Previously you learned how to build and test an
Expo application on your own simulator
or device to ensure the latest version shipped to app users is working
as expected. EAS Build allows you to do this. It's a simple way to
prepare and bundle a similar application
version to the one that will be uploaded to
the Google Play Store. But now it's time to embrace the next step in the pipeline, which is uploading your build
into the Google Play Store. Similar to EAS Build Expo comes with another tool
called EAS Submit, which enables you to submit your app binaries to the
Android and iOS stores. Binaries are the files in
which your source code has been converted into
machine-readable code. It's also a hosted service
that Expo built to simplify the process and abstract as much
complexity as possible. Let's begin by
exploring the steps to submit your applications
to the Google Play Store. Expo has put together a detailed guide to assist you on this
journey and you can access it via the official
documentation link found in the
additional resources. Let's start by outlining the
prerequisites that need to be completed before you can
use the EAS Submit tool. First, a paid Google
Play developer account is essential to
acquire the account, follow the link in the
Expo documentation. Note that the
membership requires a a one-time fee, which is payable when
you publish your first application. Once you have your Google
Play developer account, create a Google service account. This handles app submissions on your behalf and
retrieves the JSON key. Once again, this
is accessible via the Expo documentation webpage. The third step is
to create an app on Google Play Console and upload your app
manually, at least once. Preparing an Android
production build requires a minimum
configuration of adding a new key named production to the Build section of
your eas.json file. Then run the command
EAS build dash p, Android dash, dash profile production to
get an AAB file format. AAB stands for
Android app bundle, which is the recommended
format for Google Play. It is uploaded manually. Next, ensure you have the EAS CLI installed and
that you're logged in. If needed, recall
your login details from building and testing
your application video. Great. Once you meet
all the prerequisites, start the submission
by first building a standalone app with
EAS build dash p, Android dash, dash
profile production. The next step is
to make sure your eas.json file is configured properly for the
production environment. To do so, let's review the various options available to you in the Expo documentation. Observe this code snippet on the eas.json page in the
Expo documentation, which depicts a key
element that adds a new top-level
property called Submit. The JSON object under
the submit key can contain multiple submit
profiles, all arbitrary. This example uses the
production profile. Each profile has two
additional JSON objects that define a Per Platform
Configuration, Android and iOS. For Android, the most
important properties are service account
key path and track. Service account key path defines the path
to the JSON file with the service
account key that's used to authenticate
with Google Play. That's essentially the second prerequisite outlined earlier. Track refers to the
specific Google Play track you want to use to
upload the application. This is either production beta, alpha, or internal. To test the application with
a closed group of testers, internal alpha or beta, are the best-suited
options because production makes it
available to everyone. The final step is to
run your terminal with the command EAS Submit dash p Android to initiate
the submission process. The command is
interactive and prompts several options for you
to tailor the submission. In this video, you have learned about all the necessary steps to prepare your Expo application for submission to
Google Play Store.