paste the file's text instead and press Save and publish.
The window checks the file, saves it with the app and publishes the app again at the same address. When it says "Saved and published", close the app on the phone and open it again. Once linked, the step shows the Android package name and how many Google Play keys have been added.
Step 5 in detail: Google Play's key
After your first upload, open App signing in Play Console. A quick way is to put keymanagement at the end of the app's address in the browser, after /app/ and its number. Under App signing key, copy the SHA-256 fingerprint. Copy that one, not the upload key below it.
Paste it into the window and press Add and publish. It publishes the app again with the key, and the step ticks itself once two fingerprints are in place. Before the app is linked in step 2, the window asks you to do that first.
The steps that tick themselves
On Android, making the package, linking the app and adding Google Play's key tick on their own once the window can see them. On the iPhone nothing ticks itself, so use Mark as done. In Native, Download the project ticks itself after a download or a push to GitHub.
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