How to Reduce Android App Size and Improve Load Speed?

These days, users prefer Android apps that load quickly and perform smoothly. A large app not only requires more storage, but it impacts user retention, performance, as well as downloads. Optimizing app size and loading speed will greatly improve user experience while promising improved rankings within the Google Play Store.
In this guide, we’ll explore the best strategies to reduce Android app size and boost performance.

Why Smaller Android App Size is Important

A large Android app can create many problems for developers and users alike. Some of the most frequent of these include:

• Longer download time, leading to increased user drop-offs.
• Higher storage usage, keeping users away from installing or maintaining the app.
• Performance issues such as lag, slow responsiveness, and crashes.
• Poor Google Play Store rankings based on user complaints and uninstallations.

Optimizing your app makes you deliver a faster, smoother, and more seamless experience, which can significantly improve user satisfaction and interaction.

Optimal Practices to Reduce Android App Size & Load Quicker

1. Optimize Your APK & Leverage Android App Bundles

Rather than uploading one large APK to all the users, Android App Bundles (AAB) offer a more efficient means of publishing apps. Google Play dynamically optimizes and generates APKs for each user’s device, so they only download what they need.

This is advantageous:

• Saves app size by removing unused resources.
• Increases installation speed.
• Supports smooth updates without duplicate files.

2. Turn on ProGuard & R8 for Code Optimization

ProGuard and R8 are essential optimization and code shrinking utilities. They help in:

• Removing unused methods, classes, and variables.
• Making the code difficult to reverse-engineer and reducing the size.
• Reducing dependencies, yielding a compact APK.

To turn on ProGuard, go to Android Studio and edit the proguard-rules.pro file and optimize build configurations for additional compression.

3. Compress & Optimize Images & Videos

Media files most likely take up a majority of the size of an app. To prevent bloating:

• Use new image formats such as WebP instead of PNG or JPEG to compress with higher quality without losing it.
• Optimize vector graphics where possible instead of using large bitmap images.
• Compress videos and stream them instead of including them in the APK.
• Use lazy loading for images to prevent unnecessary memory usage.

4. Remove Unused Resources & Libraries

Unused resources do not add anything but increase APK size. Remove unnecessary assets by:

• Using the Lint tool in Android Studio to identify unused resources.
• Employing the resConfigs property to exclude unnecessary language localizations.
• Reducing third-party library and SDK usage unless absolutely necessary.

By reducing resources, you can reduce app size without affecting performance.

5. Optimize App Dependencies

Too many dependencies can harm the size of an Android application. Some of the best practices around working with dependencies are:

• Using Android Jetpack Libraries instead of third-party libraries wherever necessary.
• Replacing heavier libraries with lighter ones.
• Managing versions of dependencies carefully to avoid bringing unnecessary files along.
• Using minSdkVersion sparingly to remove code no longer needed and does not need support anymore.

6. Use Efficient Data Storage & Caching

Optimized data management can reduce load times and improve application performance considerably.

• Compress JSON responses from APIs to minimize data in transit.
• Use SharedPreferences, Room Database, or SQLite to cache frequently accessed data locally.
• Use caching to avoid making unnecessary network calls.
• Reduce data redundancy in the way it gets stored and accessed in the app.

7. Minimize Font & Localization Files

Various font styles and language files can unnecessarily increase the app’s final size. To avoid this:

• Include only required fonts instead of shipping multiple variations.
• Use system fonts supplied by Android instead of custom font files wherever possible.
• Remove unused localization files to restrict the app bundle size.

8. Optimize UI & Animations for Speedier Rendering

Design and UI elements of an app can influence performance if not optimized. Some effective methods to optimize for smooth performance include:

• Using vector graphics (SVG) instead of large PNG/JPEG images.
• Removing unnecessary UI elements that don’t offer much functionality.
• Reducing the complexity of transitions and animations easier with MotionLayout.
• Optimizing the utilization of UI threads for smoother rendering.

9. Use Background Work Efficiently

Background tasks can slow down an app and eat up memory. Simplify background processes by:

• Using WorkManager rather than running background tasks manually.
• background updates in an optimal way so that unnecessary battery consumption is not done.
• Avoiding the use of services that keep the app open in the background unnecessarily to a large degree.

10. Reduce Network Calls & APIs

Repeated network requests make an application slow and are responsible for additional battery consumption. Reduce network usage by:

• Using pagination for long lists of data instead of fetching all data in one go.
• Compressing API responses to minimize data transfer.
• Implementing proper error handling to prevent endless failed attempts.
• Using WebSockets or GraphQL where appropriate to reduce the number of requests.

Final Thoughts

Reducing the size of Android apps and launch time is very important to give a smooth user experience and more prominent placement in the Google Play Store.

Simplifying the APKs, resource compression, removal of useless dependencies, and data management facilitates developers to develop light but function-rich apps that improve user experience by a big margin.

Implement these suggestions right away to make your Android app faster, more fluid, and efficient!