Generating A New Apple Distribution Certificate

This post is a note to my future self about generating Apple Distribution Certificates. I received an email stating:

Your Distribution Certificate will no longer be valid in 30 days. To generate a new certificate, sign in and visit Certificates, Identifiers & Profiles.

After signing in, the Certificates, Identifiers & Profiles page will list two certificates:

1. Apple Distribution certificate
   • Used to distribute apps to TestFlight and the App Store.
   • An expired certificate does not affect my apps on the App Store. However, I cannot update my apps or upload new apps with the expired certificate.
2. Apple Development certificate
   • Used to run apps on devices and use app services.
   • It will have my computer’s name appended to the certificate name.

To generate a new certificate I followed the steps from this StackOverflow answer:

• Open Xcode
• Open Xcode Preferences (Xcode->Preferences or Cmd-,)
• Click on Accounts
• At the left, click on your developer ID
• At the bottom right, click on Manage Certificates…
• In the lower left corner, click the arrow to the right of the + (plus)
• Select Apple Distribution from the menu

I also revoked the old certificate on the Certificates, Identifiers & Profiles page. I did this by clicking on the distribution certificate and then clicking the revoke button.

XCode manages my provisioning profile, so I did not need to manually update it.

References:

• https://stackoverflow.com/a/59850970/4704303
• https://developer.apple.com/support/certificates/
• https://help.apple.com/xcode/mac/current/#/dev3a05256b8