Get your app onto Google Play

Uruvak's job ends at the download link. Everything on this page happens outside Uruvak: on your phone, in your own Google Play Console account, under your name and your credit card. There is nowhere in Uruvak to connect a Google Play account, and no step of a store submission is automated for you. This page is here so you know exactly where the line is before you spend money.

Install it on your own phone first#

Do this whatever you decide about the stores. It is the only way to see the real app — the Studio preview is a drawing of it, this is the thing itself.

1. 01

   Get the APK onto an Android phone

   Open Settings › Releases and press ⬇ Download on a row marked Ready. See Take a release if you have not made one yet.

   The easiest route is to sign in to app.uruvak.com in the phone's own browser and press ⬇ Download there, so the file lands on the phone directly. Otherwise download it on your computer and send it over by email, a cloud drive, or a cable.

2. 02

   Let Android install it

   Android refuses to install an app that did not come from the Play Store until you allow it, once, for the app you are installing from.

   Tap the downloaded .apk in your notifications or your Files app. Android tells you that browser or file app is not allowed to install apps and offers a Settings shortcut. Follow it, turn the permission on, come back, and tap Install. On most phones the setting is called "Install unknown apps" or "Allow from this source", under Apps in Settings.

   You do this once per phone. It is normal, and it is the same thing every Android app does when it is not installed from Play.

3. 03

   Open it and put it through its paces

   Check the things a shopper will hit in the first minute:

   • the home screen loads, with your images and not placeholders
   • categories and search return real products
   • a product page shows the right price and variations
   • add to cart works, and the cart total is right
   • checkout opens your WooCommerce checkout and you can complete a test order

   Then look at the home screen itself: the icon and the name under it come from the release you just installed. If either is wrong, fix it in Settings › General and take another release — they cannot be changed in an app that is already installed.

If the design looks out of date, that is expected rather than broken: the app shows what you last published live, not your Studio draft. Press Publish Live, then pull down on the app's home screen to refresh, or close the app fully and reopen it. Publish live explains when shoppers pick changes up.

What a Google Play listing involves#

None of this happens in Uruvak. It is your own work in the Google Play Console, and it takes most people a few hours spread over several days.

A developer account. Google charges a one-time $25 registration fee, in the name of the person or business that will own the app forever. Google asks for identity and contact details and does not approve the account instantly, so start this before you need it.

The app record. You give the app a name as it will appear in Play — keep it identical to the app name in Settings › General so shoppers are not confused — plus a default language and whether it is free or paid. Some of those choices are hard or impossible to change later, so read each screen rather than clicking through it. Play also ties the listing to the package name inside the app file forever — the one you set in Uruvak — which is why that field locks after your first release.

The store listing. A short description, a full description, phone screenshots, a 512 × 512 icon and a feature graphic. Use the same square icon you uploaded to Uruvak so the listing and the home-screen icon match. Screenshots you can take from the app running on your own phone.

The questionnaires. A content rating questionnaire, a data safety form describing what your app collects, a target audience declaration, and a link to a privacy policy that lives on your own website. The data safety form is the one people underestimate: answer it about your shop, since the app shows your catalog and sends orders to your own WooCommerce store.

The upload, then review. Finally you upload the app file and roll it out — usually to an internal testing track first, then to production. Review takes days, not minutes, and it happens again on every update.

The part Uruvak cannot do for you yet#

This is the honest list. None of it is hidden behind a plan.

• Uruvak does not submit apps. There is no Google Play or Apple connection anywhere in the product. The release dialog's line "Upload it to Google Play" is describing your job, not ours.
• You get an APK, Play wants an AAB. New listings on Google Play must be uploaded as an Android App Bundle. Our build machines produce an APK.
• The file is signed with a shared test key. Play expects an app signed with a release key tied to your own account.
• Releases are not version-numbered. Every file we build carries the same version, so even if Play accepted the first one it would reject the second as a duplicate.
• There is no iPhone build at all. The iOS button reads iOS — soon on every plan. Nothing you can buy today produces an iPhone app.

If a Google Play listing is the reason you are here, talk to Uruvak support before you register a developer account. Tell us your store and your timeline, and we will tell you honestly where that work stands.

What you can do with the APK today#

Quite a lot, as it happens — none of it needs Google's permission.

• Test properly. Install it on your own phone and on your staff's phones. It is the real app, talking to your real store.
• Hand it out directly. Email the file, put it behind a link on your own website, or print a QR code for the counter. Each person goes through the same one-time "allow from this source" step, and Android may warn them that the app did not come from Play. That warning is expected for any app installed this way.
• Keep it fresh without sending a new file. People who installed the APK directly do not get automatic updates — but they do not need one for day-to-day changes. Your design, blocks, products and theme reach every installed app through Publish Live, with no new file and no store involved. You only need to send a new APK when the app name, the icon or the push setup changes.

When your app is on real phones, the next thing worth switching on is notifications: Push notifications.