The demands placed on mobile devices and the mobile applications we use on a daily basis are increasing as the world becomes more and more digitalized with the help of Android app development in India. As we satisfy customer requests, provide new features, and support applications on various screen sizes, the rise in mobile storage spaces increased to 256 GB, which will undoubtedly expand further.

According to the survey, 74% of the world’s population uses Android, and around 70% of consumers research an app’s size before downloading it.

And to our surprise, 70% of users in developing countries check an app’s size because they are concerned about internet and phone storage costs.

There are two options given that you are reading this article. You may either be an average user (reader) who experiences the before-mentioned issues, as I did, or you can employ an Android app developer who has the ability to prevent people from experiencing this difficulty by simply shrinking an android app throughout the Android app development in India’s lifecycle.

Nevertheless, this post focuses on optimizing or minimizing the size of your Android APK when developing an Android application. These methods and strategies can undoubtedly help you in creating a typical and regular Android application that won’t take up additional space, whether you are a novice or an expert android app developer.

Android App Size Is Important

The popularity of mobile apps has been skyrocketing daily in our mobile-centric environment. And for this reason, there is a higher need for app developers that create programmes for both iOS and Android. But, having developed Android and iPhone apps for a while, we have noticed that only some Android or iOS applications measure up and iPhone apps for a time, we have seen that only some Android or iOS applications measure up and succeed. In other words, not all smartphone users like the same applications.

But do you know why? What are the natural causes of this? According to research by Google, we have discovered that if an app is more significant than 150 MB (up from 100 MB), the likelihood of its installation will be reduced by 30%. Also, the install conversion rate might decrease by 1% for every 6 MB increase in size. According to the study, 65% of individuals will not install an app if they discover it is too huge. Due to the high internet bandwidth usage and increased storage requirements, they will avoid such programmes.

Google has now developed a more effective solution. It has created the Android app bundle, which enables you to install programmes without even downloading necessary components that are already available in other apps on the Play Store. According to Google, this helps reduce app size by roughly 35%.

What happens, therefore, if your Android app needs extra space? Moreover, if your software takes up too much space, users may decide to wait to download it. No user would want to go through the hassle of spending a lot of data on a single app.

So let’s look at how to make Android apps or APKs smaller when developing Android apps.

• Decrease App Size by Using Android App Bundles

You must decide between an APK and an Android App Bundle after you have produced your Android app and are prepared to deploy it. Using the Android App Bundle, Google Play will only pay APKs for consumers needing certain functionality.

Android App Bundle

• Android App Bundle is used for a publishing format that includes your app’s built to code and resources, which delays the creation of APKs and Google Play Signature.
• The compressed download size limit for Android App Bundles is 150 MB. APK expansion files cannot be utilized with the app bundle.

• Employ Proguard

Proguard is 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 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.

• Use the Size Analyzer Plugin for Android.

The Android Studio plugin is a choice if you want to decrease your Android app’s size significantly. Android developers may achieve the following using the APK Analyzer:

• See the APK’s overall and contrasting sizes.
• Understand the structure of DEX files.
• Quickly examine the finished versions of APK files, such as the AndroidManifest.xml file.
• Comparison-shop two APKs side by side.

• Picture Enhancement

The most excellent and first option for drawing people to a website is always higher-quality graphics. The newest mobile device has a fantastic camera resolution; thus, it makes sense to lower the solution in order to minimize the picture size. Your.jpg or.png photos must be converted to .webp if you don’t want to lose image quality.

Using photographs without cropping them may degrade the performance of the programme. Convert yours.Jpg and.png pictures to web format before uploading or utilizing them in your app. You may also use pngcrush or Zopflipng for png files. You may use programmes like packJPG and Guetzli for jpg files. You may also use vector graphics since they simplify images and make good use of available space.

Without static resources, photos can do a lot. The framework is adequate at runtime to draw such graphics dynamically. Also, employing the Vector Drawables objects is a brilliant idea when developing small-scale applications.

Using Vector Drawables is advantageous since these applications may function in a small amount of space inside the APK file and produce images that adhere to material design guidelines. A potential conflict over the use of the CPU and Memory as complex objects should also be considered.

Note: An experienced developer can help you choose the right third-party libraries and plugins to minimize the impact on app size. When hiring an iPhone application developer for Android app size reduction, be sure to look for developers with experience in optimizing app size and a track record of delivering high-quality apps that meet performance and user experience standards.Hiring an experienced iPhone application developer can help you reduce the size of your iPhone app during development.

• Assistance with Certain Screen Densities

Another excellent method for decreasing Android app size is to use particular screen densities in the proper manner. A million different Android-enabled smartphones with varying screen densities are available. We may reduce what is unnecessary and don’t employ total screen density.

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

Also Reducing app size for iOS:

Reducing the size of an iOS app during development is crucial for improving user experience, optimizing performance, and minimizing the storage space required on users’ devices. Here are some strategies to achieve app size reduction by Swift app development Company, that are Asset Optimization, Code Optimization, App Thinning, Dynamic Libraries etc.

Conclusion

Now, these are the only basic methods that you may use in the creation of your Android app. This will undoubtedly help you understand how to optimize performance while reducing the size of your programme or APK file.