Chinmay Mhatre

Posted on Aug 6, 2021 • Edited on Sep 20, 2022

How To Generate apk Using React Native Expo

Introduction

Hey everyone! Here is a quick article on how to generate an apk for your react native expo app.

Install expo CLI

I assume, if you are reading a blog on exporting the app , you have already installed the expo CLI 👀.

To check if you have expo CLI install run



 expo -V

In the command line, If you get a version number that indicates you have expo install.

In case you don't. You can install it using npm.

We also need the eas build tools



npm install --global expo-cli eas-cli

Create expo account and login

First requirement for generating the apk file is creating an expo account.
Create an account here

After logging in, you will be redirected to your expo dashboard.

Login to expo CLI

Open cmd
Login to expo account using the command : ```

expo login

![login](https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/51131670/126795309-6f36664b-4edd-4bab-9710-d332635f6dea.PNG)
To check which user you are logged in with, use the command

expo whoami

![image](https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/51131670/127814587-67a4f021-fd70-4b9f-943c-b635e67ba5bd.png)

---

## Edit Config
By default the eas build tool will give you a playstore build file.

If you want a .apk file you need to create a `eas.json` file and add a `buildType` as `apk`.

{
"build": {
"preview": {
"android": {
"buildType": "apk"
}
},
"preview2": {
"android": {
"gradleCommand": ":app:assembleRelease"
}
},
"preview3": {
"developmentClient": true
},
"production": {}
}
}



You can check out more about the eas build tool [here](https://docs.expo.dev/build/introduction/).

