Over-the-Air Updates

Send changes to your published iOS and Android apps without a store review

Over-the-air updates send changes straight to your published iOS and Android apps, with no App Store or Google Play review. Fix a bug or change some text, send an update, and people who already installed your app get it the next time they restart it.

What an update can change

An update replaces your app’s JavaScript and assets, such as screens, logic, text, and images. Anything built into the app binary still needs a new store build:

Adding, removing, or upgrading a package that includes native code
App settings such as the app name, icon, splash screen, permissions, or config plugins
The Expo SDK version

If you send an update after one of these changes, it stops with No store build can receive this update and asks you to publish a new store build instead. Once that store build is live, you can send updates to it.

Turn on over-the-air updates

Open the Publishing page and select the Publish Destinations tab.
Select the Over-the-Air Updates card.
Read Before you turn this on, then check I understand my published apps will depend on Draftbit for updates.
Select Turn on over-the-air updates.
Publish a new iOS or Android store build.

Over-the-air updates start with your next store build. Store builds you published before turning them on can’t receive updates. Once a store build that can receive updates has finished, it appears under Store builds that receive updates in the card’s dialog.

Store builds that can receive updates only get updates from Draftbit.

Send an update

Select Publish in the top right of the builder.
On the Over-the-Air Update row, select Publish. The row lists the production store builds the update will go to.
Choose Production or Staging. The dialog lists the store builds in that environment that will receive the update.
Select Start publish. If you have unsaved changes, choose Save & publish or Publish saved version.

Draftbit sends one update for each platform with a store build in that environment. Each update reaches the store builds in the environment you chose that have the same native code and app settings as your app does now. Production updates only go to store builds you published to production, and staging updates only to store builds you published to staging. The update uses the environment variable values for that environment from Build Config.

An update keeps the version name and number of the store build it updates, so it doesn’t change the version people see in the store.

When people get an update

When someone opens your app, it checks for a new update and downloads it in the background. The update takes effect the next time they restart the app.

To undo an update, change your app back and send another update.

Track your updates

Updates appear on the Activity tab of the Publishing page as iOS Over-the-Air Update and Android Over-the-Air Update, under the version of the store build they updated. Filter the platform list by Over-the-Air Updates to see only updates. As with other publishes, you can view logs, cancel an update that’s running, and run one update per platform and environment at a time. See Publish activity.

Over-the-air updates don’t count toward your monthly native builds and don’t use credits.

Turn off over-the-air updates

Select the Over-the-Air Updates card on the Publish Destinations tab, then select Turn off.

Turning updates off stops new updates. Store builds keep the last update you sent, including on new installs. To publish store builds that don’t check for updates, turn updates off before your next store build.

If your plan changes to one without over-the-air updates, you can’t send new updates and new store builds are published without them. Store builds you already published keep the last update you sent, including on new installs.