--- title: Deploying my Expo apps to Google Play — lessons learned description: Deploying Expo apps to Google Play is mostly straightforward with minimal code changes required. Key challenges include adjusting font sizes for Android's... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/deploying-my-expo-apps-to-google-play-lessons-learned-wugdao6w6 twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Deploying my Expo apps to Google Play — lessons learned | daily.dev og:description: Deploying Expo apps to Google Play is mostly straightforward with minimal code changes required. Key challenges include adjusting font sizes for Android's... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/deploying-my-expo-apps-to-google-play-lessons-learned-wugdao6w6 og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/WuGDAo6W6.png og:image:alt: Deploying my Expo apps to Google Play — lessons learned og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Deploying my Expo apps to Google Play — lessons learned **[Vladislav Siumbeli](https://daily.dev/sources/ezh33lu6a37km1sfscwix)** · [@vladsiu](https://daily.dev/vladsiu) · 3 min read · 213 upvotes · 30 comments ## Summary Deploying Expo apps to Google Play is mostly straightforward with minimal code changes required. Key challenges include adjusting font sizes for Android's rendering differences using a platform-specific scaling function, configuring keystores and Firebase integration with google-services.json, and finding testers through communities like Reddit and specialized testing apps. The Google Play review process proved smoother than iOS, with Firebase automatically handling Google Authentication setup for connected projects. ## Content After releasing my iOS apps, I wanted to bring them to Android. Since both were built with Expo, I expected it to be easy — and it mostly was! Still, I ran into a few surprises along the way that might help others doing the same. ### ⚙️ 1. Porting with Expo The best part? No big code changes needed. Expo made it super simple to build for Android — I didn’t need to eject or do any deep platform-specific setup. But when I started testing, I noticed something off… ### 🖋️ 2. UI issues — font sizes on Android Some screens looked slightly off on Android. It turns out Android renders font sizes just a bit larger than iOS, so my UI spacing broke in a few places. My fix: I wrote a small helper function to automatically scale font sizes down slightly on Android devices. ``` import { Platform } from "react-native"; export const normalizeFont = (size: number) => { return Platform.OS === "android" ? size * 0.95 : size; }; ``` Tiny tweak, big difference — everything looked balanced again. ### 🧩 3. Google Play configuration Here’s where it got trickier. To publish, I had to: * Generate and upload keystores (Expo does this automatically if you don’t have one). * Add the keys to Firebase for Android integration. * Download and include the `google-services.json` file in my Expo project (in the `app/` folder). Expo’s build process using `eas build -p android` handled most of it, but double-checking the Firebase connection was key. ### 🔐 4. Google Authentication setup Since my apps already used Firebase, enabling Google Auth for Android was easy — Firebase linked it automatically through the connected project. No extra manual setup needed besides enabling the provider in Firebase Console. ### 🧪 5. Closed testing — finding testers I didn’t have many Android users among my friends, so I tried a few things: * Posted testing invites on X, Reddit, and daily.dev * Found an awesome app called “12 Testers - Closed Test Pro” on Google Play, where devs test each other’s apps for 14 days. That community feedback helped a ton before the public release. ### ✅ 6. Review and approval After fixing UI details and testing everything, both apps were reviewed and approved without issues! The process was actually smoother than the iOS review 😅 ### 📱 Finally my apps are now live! 🍱 TinyRecipe is live on: - [App Store](https://apps.apple.com/app/id6749379823) - [Google Play](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.vladislavsiumbeli.foodable) 💰 TinyDebt is live on: - [App Store](https://apps.apple.com/app/id6752252043) - [Google Play](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.vladislavsiumbeli.tinydebt) ### 💡 Final thoughts If you’re using Expo, deploying to Android is surprisingly smooth — most hurdles are design-related rather than technical. Testing across devices is key, but once that’s handled, the Play Store pipeline feels quick and dev-friendly. ## Community discussion Top comments from developers on daily.dev. **@nanomicon** · 2 upvotes > Comparing to the Apple publishing process, is it as easy? I know developers tend to release on Android first because it's easier than iOS. You reminded me that iOS-first is also a valid strategy. **@tanvirshaikh** · 2 upvotes > Hey Thanks for this it's helpful 🔥🔥 **@godwinchibyk** · 1 upvotes > Congratulations. **@terkaspo** · 1 upvotes > Nice content, are you planning on releasing something related to IOS deployment? **@manurgdev** · 1 upvotes > Thanks. This is gold for beginners in