Create APK for react‐native project in windows - arnabutilities/rbac-frontend GitHub Wiki

To create an APK from your React Native project on Windows, you need to follow these steps:

1. Prepare Your Project for Release

Open your project in VSCode or any text editor.

Edit android/app/build.gradle:

Set minifyEnabled and proguardFiles under the release block to optimize the APK size:

android {
    ...
    buildTypes {
        release {
            // Caution! Minifying and obfuscating your code can make it harder to debug.
            minifyEnabled enableProguardInReleaseBuilds
            proguardFiles getDefaultProguardFile("proguard-android.txt"), "proguard-rules.pro"
        }
    }
}

Create a key to sign the APK:
- Open a Command Prompt or PowerShell and navigate to your project's android/app directory:
```
cd android/app
```
- Run the following command to generate a keystore:
```
keytool -genkey -v -keystore my-release-key.keystore -keyalg RSA -keysize 2048 -validity 10000 -alias my-key-alias
```
- Follow the prompts to set up the keystore. Remember the passwords and alias as you will need them later.

Configure the keystore in gradle:

Create a file named key.properties in the android directory and add the following lines, replacing the placeholders with your actual values:
```
storePassword=<your-keystore-password>
keyPassword=<your-key-password>
keyAlias=my-key-alias
storeFile=my-release-key.keystore
```

Edit android/app/build.gradle to load the keystore configuration:

def keystorePropertiesFile = rootProject.file("key.properties")
def keystoreProperties = new Properties()
keystoreProperties.load(new FileInputStream(keystorePropertiesFile))

android {
    ...
    signingConfigs {
        release {
            keyAlias keystoreProperties["keyAlias"]
            keyPassword keystoreProperties["keyPassword"]
            storeFile file(keystoreProperties["storeFile"])
            storePassword keystoreProperties["storePassword"]
        }
    }
    buildTypes {
        release {
            ...
            signingConfig signingConfigs.release
        }
    }
}

2. Build the Release APK

Open a terminal and navigate to your React Native project directory:
```
cd MyFirstProject
```
Run the following command to assemble the release APK:
```
npx react-native run-android --variant=release
```

3. Locate the APK

After the build is complete, you can find your release APK at:

MyFirstProject/android/app/build/outputs/apk/release/app-release.apk

4. Testing the APK

Transfer the app-release.apk file to your Android device and install it to test the application.

By following these steps, you should be able to generate a signed APK for your React Native project on Windows.