Today I land in a situation where “Publish Android App” option went missing in Tools menu in Visual Studio. I still didn’t find the reason why it disappeared but I found alterative way to build the package. Let’s see how we can create Android Package in Xamarin when “Publish Android App”  is missing in Tools menu.

Here is the screenshot where “Publish Android App” option is missing in Tools menu of Visual Studio while developing for Xamarin.

We can not build package as “Publish Android App” option is missing in Tools menu, the other option is using Archive option in Build menu.

Step 1: Select Archive option of Build menu as shown below.

Step 2: On clicking Archive option, the Archive option will be started.

Step 3: On completion of Archiving, you will get two option in “Open Folder” and “Distribute” as shown in below image.

Step 4: Click on open folder to get unassigned apk.

Step 5: Click on “Distribute” option to sign the apk. Clicking of “Distribute” will bring the Signing popup window as shown.

Step 6: If you have existing you can click on “Import” option and Click on “+” (plus) sign to create new key store.

From here on the signing steps are same as “Publish Android App” from Tools menu.