Distribute your instant experience

Once you've built an app that supports an instant experience, you can use Play Console to distribute your app to users.

Prerequisites

If you're creating an instant experience for the first time, you must use the Android App Bundle to build your app. Using an instant-enabled app bundle means that you only need to build, sign and upload a single artifact once to support your app’s installed version and instant experience.

Step 1: Enable Instant Apps

First, you need to add Google Play Instant as a release type and ensure that it’s active.

1. Open Play Console and go to the Advanced settings page (Test and release > Setup > Advanced settings).
2. Select the Form factors tab.
3. Click + Add form factor and select Google Play Instant.

Following these steps, Google Play Instant will be listed as a release type and the status will read as Active with a green tick.

Step 2: Create a release

A release is a combination of one or more build artifacts that you'll prepare to roll out an app or an app update. You can create an instant release on the following tracks:

• Internal testing: Internal testing releases are available to up to 100 testers that you choose.
• Closed testing: Closed testing releases are available to a limited number of testers that you choose, who can test a pre-release version of your app and submit feedback.
• Production: Production releases are available to all Google Play users in your chosen countries.

Important: You must have the Release apps to testing tracks permission to create a new release. Country targeting for closed tracks is inherited from what's set in Production and cannot be set differently.

To create your instant experience release:

1. Open Play Console and go to the track on which you want to start your release:
   • Closed testing(Test and release >Testing > Closed testing)
     • Note: To create a release on an existing closed testing track, select Manage track. To create a new track, click Create track.
   • Internal testing(Test and release > Testing > Internal testing)
   • Production (Test and release > Production)
2. Near the top right of the page, there's a release type filter with Standard selected by default. Click the down arrow to view the release types and select Instant apps only.
3. Creating an instant release differs slightly depending on what track you’re creating a release to:
   • For internal testing and for production releases: Near the top right of the page, click Create new release.
   • For closed testing releases: Click 'Manage track' next to the 'Alpha' track, and then select Create new release.
     • Note: If Create new release is disabled, you may have outstanding setup tasks to complete. These may be listed on the Dashboard page.

For more information about setting up each track type, select the relevant section below. To find out more about testing in general, go to Set up an open, closed or internal test.

Track details

Internal and closed testing

Add testers

Follow the instructions in our testing article to create tester lists and invite testers to use your app and distribute your instant experience to the internal testing or closed testing track.

Before sharing your app’s link with testers, note the following:

• Tester configurations apply to the corresponding installed and instant app track. For example, when you add a tester list to a closed testing track for your installed app, the same list applies to the closed testing track for your instant experience.
• Testers can only test one instant experience release track at a time. This means that if a tester is trying your app's internal test release and then opts in to test the closed testing release, they will automatically be removed from the internal test release.

Production

When you're creating a production release, you can change the countries where your instant experience is available. By default, the selected countries will match where you offer your installed app.

You can target countries and regions that have been selected for your standard app in production or pre-registration. To change your app's country distribution, select the Countries/regions tab on the instant app release's Production page (Test and release > Production).

Step 3: Prepare your instant experience's release

1. Follow the on-screen instructions to add your instant-enabled app bundle and name your release.
   • The release name is only for use in Play Console and won't be visible to users.
   • We'll auto-populate the field with the version name in your manifest.
   • To make your release easier to identify in Play Console, add a release name that's meaningful to you, like the build version ('3.2.5-RC2') or an internal code name ('Banana').
2. To save any changes that you make to your release, select Save.
3. When you've finished preparing your release, select Review release.

Step 4: Review and roll out your release

Prerequisite: Before you can roll out your release, make sure that you've completed your app's store listing and content rating sections, and set up its prices.

If you've filled in these sections for the installed version of your app, the same information will apply to your instant experience. Bear in mind that instant experience availability is defined by your instant experience manifest and not by your app's device exclusions.

Once you're ready to roll out your instant experience, you can follow the instructions to review and roll out your release.

Step 5: Review release details

Once you've created a release, you'll see the information for the latest app release on your Closed testing, Internal testing or Production page. Use the release type filter (Standard is selected by default) to select Instant Apps only, find your release and view the following information:

• Release summary: Information about the release including the release time and date, and device availability.
• App bundles: A list of active, retained and deactivated instant-enabled app bundles related to this release.
• Roll-out history: A timeline that shows timestamps for when your app's release was halted or resumed.

You can also find your instant release by searching for it on the Releases overview page (Test and release > Releases overview).

Direct users to the mobile web

A percentage of users

If you're interested in testing the performance between the mobile web and your instant experience, you can direct a percentage of traffic to the mobile web. This is known as a mobile hold-back.

To set up a mobile hold-back:

1. Open Play Console and select an app.
2. Go to the track page for the instant release that you want to adjust (Closed testing, Internal testing or Production), or search for it on the Releases overview page (Test and release > Releases overview).
3. Near the top right of the page, click the release type filter (Standard is selected by default) and select Instant Apps only.
4. Select the Mobile web tab.
5. Next to 'Users to direct to mobile web', enter the percentage of users whom you want to direct to mobile web. For example, if you enter 0.95, 95% of instant experience-eligible traffic will be sent to the mobile web. The remaining 5% will be sent to your instant experience.
6. Save your changes.

All users

If you've found an issue with your instant app and want to redirect all of your users (across all tracks) to the mobile web:

1. Open Play Console and go to the Advanced settings page (Test and release > Setup > Advanced settings).
2. Scroll down to the 'Google Play Instant' section and click Manage.
3. Untick the Instant app active tick box.
4. Click Save

Fix an error

If you're receiving an error about split APKs, go to the Android developers site for more information.