---

## Build
Open cmd in your app directory.

Run the build command 
```sh


eas build -p android --profile preview

Wait for the build to complete...

Download apk

After the build is complete you can go to the builds section in your dashboard and download the apk.

Hope you found this useful. See you in the next one!

Top comments (32)

Arya Shreyas • Jan 19 '23

Thanks man! Easy and simple.

amahuika • Nov 8 '22

Hey, Great post thanks for sharing!.

Jean Michell • Feb 18 '23

Loved it! thank you.

Comment hidden by post author - thread only accessible via permalink

MehdiNoori5233 • Mar 26 '22

Hi There.
After I runned this command: "expo build:android" in the VS Code,
I see this error:
"Uploading JavaScript bundles
read ECONNRESET
Error: read ECONNRESET
at TLSWrap.onStreamRead (internal/stream_base_commons.js:209:20)
"

Please give me a solution.

Chinmay Mhatre • May 1 '22

Hey,
Expo sdk recently had an update. A new cli has been put in place to build apks. you can take a look at this : expo.dev/eas

azharuddin1801734 • Jun 1 '23

i am facing this issues or errors during follow these steps for generate apk using expo
can anyone help me for solve these problems during generate apk using expo in react native project

Running 'gradlew :app:assembleRelease' in /home/expo/workingdir/build/android

Downloading services.gradle.org/distributions/...

10%

20%.

30%.

40%.

50%.

60%.

70%.

80%.

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100%

Welcome to Gradle 7.5.1!

Here are the highlights of this release:

Support for Java 18
Support for building with Groovy 4
Much more responsive continuous builds
Improved diagnostics for dependency resolution

For more details see docs.gradle.org/7.5.1/release-note...

To honour the JVM settings for this build a single-use Daemon process will be forked. See docs.gradle.org/7.5.1/userguide/gr....

Daemon will be stopped at the end of the build

[stderr]
FAILURE: Build failed with an exception.

[stderr]

Where:

[stderr]
Script '/home/expo/workingdir/build/node_modules/@react-native-community/cli-platform-android/native_modules.gradle' line: 250

[stderr]

What went wrong:

[stderr]
A problem occurred evaluating script.

[stderr]

[stderr]
Calling [node, /home/expo/workingdir/build/node_modules/@react-native-community/cli/build/bin.js, config] finished with an exception. Error message: groovy.json.JsonException: Unable to determine the current character, it is not a string, number, array, or object

[stderr]

[stderr]
The current character read is 'E' with an int value of 69

[stderr]
Unable to determine the current character, it is not a string, number, array, or object

[stderr]
line number 1

[stderr]
index number 0

[stderr]
Error: Package name not found in /home/expo/workingdir/build/android/app/src/main/AndroidManifest.xml at Object.projectConfig (/home/expo/workingdir/build/node_modules/@react-native-community/cli-platform-android/build/config/index.js:74:11) at Object.get project as project at filterConfig (/home/expo/workingdir/build/node_modules/@react-native-community/cli/build/commands/config/config.js:13:20) at Object.func (/home/expo/workingdir/build/node_modules/@react-native-community/cli/build/commands/config/config.js:27:32) at Command.handleAction (/home/expo/workingdir/build/node_modules/@react-native-community/cli/build/index.js:192:23) at Command.listener (/home/expo/workingdir/build/node_modules/@react-native-community/cli/node_modules/commander/index.js:315:8) at Command.emit (node:events:513:28) at Command.parseArgs (/home/expo/workingdir/build/node_modules/@react-native-community/cli/node_modules/commander/index.js:651:12) at Command.parse (/home/expo/workingdir/build/node_modules/@react-native-community/cli/node_modules/commander/index.js:474:21) at setupAndRun (/home/expo/workingdir/build/node_modules/@react-native-community/cli/build/index.js:271:24)info Run CLI with --verbose flag for more details.

[stderr]
^. Output: Error: Package name not found in /home/expo/workingdir/build/android/app/src/main/AndroidManifest.xml at Object.projectConfig (/home/expo/workingdir/build/node_modules/@react-native-community/cli-platform-android/build/config/index.js:74:11) at Object.get project as project at filterConfig (/home/expo/workingdir/build/node_modules/@react-native-community/cli/build/commands/config/config.js:13:20) at Object.func (/home/expo/workingdir/build/node_modules/@react-native-community/cli/build/commands/config/config.js:27:32) at Command.handleAction (/home/expo/workingdir/build/node_modules/@react-native-community/cli/build/index.js:192:23) at Command.listener (/home/expo/workingdir/build/node_modules/@react-native-community/cli/node_modules/commander/index.js:315:8) at Command.emit (node:events:513:28) at Command.parseArgs (/home/expo/workingdir/build/node_modules/@react-native-community/cli/node_modules/commander/index.js:651:12) at Command.parse (/home/expo/workingdir/build/node_modules/@react-native-community/cli/node_modules/commander/index.js:474:21) at setupAndRun (/home/expo/workingdir/build/node_modules/@react-native-community/cli/build/index.js:271:24)info Run CLI with --verbose flag for more details.

[stderr]

Try:

[stderr]

Run with --stacktrace option to get the stack trace.

[stderr]

Run with --info or --debug option to get more log output.

[stderr]

Run with --scan to get full insights.

[stderr]

Get more help at help.gradle.org

[stderr]
BUILD FAILED in 18s

Error: Gradle build failed with unknown error. See logs for the "Run gradlew" phase for more information.

please provide me solutions of these errors

Anuj Awasthi • Jan 1

I am Calling an Inside my expo App which is being successfully implemented, But same is not being called in APK. Can you help me with that?

Comment hidden by post author - thread only accessible via permalink

Dipesh Kumar Sah • May 20 '22

It's not working on EXPO version 45.0.0. you have to give another method to create apk using expo.

Chinmay Mhatre • Sep 20 '22

Updated the blog for the new method

AhmadNoor4050 • Nov 17 '22

Using EXPO 45 butt know 47verion how to create APK.

Chinmay Mhatre • Nov 17 '22

I believe this methods works with version 47

Ashwith Poojary • Aug 7 '21

Very well explained! 🙌

Raushan Kumar • Jan 25

After build apk it will not run on Android when i install on Android device and open it will show keeps stopping. Please help me what is the issue and how can i solve this issue anyone can help please... I am frustrating about 2 day's and not able to find the solution..