How to roam data between a Windows Store app and a Windows Phone Store app

[ This article is for Windows 8.x and Windows Phone 8.x developers writing Windows Runtime apps. If you’re developing for Windows 10, see the latest documentation ]

If you publish two versions of your app - a version for Windows Store and a version for Windows Phone Store - you can roam app data across the apps running on the two different types of devices. To roam data across different versions of your app on different types of devices, assign the same Package Family Name (PFN) to each version of the app.

Instructions

If you already have a Windows Store app

If you already have a published Windows Store app, and you want to roam data between the Windows Store app and the Windows Phone Store version of the app, do the following things.

1. In the Windows Phone Dev Center, on your Dashboard, click Submit an app.
2. On the App info page, in the App name drop down list, select the name of the Windows Store version of the app. Click Reserve app name.
3. In Microsoft Visual Studio, open your Windows Phone Store app.
4. In Solution Explorer, right-click on the project. From the context menu, select Store | Associate App with the Store.
5. On the Select an app name page of the wizard, select the name that you reserved in Step 2.

If you already have a Windows Phone Store app

If you already have a published Windows Phone Store app, and you want to roam data between the Windows Phone Store app and the Windows Store version of the app, do the following things.

1. In the Windows Dev Center, on your Dashboard, click Submit an app.
2. On the App name page, select Use an existing app name, and then select the name of the Windows Phone Store version of the app. Click Reserve app name.
3. In Visual Studio, open your Windows Store app.
4. In Solution Explorer, right-click on the project. From the context menu, select Store | Associate App with the Store.
5. On the Select an app name page of the wizard, select the name that you reserved in Step 2.