Is there any way i can convert pure react native app to expo managed?
Hi @usman.io Yes, you can definitely do this.
I’m sure I’ve seen some documentation on this before, but I can’t find it now.
I think the easiest way might be to create a new Expo app, install the dependencies you need, copy the code over and compare any config (e.g. app.json, package.json, metro config etc.) Also, if you do want to make changes to the metro config, for example, check the Expo docs.
If any of the dependencies include native code then things get more complicated, but these days with EAS Build it’s possible. You might need to write some config plugins to get it to work. You could also possibly replace some of the existing dependencies with ones from the Expo SDK or ones that are compatible with the managed workflow without needing to write your own config plugins. How easy/hard this is depends on the dependency, of course.
If you run into trouble with dependencies it might be better to convert to the Expo Bare workflow. You can still build a development client (similar to Expo Go) and use OTA updates and push notifications etc. And then you can replace problematic dependencies or write config plugins etc. and convert to the managed workflow later.