How to: Deploy and publish a SharePoint solution to a local SharePoint site
Applies to: 
Visual Studio 
Visual Studio for Mac
Note
This article applies to Visual Studio 2017. If you're looking for the latest Visual Studio documentation, see Visual Studio documentation. We recommend upgrading to the latest version of Visual Studio. Download it here
You can deploy or publish SharePoint solutions to a local SharePoint server on your development computer. The deployment process copies the .wsp file to the SharePoint server, installs the solution, and then activates the features. The publishing process only copies the .wsp file to the SharePoint server and installs it. You must manually activate it to enable it in SharePoint.
To deploy a SharePoint solution to the local SharePoint server
In Solution Explorer, choose the project that you want to deploy.
On the menu bar, choose Build, Deploy Solution.
The .wsp file is created and installed on the local SharePoint server. Also, the features are activated.
To publish a SharePoint solution to a local SharePoint server
In Solution Explorer, open the shortcut menu for the SharePoint project that you want to publish and then choose Publish.
In the Publish dialog box, choose the Publish to File System option button.
In the Target Location text box, enter a local path, and then choose the Publish button.
The publishing progress appears in the Visual Studio Output window. When the process is finished, the solution (.wsp) file is installed on the local SharePoint server. However, it must still be activated to be used in SharePoint. If the solution file already exists, an error occurs and asks whether you want to overwrite the existing file. For information on upgrading the package, see the section on upgrading remote packages in How to: Deploy, publish, and upgrade SharePoint solutions on a remote server.