Create your Google Play app record

Before Vunda can upload your Android app, an app record has to exist in your Google Play Console account for it to upload into. Google offers no way for an outside app like Vunda to create that record for you, so this one is yours to do - once, in your own account, in a couple of minutes. Expo, whose build service we use, lists it as a prerequisite in exactly those terms: create an app by clicking Create app in the Google Play Console. (Source: Expo - submit to Google Play.)

Vunda tracks this as one of your outstanding publish steps, shown as Create your app in Google Play Console - see Set up your store accounts below until it is done.

What you will need

• A Google Play Console developer account. If you have not opened one yet, start with Set up your Apple Developer and Google Play accounts.
• Your app's Android package name. Vunda derives this for you and shows it on the Publish page in your Shopify admin, in the Create your app record in each store step, with a Copy button next to it. There is nothing to ask us for. It looks like app.vunda.yourstore.
• The name you want shoppers to see on Google Play, and your app's default language.

Step 1: create the app in Play Console

This step happens inside Google Play Console, not in Vunda, so the exact screens are owned by Google. Verify against their current guide before you rely on it.

Open Google Play Console and choose Create app. Google asks you for four things:

• App name, as you want it to appear on Google Play.
• Default language.
• Whether this is an app or a game.
• Whether it is free or paid.

Some of these are hard to change once your app has been published, so read the notes Google shows on the form before you submit it. (Source: Create and set up your app.)

Step 2: know how the package name binds

Play Console does not ask you to type a package name when you create the record. Google takes it from the first app bundle uploaded to that record, and from then on it is fixed. The Publish page says the same thing next to the value: In Google Play Console use Create app. The package name binds to your app when we upload your first build.

Google's own wording on permanence is blunt: "Package names for app files are unique and permanent, so please name them carefully. Package names can't be deleted or re-used in the future." (Source: Create and set up your app.)

Two things follow from that:

• Create a new, empty app record for your Vunda app, and let our upload be its first one.
• If this record has already had a different app bundle uploaded to it - an app a previous agency built for you, say - tell us before you publish. Our build will not be able to upload into it, and we will work out the right path with you.

Step 3: let Vunda make the first upload

You do not need to upload anything by hand. Our build service submits your Android app for you, and the first submission creates your app's first release on the internal testing track. There is no manual first upload to do.

We deliberately send it as a draft on that track ("track": "internal" with "releaseStatus": "draft" in our submit configuration), so nothing reaches shoppers on its own. You open the draft in Play Console, review it, roll it out to internal testing, then promote it to production when you are happy. The step-by-step is in Publish your app to the App Store and Google Play. (Sources: Expo - submit to Google Play, Prepare and roll out a release.)

If yours is a newer personal Play account

Google applies an extra testing requirement to personal developer accounts created after November 13, 2023: you have to run a closed test before you can apply for production access. It does not block your Vunda build or the internal-testing upload above, but it does sit between you and a public release, so plan for it early. The detail, including how many testers you need and for how long, is in the Android part of Publish your app to the App Store and Google Play. (Source: App testing requirements for new personal developer accounts.)

After you create the record

Your Play record is ready to receive builds. The access we need to upload into it is covered in Give Vunda access to your store accounts, and your listing content in Complete your store listings. The iOS equivalent of this guide is Create your App Store Connect app record.