Creating the iOS Development & Distribution Certificate and .p12 File

Welcome to this article, we'll learn how to generate the development & distribution certificate register in iOS development program.

Some questions that come to the mind of every iOS developer.

When do we need a development and distribution certificate?

How to genrate development and distibution certifivcate?

How to genrate .p12 file ?

What is the maximum number of certificates generated by the apple developer program?

We will discuss each question in details.

Apple offers two types of accounts such as the

Apple Developer Program Account
Apple Developer Enterprise Program Account

Both accounts operate as the same type (.cer file generate and provision profile generate), but there is a slight variation in the enterprise account.

More information Apple Developer Enterprise Program Account

The Apple Developer Program Account and the Apple Developer Enterprise Program Account provide two types of Apple certifications.

Development Certificate
Distribution Certificate

Development Certificates:

An Apple Developer Program or Apple Enterprise Developer Program account is needed to create a Signing Certificate for developing iOS App.

You use developer certificate for when you want to install the applications using XCode or testing purpose.

Production(Distribution) certificates:

Distribution certificates are required when you want to put an app on the App Store or when you want to send an AdHoc build to testers which they will install themselves without using Xcode.

Let’s go through the process of generating the certificates.

Click to Certificates and click on the "+" button to add a new certificate.

Click on the add new certificate which prompt you to select the type of certificate that you want to create as shown below.

If you need iOS Application for development:

Set up a certificate of type Development and activate iOS App Development.

If you need iOS App Distribution certificate:

Set up a certificate of type Production and activate App Store and Ad Hoc.

Both development and distribution certificate process are similar.

Select the CSR file you created previously article and press “Continue”.

Press click to download the certificate to the local machine.

At this stage, you'll have the file with .cer extension downloaded to your local machine.

How to genrate .p12 File

You can double click on the certificate to feature it to the keychain. click the certificate right click and select export this will export the certificate.

It will have the name "iPhone Distribution Certificate".you can change it .

Select the file format ".p12" and save your local machine.

Finally, when asked for a password Enter a password otherwise you'll leave these both blank if you desire.

Next window asked for the computer password, enter the password and click on "Allow".

Your .p12 file will be saved in the local machine and You can then double click on the .p12 file.its install the Xcode.

👉 Maximum number of certificates generated Error

Apple Developer Program Account- You can only have a maximum of 3 iOS Distribution certificates.if you are trying to add new iOS certificate.you are getting error "Maximum number of certificates generated".