CODEWITHSUNDEEP
react-nativeexpo
re_zacks
re_zacks

Reputation: 115

Publishing expo app to App store/Google Play store

I'm currently developing an app with Expo. I've used Expo's Facebook API for users to sign in and realized that if I want to detach I'd have to use the React Native Facebook SDK. I've heard from many people that you can't publish an expo app to the app store, however, the expo website seems to say otherwise. Should I keep developing in Expo or detach and replace any of the expo imports I have?

Upvotes: 5

Views: 5430

Answers (1)

Bruno Eduardo
Bruno Eduardo

Reputation: 1373

You can easily generate a .apk or .ipa file with Expo and then upload it to the corresponding store (I have done this multiple times).

From Expo's docs:

The purpose of this guide is to help you create standalone binaries of your Expo app for iOS and Android which can be submitted to the Apple App Store and Google Play Store.

You can find detailed instructions on how to generate the binary files you need in this link.

What your friends might mean with "You can't publish an Expo app to the app store" is the publish command associated with Expo OTA updates. They even have a section explaining how to publish OTA updates to your standalone app.

A handy mindset when dealing with Expo is to think that "publishing" means using Expo's CLI tools to generate an OTA update, while "building" refers to the act of generating a new binary standalone file.

If you still need help with deploying your app to the app store check Expo's distribution guide.

Upvotes: 8

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