Publish to App store

Requirements:

• Xcode

• A Paid Apple Developers account

• A valid provisioning profile

• App Development and Distribution certificates

Register a Bundle ID

Every iOS application is associated with a Bundle ID, a unique identifier registered with Apple. To register a Bundle ID for your app, follow these steps:

• Open the App IDs page of your developer account.

• Click + to create a new Bundle ID.

• Enter an app name, select Explicit App ID, and enter an ID.

• Select the services your app uses, then click Continue.

• On the next page, confirm the details and click Register to register your Bundle ID.

Register your app on App Store Connect:

• Open App Store Connect in your browser.

• On the App Store Connect landing page, click My Apps.

• Click + in the top-left corner of the My Apps page, then select New App.

• Fill in your app details in the form that appears. In the Platforms section, ensure that iOS is checked. Since Flutter does not currently support tvOS, leave that checkbox unchecked. Click Create.

• Navigate to the application details for your app and select App Information from the sidebar.

• In the General Information section, select the Bundle ID you registered in the preceding step.

For a detailed overview, see Add an app to your account.

Review Xcode project settings

This step covers reviewing the most important settings in the Xcode workspace. For detailed procedures and descriptions, see Prepare for app distribution.

Navigate to your target’s settings in Xcode:

• In Xcode, open Runner.xcworkspace in your app’s ios folder.

• To view your app’s settings, select the Runner project in the Xcode project navigator. Then, in the main view sidebar, select the Runner target.

• Select the General tab.

Verify the most important settings.

In the Identity section:

Display NameThe display name of your app.Bundle IdentifierThe App ID you registered on App Store Connect.

In the Signing & Capabilities section:

Automatically manage signingWhether Xcode should automatically manage app signing and provisioning. This is set true by default, which should be sufficient for most apps. For more complex scenarios, see the Code Signing Guide.TeamSelect the team associated with your registered Apple Developer account. If required, select Add Account…, then update this setting.

In the Build Settings section:

iOS Deployment TargetThe minimum iOS version that your app supports. Flutter supports iOS 9.0 and later. If your app or plugins include Objective-C or Swift code that makes use of APIs newer than iOS 9, update this setting to the highest required version.

The General tab of your project settings should resemble the following:

Create a build archive with Xcode

This step covers creating a build archive and uploading your build to App Store Connect.

During development, you’ve been building, debugging, and testing with debug builds. When you’re ready to ship your app to users on the App Store or TestFlight, you need to prepare a release build. At this point, you might consider obfuscating your Dart code to make it more difficult to reverse engineer. Obfuscating your code involves adding a couple flags to your build command.

In Xcode, configure the app version and build:

1. In Xcode, open Runner.xcworkspace in your app’s ios folder.

2. Select Runner in the Xcode project navigator, then select the Runner target in the settings view sidebar.

3. In the Identity section, update the Version to the user-facing version number you wish to publish.

4. In the Identity section, update the Build identifier to a unique build number used to track this build on App Store Connect. Each upload requires a unique build number.

Finally, create a build archive and upload it to App Store Connect:

1. Run flutter build ipa to produce a build archive.

   Note: On versions of Flutter where flutter build ipa is unavailable, open Xcode and select Product > Archive. In the sidebar of the Xcode Organizer window, select your iOS app, then select the build archive you just produced.

2. Open build/ios/archive/MyApp.xcarchive in Xcode.

3. Click the Validate App button. If any issues are reported, address them and produce another build. You can reuse the same build ID until you upload an archive.

4. After the archive has been successfully validated, click Distribute App. You can follow the status of your build in the Activities tab of your app’s details page on App Store Connect.

   Note: When you export your app at the end of Distribute App, Xcode will create a directory containing an IPA of your app and an ExportOptions.plist file. You can create new IPAs with the same options without launching Xcode by running flutter build ipa --export-options-plist=path/to/ExportOptions.plist. See xcodebuild -h for details about the keys in this property list.

You should receive an email within 30 minutes notifying you that your build has been validated and is available to release to testers on TestFlight. At this point, you can choose whether to release on TestFlight or go ahead and release your app to the App Store.

For more details, see Upload an app to App Store Connect.

The Distribute your app guide provides a detailed overview of the process of releasing an app to the App Store.