9 Techniques for Android App Developers to Minimize App Size during Development

The needs for smartphones and mobile applications that we use on a daily basis are growing as society becomes more and more digitalized. Mobile storage has increased to 256 GB, and this number will only rise as we continue to develop features, support applications with varying screen sizes, and respond to consumer requests.

Based on data from businessofapps. com, Android is used by around 3/4 of mobile phones and has over 3 billion active users.

Surprisingly, 70% of individuals in emerging nations check an app's size because they are concerned about data costs and phone storage.

Creating an Android app that functions well on your smartphone and takes up less space is never easy for an app developer.

The main topic of this post is how to minimize or optimize the size of your Android APK when developing an Android app. Thus, whether you are an expert or novice Android app developer, these methods and approaches will undoubtedly assist you in creating a typical and regular Android program that won't take up more space.

The Significance of Android App Size

The popularity of mobile apps has been skyrocketing in this era of mobile devices. Additionally, it makes app developers that create iOS and Android-based apps for both platforms more in demand. However, from our solid experience developing Android and iPhone applications, we know that not all of them live up to the expectations and become successful. Put differently, we might argue that not every smartphone user has a preference for every app.

However, do you know why? What are the real causes of this? We have discovered that, according to a Google research, the likelihood of an app being installed will decrease by 30% if its size exceeds 150 MB (it was previously 100 MB). Additionally, there might be a 1% decrease in the install conversion rate for every 6 MB increase in size. According to the study, 65% of users would not download an app if they discovered it was too big. They won't use these programs since they use a lot of internet traffic and take up more storage.

Google has now developed a superior remedy. It has created the Android App Bundle, which lets you install programs without ever downloading necessary components. According to Google, this reduces app size by about 35%.

The challenge now is, what should happen if your Android app needs extra space? You know, people won't want to download your app at all if it takes up a lot of space. It seems sense that no user wants to deal with the hassle of using a lot of data on a single app.

Let's now examine how to minimize the size of an Android app or APK when developing an Android app.

1. To Reduce App Size, Use Android App Bundles

You must decide between an Android App Bundle and an APK after you have finished developing your app and are prepared to publish it. With the Android App Bundle, Google Play will only generate the APK for the precise users that need the functionality.

Packaged Android Apps

The Android App Bundle is a publishing package that includes your app's built code and resources; it takes longer to generate an APK and sign it on Google Play. The maximum compressed download size for Android App Bundles is 150 MB. APK expansion files cannot be utilized with the app bundle.

2. Employ Procured

Proguard is maybe one of the most helpful solutions for reducing the size of your app's APK. It may minimize the size of the APK file by up to 90% and will immediately reduce the source code files to a minimum.

"Proguard, try to use all variants" should always be used. When Proguard is applied in all of the versions during development, it helps prevent conflicts at the resulting APK or bundle. We are unable to change the names of any fields on these data types in ProGuard since they must adhere to the serialized format.

3. Employ the Plugin Android Size

Analyzer You have the option to use the Android Studio plugin to significantly decrease the size of your Android app. The following tasks may be performed by Android developers using the APK Analyzer:

Check out the APK's full and compared sizes. Understand the makeup of DEX files. Quick access to the final versions of APK files, including the AndroidManifest.xml file. Put two APKs side by side and compare them.

4. Image Enhancement

The greatest and most preferred option for drawing visitors to the website is usually to employ photographs with higher quality. The newest mobile device has an excellent camera resolution, therefore it can be worth diluting the quality to get a smaller picture. You must convert your.jpg or.png photos to.webp if you don't want the quality of your photographs to be compromised.

Using photos in your app without minimizing their size might degrade its quality. Convert your.jpg and.png pictures to web format instead of uploading or utilizing the original in your application. You may also use programs like pngcrush or Zopflipng for png files. You may utilize programs like packJPG and Guetzli for jpeg files. Additionally, because vector graphics saves space and simplifies images, you may use them.

android {
defaultConfig {
vectorDrawables.useSupportLibrary true
}
}

Without static resources, pictures may do amazing things. The framework is enough to draw such graphics dynamically during runtime. Additionally, while creating little applications, it's a wonderful idea to use the Vector Drawables objects.

Using Vector Drawables is beneficial since these applications may function with the least amount of space within the APK file and produce images that adhere to material design guidelines. As sophisticated objects, one should also attend to the potential squabble over CPU and RAM utilization.

5. Assistance with Particular Screen Densities

Making appropriate use of certain screen densities is another excellent technique to minimize the size of an Android app. One million Android-capable gadgets with a range of screen densities exist. However, we may remove what is not needed and don't need full screen density.

Analyze to find the percentage of users with devices that have a certain screen density in order to eliminate bundling all unneeded screen densities into your program. If this percentage ratio is negligible, you have good cause to remove them and reduce the size of your application.

6. Eliminating Obsolete Code

The amount of memory, power, and load time that your program experiences is directly correlated with the size of its APK file. Thus, any unnecessary or improper code that is retained for posterity's sake will merely contribute to the trash. Because of this, your program has to have any dead code removed or eliminated in order to remain active and dynamic throughout the day.

This code elimination will improve the source code's quality and reduce the requirement to maintain code size, resulting in an overall healthy program.

7. Make Use of Your Resources

Reusing is easier and more beneficial than discarding. It's a fantastic approach to make different uses of your resources. It provides you with a fluid scrolling experience. It might assist you in making your Android APK smaller in the end. Resources that are only the rotational equivalent of another resource may be removed.

Assume you possess sensitive tools to describe differences in a picture with respect to hues, tones, and angles. On the other hand, you may use the same sources for more photos.

8. Support for Multiple APK Files

Certain APKs include material that is downloaded and seldom used. For instance, add-ons like more languages are downloaded even if they are not necessarily necessary. This expands the software and takes up the extra storage space on your device.

Nevertheless, this issue has forced developers to think of new ways to download just the user-beneficial portions of apps. Sadly, it is not feasible to download a portion of an APK that is helpful.

However, you may submit the software via the Android software Bundle on the Google Play store, which enables Google to offer optimized APKs based on device setup, to make it function more closely to these solutions. You may split up a single app into many APKs for this. After then, customers may only download APKs based on their device setup that are helpful to them.

9. Steer clear of lists

Enumerations are questionable. Anywhere between 1.0 and 1.4 KB may be simply added to an application's classes.dex file to add only one. If there are complicated frameworks or shared libraries, they might use up a significant amount of fast bandwidth.

How then can you solve this issue? ProGuard may be used to convert enums into integers, which will ultimately result in a smaller application.

Last Words

These are really basic strategies that you might include into your Android app while it is still being developed. You will undoubtedly learn how to decrease the size of your APK file or software and boost productivity from this.

These are some guidelines that Android app developers should remember to follow while creating an app. You can encourage more users to download the app on their cellphones by making it smaller.

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