Generate Google API Key For Xamarin Android Applications

Introduction

Android allows us to integrate Google maps in our applications, so we need to generate an API key, using Google developer account. This article shows you how to generate Google map API key from Google developer account .

Setup new Xamarin forms project

We need to associate a package name to Google API, so first create API key. Let's start creating new Xamarin forms project in Visual Studio.

Open Run ➔ Type Devenev.Exe and enter ➔ New Project (Ctrl+Shift+N)➔ select Blank Xamarin.Forms Portable template.

It will automatically create multiple projects like Portable, Android, iOS, UWP. You can refer to my previous article for more.

Register Google Maps Android API

I have shown the steps given below to register Google maps for an Android application.

Step 1

Navigate to Google developer API account here.

Step 2

If you are asked to sign in, provide Google user Id, password and click Sign in.

Step 3

Select My project list and select the existing project or create new project.

Step 4

Provide your project name and project name must be between 4 and 30 characters and click Create button.

Step 5

Make sure that your project is selected in the header, as shown in step 3 and click Google Maps Android API.
Step 6

Click Enable button for the access.

Step 7

Click Credentials to get API key.

Step 8

On credentials page, click What Credentials do I need?

You can get public API key or if you want to restrict the limit for which Web sites, IP address, and mobile apps can call this API key, then you can click Restrict Key.