9 Tricks to Reduce Android App Size During Development

Depending on the app or the goal of the adaptation, we can reduce android app size during development. When it comes to the critical stages of the app development lifecycle, app developers are more concerned with improving their apps for mobile platforms.

A device operates slowly or acts weirdly when it is short on storage space. Because of this, having portable, compact apps that are interesting, responsive, and adaptive to the majority of mobile devices is vital and unavoidable and takes up minimal storage space.

These are some of the best techniques for shrinking Android app sizes as they are being created.

Therefore, to create apps that satisfy user expectations while taking up the least amount of space, developers must understand consumer preferences.

Ways to Reduce Android App Size while Developing An App:

reduce android app size

1. Image Optimization

It is possible to optimise or reduce the size of images without sacrificing their quality or sharpness. Users prefer apps that are quick and lively, so optimising photographs is a great way to reduce app size while boosting responsiveness and speed.

Google claims that download and installation rates for programmes larger than 150MB are frequently lower than for apps smaller than this average. High-definition and ultra-high-definition file formats can be compressed without sacrificing quality. Various tools for expertly altering image file sizes are available online, you can use them during the android app development process.

2. Reuse Your Code

Reusing code will help you to minimize duplication. Object-oriented programming, which also helps to maintain the size of your APK, would help you a lot in resolving this problem. The APK will grow in size as a result of repetitive code growing the size of that particular file.

3. Use Proguard

Proguard is perhaps one of the most helpful solutions for reducing the size of your app’s APK. It can minimize the size of the APK file by up to 90% and will directly reduce the number of source code files.

Use all Proguard variations whenever possible.
If Proguard is utilized during development for all variations, it helps prevent disputes at the resulting APK or bundle.
ProGuard is unable to rename or delete any fields from these data classes since they must adhere to the serialized format

4. Using R8 to Reduce APK Size

Proguard and R8 share a similar operation. We can automatically reduce the size of an APK by lowering the amount of code using a process known as R8 shrinking. Proguard rules are used by R8 to optimize output size and reduce code size, this helps to reduce android app size.

5. Libraries’ Optimization, Which Reduces Android App Size

It is common knowledge that large libraries take up a lot of room. As a result, it is highly recommended to remove specific components if they are not necessary and doing so is permitted by the licence.

6. Choose Android GO

To test the interest of a brand-new, increasing audience, Google released Android Go. It is intended to give a seamless and scalable experience on cost-effective devices, including those that have less than 1GB of RAM, and was released with several performance and storage optimizations on the front of the size of Android apps.

Android Go users may still access the whole Google Play Store, even though Google tends to highlight apps that are specific to the Android Go app ecosystem. Surprisingly, customers can download Android apps that are under 40 MB in size for their handsets.

7. Use Vector Graphics

Using vector graphics helps to reduce android app size. They may be small and sharp because they are used for mathematical calculations and take up little room. They do not have pixels that require memory storage. But they can’t be utilised for photography inherently.

8. Dead code elimination

The size of the APK file has a direct impact on how quickly, how much memory, and how much power your software takes to load. Therefore, any unnecessary or bad code that was kept just for the sake of keeping it would just contribute to the mess. Dead code removal or code elimination is required if you want your programme to be active and revivified continuously throughout the day.

9. Avoid Enumerations

Enumerations, especially when used with shared libraries or sophisticated systems, provide extra data to app files. Therefore, it is preferable, wise, and smart to completely avoid enumerations. Professional android app development tools that convert enumerations into integers can help with this. Therefore, there will be fewer enumeration sizes. A positive step toward developing tiny, useful, and interactive apps is anything that constantly limits app size.

Conclusion

These are some of the greatest methods for optimising app size reduction while developing dynamic and feature-rich small-sized apps. To maintain user interest, every mobile app development company will work to create apps that are engaging, portable, and user-friendly. Users frequently choose little apps over large file apps since they are more responsive and user-friendly. Large-sized apps frequently lack market competitiveness as well since they present additional operational difficulties. Therefore, reducing app size during development is a good technique.