Distribute
Important
Visual Studio App Center is scheduled for retirement on March 31, 2025. While you can continue to use Visual Studio App Center until it is fully retired, there are several recommended alternatives that you may consider migrating to.
App Center Distribute is a tool for developers to quickly release builds to end user devices. Distribute supports Android, iOS, macOS, UWP, WPF and WinForms apps, allowing you to manage app distribution across multiple platforms all in one place. With a complete install portal experience, Distribute isn't only a powerful solution for beta app tester distribution but also a convenient alternative to distribution through the public app stores. Automate your distribution workflow even further with our App Center Build and public app store integrations. Upon the completion of a successful build, automatically submit your app release to TestFlight, Apple App Store, Google Play, and Intune.
Getting Started
Distributing with App Center is quick and easy, and doesn't require the App Center SDK to get started.
- Add collaborators to your app to collaborate and grant access to all releases.
- Create Distribution Groups to organize your testers and manage access.
- Upload a new application build and select the users and distribution groups for the release.
- After you've distributed a new release, App Center sends an email to the chosen users notifying them that a new build is available for them to download.
- Integrate the App Center SDK and enable In-App Updates to help your users stay always on the latest release.
- Install the release onto your device by clicking on the link in the email.
If you're distributing an iOS build, learn more about how we assist with the collection of device UDIDs for device provisioning or enable you to automate the whole process with auto-provisioning.