How to Build a Flutter App

Build a Flutter app so you can run and test it as an app on iPhone or Android smartphones.

Download bundletool

First, if you haven’t downloaded it yet, download Java’s bundletool.

Release 1.4.0 · google/bundletool

Check Build Settings

As preparation, check the following items.

Reviewing the app manifest located in /android/app/src/main e.g. android:label e.g. android.permission.INTERNET

Review the manifest file. For example, for most apps, the permission to enable internet use, android.permission.INTERNET, is said to be essential.

Reviewing the build configuration build.gradle, located in /android/app e.g. applicationId, versionCode & versionName, minSdkVersion, compilesdkVersion, & targetSdkVersion

Review the build settings. For example, check if applicationId, versionCode, etc. have the correct values.

(Reference)

Build and release an Android app - Flutter

(Build) Generate apks, aab files

There are two ways to build an app from Flutter. First, the more modern method is apks, aab. Next, there is the legacy method of building apk.

Build apks, aab

The procedure to build apks, aab.

Move the directory to the project.

cd C:\pg\flutter\tmpapp\flutter_application_2\

Don’t forget to clean the project.

flutter clean

Build the apks file.

flutter build appbundle

Use the bundletool you downloaded earlier here. Build the apks file.

java -jar C:\pg\_android\bin\bundletool-all-1.4.0.jar build-apks --bundle="build\app\outputs\bundle\release\app-release.aab" --output=./tmp.apks

Deploy the apks file to the device and make it executable. If there are no errors up to this point, you should be able to select and run the app from the device at this stage.

java -jar C:\pg\_android\bin\bundletool-all-1.4.0.jar install-apks --apks=./tmp.apks --device-id BH901B6F5L

Build apk

The procedure to build apk.

First, don’t forget to clean the project.

flutter clean

Build the apk file.

flutter build apk

The built apk file needs to be manually deployed to the device. I set up a web server in my local environment and download and launch the apk file from my smartphone. The apk seems convenient for distribution on Github as well.