Publishing a Flutter App on Play Store

Publish Flutter App on Play Store

To Publish app on Google Play Store , one need to have a Play Console account. Google charges a nominal fee to open a Play Console account. Go to the official website to signup for account.

After your app is ready , functional and you have tested the app and you want to publish it so that billion of users can access the app . Before releasing the app on play store we need to follow some steps

First of all the app should have a launcher icon that a user sees on a home screen. We can use a package flutter_launcher_icons

Add this package to the dependency in the pubspec.yaml file.

Add code below snippet in the same file. Image path is the path to your launcher icon.

flutter_icons:
android: true
ios: true
image_path: "asset/launcher.png"

Sample of pubspec.yaml file

Run command in VS code/Android studio terminal to generate icons

flutter pub run flutter_launcher_icons:main

Now if install your app you will that the app has a new icon that you have just set.

Now as the icon is changed , We also need to change the name of the app.

For changing the name you need to move to the AndroidManifest.xml file in the following directory.

android -> app -> src -> main -> AndroidManifest.xml

To change the name of the application change the label name in the application Tag

Change the package name from com.example to com. yourdomainName

Add internet permission and other permissions after package name if you need it in production.

<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.INTERNET"/>

Hint- change all the occurances of com.example to com.yourdomainname

Use the VS code feature to change

Next we need to generate a key

We need a key so that no one can tamper our app and key helps in preventing it. It works as public key cryptography and only you know the private key and hence only you can sign the app.

To Generate key use the following.

The highlighted part is the directory where you are storing the key store file.(Change accordingly) and here I have used upload as alias name

keytool -genkey -v -keystore c:\Users\USER_NAME\upload-keystore.jks -storetype JKS -keyalg RSA -keysize 2048 -validity 10000 -alias upload
(change the highlighted path to where you want to store keys;

Now to reference this file in the application make key.properties file in android folder

storePassword=password (use the pass that you set in the prev step)
keyPassword=password(use the pass that you set in the prev step)
keyAlias=upload
storeFile=c:/Users/USER_NAME/upload-keystore.jks(loc of file)

Go to android -> app ->build.gradle and add following before android block

def keystoreProperties = new Properties()
def keystorePropertiesFile = rootProject.file('key.properties')
if (keystorePropertiesFile.exists()) {
keystoreProperties.load(new FileInputStream(keystorePropertiesFile))
}

After adding the above code before android block

Replace buildtype section with following code

signingConfigs {
       release {
           keyAlias keystoreProperties['keyAlias']
           keyPassword keystoreProperties['keyPassword']
           storeFile keystoreProperties['storeFile'] ? file(keystoreProperties['storeFile']) : null
           storePassword keystoreProperties['storePassword']
       }
   }
   buildTypes {
       release {
           signingConfig signingConfigs.release
       }
   }

After replacing the buildtype section.

Now everything is set and now you just need to build the apk file.

To build apk run

flutter build apk

If you get this error run below command.

If using any package that doesn't support null safety

flutter build apk --no-sound-null-safety

Now you can see the apk in the output folder.

\build\app\outputs\flutter-apk\app-relase.apk

To make AAB — App bundle run-:

flutter build appbundle --no-sound-null-safety

After the APK is made now we just need to upload it on the play store so that everyone can access it.

Create a play console account if you don't have it.

I am doing the minimum steps that one need to follow to publish the app.

After logging in , Click on create App.

Fill the names and details as per your app and click on create app.

After creating this app go to dashboard of the app you have created and find below option

Find and fill all the questions

Google Play console will ask some questions about the app , answer all the questions.

After answering the questions you will be required to upload the screenshots and icon of the app. Complete that step .

Write app details and upload photos.

Rollout new release.

Uploading the App bundle.

After uploading all the required images you will need to upload the AAB file .

Once you upload the binary , Google play will make your app live in 1–2 days.

Congratulations you have published your app on play store. Share it within your network.