Flutter Desktop Apps: Getting Started

Mar 28 2023 · Dart 2.19, Flutter 3.7, Android Studio 2021.3.1 or higher, Visual Studo Code 1.7.4 or higher

Part 1: Flutter Desktop Apps

13. Build a Release App

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If you want to distribute your app to your users, you need something to give them. On Android you would have an apk file and on iOS you would have an ipa file. Now with flutter, you can build a release version of the app as either a mac .app file or a windows .exe file. These files run on their own and don’t require flutter or any other development environment. They are fast and can be distributed. Now to actually distribute the files you will need to work with the Apple store for the mac version and the windows store for the windows version. You can go to https://flutter.dev/desktop to read more about distribution.

Terminal

To build a release build for the Mac, go to the terminal app and go to your project directory. Now type:

flutter build macos

PowerShell

On Windows we need to do something similar. Open up PowerShell or CMD. Go to the project directory and type:

flutter build windows
flutter pub add --dev msix

Android Studio

Inside of pubspec.yaml add the following configuration:

msix_config:
  display_name: Todo
  publisher_display_name: Your Company Name
  identity_name: com.kodeco.todo
  msix_version: 1.0.0.0
  capabilities: internetClient

flutter pub run msix:create