Firebase App Distribution

Ankur Khandelwel
Nov 2 · 1 min read

Are you sharing your APK to internal people using whatsapp,email, email-groups or private beta google play?

Problem with existing approach: You need to manually upload the apk and mail them .

Solution: Firebase CLI

How it works:

For Mac users:

  1. Run “curl -sL firebase.tools | bash” this will automatically install the firebase CLI version.
  2. Run “firebase login” that will take you the browser, login with firebase google account.
  3. Run “firebase projects:list” to check your project is sync with local firebase CLI.
  4. Run “firebase appdistribution:distribute <apk.name> — app <firebase-APP-id> — release-notes “bug fixes” — testers “<email of tester with comma separated> ”

<apk.name> apk name with full path according to your current path.

<firebase-APP-id> get from firebase console

Thats it , tester will get the email, ask them to open that mail in the phone , there will be link to install the app.

Testers who haven’t been invited to test the app receive email invitations to get started. Existing testers receive email notifications that a new build is ready to test.

References:

  1. https://firebase.google.com/docs/app-distribution/android/distribute-cli

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