Build an Android React Native App

Build an Android React Native App for the Google Play Store

There are different steps to build an app for the iOS and Android app stores, so here we’ll look at how to build our completed app for Android. We’ll look at how to build a release for either , or for uploading to the Google Play Store.

Build for Play Store

• Generate a key by running following command in command prompt or terminal

  BASH

  keytool -genkey -v -keystore my-release-key.keystore -alias my-key-alias -keyalg RSA -keysize 2048 -validity 10000

• Enter a password and answer the prompted questions - this will create a new my-release-key.keystore file - keep this file safe as there is no way to recover it. Regenerating it will lose you all Google Play Store history - such as downloads and ratings

• Copy my-release-key.keystore to the android/app directory

• Open android/gradle.properties file in a text editor and paste the following key value pairs - ensure to update the values with the values generated

  MYAPP_RELEASE_STORE_FILE=my-release-key.keystore
  MYAPP_RELEASE_KEY_ALIAS=my-key-alias
  MYAPP_RELEASE_STORE_PASSWORD=your-password
  MYAPP_RELEASE_KEY_PASSWORD=your-key-password

• Open android/app/build.gradle in text editor, check that the version and build numbers are correct and add the following immediately after the closing } of defaultConfig

  signingConfig: {
    release: {
      if (project.hasProperty('MYAPP_RELEASE_STORE_FILE')) {
        storeFile file(MYAPP_RELEASE_STORE_FILE)
        storePassword MYAPP_RELEASE_KEY_PASSWORD
        keyAlias MYAPP_RELEASE_KEY_ALIAS
        keyPassword MYAPP_RELEASE_KEY_PASSWORD
      }
    }
  }

• In the same file add the following under buildTypes > release - it should immediately follow the proguardFiles line

  signingConfig signingConfigs.release

• In Terminal or Command Prompt build the project for release by navigating to the android folder and running

  BASH

  ./gradlew assembleRelease

• Find the app-release.apk file at android > app > build > outputs > apk > release - this is the file used to upload to the Google Play store

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