I was able to sign my APK using Upload key provided by Google Play. Here are the steps I followed for a new app:
- Create a keystore and add a signing key using Android Studio
- Sign the app using the key created in (1)
- Upload the APK to Google Play
- Download “Upload certificate” from Google Play Console
- Add downloaded certificate to the keystore created in step (1) using command
keytool.exe -importcert -file upload_cert.der -keystore <keystorefile>
- It should prompt that “Certificate already exists in keystore under alias . Do you still want to add it? [no]:”
- Type ‘y’ and press enter
- A confirmation message will appear
- For subsequent builds sign the app using the same process as in (2)
Important point to note here is that in step (6), the keytool import updates the original certificate with the one downloaded from Google Play.