Android app publishing 🚀 --- Tags: [#mobile](https://daily.dev/tags/mobile), [#android](https://daily.dev/tags/android), [#react-native](https://daily.dev/tags/react-native), [#firebase](https://daily.dev/tags/firebase) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/deploying-my-expo-apps-to-google-play-lessons-learned-wugdao6w6) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"DiscussionForumPosting","mainEntityOfPage":"https://daily.dev/posts/deploying-my-expo-apps-to-google-play-lessons-learned-wugdao6w6","headline":"Deploying my Expo apps to Google Play — lessons learned","text":"Deploying Expo apps to Google Play is mostly straightforward with minimal code changes required. Key challenges include adjusting font sizes for Android's rendering differences using a platform-specific scaling function, configuring keystores and Firebase integration with google-services.json, and finding testers through communities like Reddit and specialized testing apps. The Google Play review process proved smoother than iOS, with Firebase automatically handling Google Authentication setup for connected projects.","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/deploying-my-expo-apps-to-google-play-lessons-learned-wugdao6w6","datePublished":"2026-02-04T17:11:26.481Z","dateModified":"2026-02-04T17:11:47.178Z","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"Vladislav Siumbeli","url":"https://daily.dev/vladsiu","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--GalxSgjS--/f_auto/v1757768087/avatars/avatar_ezH33Lu6a37KM1SfsCwIx?_a=BAMClqZW0","description":"I build productivity apps ➡️ https://vladsiu.com","worksFor":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Hampr","logo":"https://res.cloudinary.com/daily-now/image/upload/s--_DEoREBB--/f_auto/v1725352678/companies/hampr"},"interactionStatistic":{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"EndorseAction"},"userInteractionCount":4690}},"image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--UwIYjyrR--/f_auto/v1770225087/posts/WuGDAo6W6?_a=BAMAMiiu0","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":213},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":30}],"comment":[{"@type":"Comment","text":"Comparing to the Apple publishing process, is it as easy? I know developers tend to release on Android first because it’s easier than iOS. You reminded me that iOS-first is also a valid strategy.","datePublished":"2026-02-13T01:31:12.571Z","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/WuGDAo6W6#c-8rjQ5SLJr","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"NaN","url":"https://daily.dev/nanomicon","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--xttHtmey--/f_auto/v1768615042/avatars/avatar_0Pwgxd8JXDKz1ZziWduWY?_a=BAMAMiiu0"},"interactionStatistic":{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":2}},{"@type":"Comment","text":"Hey Thanks for this it’s helpful 🔥🔥","datePublished":"2026-02-07T06:39:11.706Z","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/WuGDAo6W6#c-9iRoF3trL","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"Tanvir Shaikh","url":"https://daily.dev/tanvirshaikh","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--cwxvun5d--/f_auto/v1724932893/avatars/avatar_nlEHog1G2F4vZjXDeo35x"},"interactionStatistic":{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":2}},{"@type":"Comment","text":"Congratulations.","datePublished":"2026-02-21T18:00:03.643Z","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/WuGDAo6W6#c-woCkgw7aK","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"Godwin","url":"https://daily.dev/godwinchibyk","image":"https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/40585178?v=4"},"interactionStatistic":{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":1}},{"@type":"Comment","text":"Nice content, are you planning on releasing something related to IOS deployment?","datePublished":"2026-02-24T11:46:08.274Z","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/WuGDAo6W6#c-gadrJ3tOy","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"Antônio Simei","url":"https://daily.dev/terkaspo","image":"https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/79973491?v=4"},"interactionStatistic":{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":1}},{"@type":"Comment","text":"Thanks. This is gold for beginners in Android app publishing 🚀","datePublished":"2026-02-23T10:58:06.885Z","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/WuGDAo6W6#c-M9bhCOIzo","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"Manu Rodriguez Gil","url":"https://daily.dev/manurgdev","image":"https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/15105922?v=4"},"interactionStatistic":{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":1}}],"isPartOf":{"@type":"WebPage","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/ezh33lu6a37km1sfscwix","name":"Vladislav Siumbeli"}} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Vladislav Siumbeli","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/ezh33lu6a37km1sfscwix"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"Deploying my Expo apps to Google Play — lessons learned"}]} ```