This documentation is available as Markdown for AI agents and LLMs. See the full Markdown index or append .md to any documentation URL.

Learn why Expo Go on a physical iOS device requires Expo CLI and Expo Go to be signed in to the same Expo account.

Expo Go displays the following error on a physical iOS device when neither Expo CLI nor Expo Go is signed in:

You need to be signed in to Expo Go and Expo CLI to open your project. Run "npx expo login" on your computer to sign in with Expo CLI.

When one side is signed in and the other is not, or the two accounts differ, you see one of these instead:

You're signed in to Expo Go as "your-account", but not signed in to Expo CLI. Run "npx expo login" on your computer to sign in to Expo CLI as "your-account" so you can open this project.

You're signed in to Expo CLI as "your-account", but not signed in to Expo Go. Sign in to Expo Go as "your-account" to open this project.

You're signed in to Expo CLI as "your-account" and to Expo Go as "another-account" — these accounts need to match to open this project.

Expo CLI does not report any of this. The development server keeps running with no warning in the terminal, so the error appears only on your device.

Why this happens

On a physical iOS device, Expo Go checks for the Expo account before it opens a project. Expo CLI and Expo Go must be signed in to the same Expo account.

The check applies to physical iOS devices only and only to a project served from a development server. Android devices, the Android Emulator, the iOS Simulator, and published updates are unaffected.

Sign in to the same account

If you do not have an Expo account, create a free one at expo.dev/signup.

Sign in to Expo CLI on your computer:

Then, open Expo Go on your device, tap the account icon in the top-right corner, and sign in with the same account.

To check which account Expo CLI is using, run:

Reload the project

Press Try Again on the Expo Go error screen. Expo CLI reads your credentials each time Expo Go requests the project, so signing in while the development server runs is enough.

Restart the development server if you sign in to a different account. Expo CLI caches the resolved account for the lifetime of the process.