Publish in the Chrome Web Store

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After registering your developer account, setting it up, and preparing your extension follow the steps in this article to publish your extension for the first time.

Upload your item

Use the following steps to upload your item:

  1. Go to the Chrome Developer Dashboard.
  2. Sign in to the developer account.
  3. Click the Add new item button.
  4. Click Choose file > your zip file > Upload. If your item's manifest and ZIP file are valid, you can edit your item on the next page.

Once you've uploaded your extension, you will see it as an item in the dashboard.

Screenshot of the Developer dashboard item listing page
Developer dashboard item listing page

You cannot have more than 20 extensions published on the Chrome Web Store. There is no such limit on the number of themes. If you reach this limit, you may request a limit increase. The Chrome Web Store staff will review your existing items and your developer account history, and if approved, you will be granted an increase. Please note that if your developer account has been suspended in the past, or you have had items taken down previously for policy violations, or your items consistently receive low quality ratings, your request may be denied.

Fill out information about your item

Now you can fill out additional listing details in the left-hand menu. Here is a quick summary of the information you will need to fill out on each of these tabs. The links provided include detailed instructions on how to fill out each section.

  • The Package tab displays details of your uploaded item. This page isn't editable when you first create an item.
  • The Store Listing tab contains details of your listing and how it will be displayed in the Chrome Web Store.
  • The Privacy tab is where you declare your extension's single purpose and how your extension is handling user data.
  • The Distribution tab lets declare if your extension is a paid item, which countries will list your item and the set of users that will see it.

Submit your item

After filling out the information about your item, you are ready to submit your item. When you click the Submit for Review button the following dialog appears, letting you confirm that you want to submit the item for review.

Screenshot of the Chrome Web Store confirm submission dialog
Screenshot of the Chrome Web Store confirm submission dialog

Deferred publishing option

The confirmation dialog shown above also lets you control the timing of your item's publishing. If you uncheck the checkbox, your item will not be published immediately after its review is complete. Instead, you'll be able to manually publish it at a time of your choosing once the review is complete.

If you submit your item to publish automatically after review, you can still choose deferred publishing by selecting the Defer publish option located in the item's menu.

Screenshot showing the 'more' menu's defer publish option
Deferred publishing option in the items menu

This lets you pause the release of a submitted item if you discover an error after submitting it or if you simply want to change your release time.

Important

Once the review is complete, you will have up to 30 days to publish. After that period expires, the staged submission will revert to a draft which will have to be submitted again for review.

You can check when your staged submission will expire under the status of your item.

Chrome Web Store staged item status
Chrome Web Store staged item status

The review process

After you submit the item for review, it will undergo a review process. The time for this review depends on the nature of your item. See Understanding the review process for more details.

There are important emails like take down or rejection notifications that are enabled by default. To receive an email notification when your item is published or staged, you can enable notifications on the Account page.

Screenshot of enable staged and reviewed items

Additional resources

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