Although mobile storage has increased a lot in recent years, these two things are also true: first, that there are still low-end mobiles that have 32 GB of storage or less; and second, both the media files and the space taken up by applications have grown a lot in size.
This causes the space problems in Android to remain in force and one of the users’ exits is to uninstall applications. Google doesn’t want this to keep happening, so it’s taking matters into its own hands. Your solution? Archived APKs that will take up to 60% less space without having to uninstall apps.
Google does not want you to delete applications to save space, better archive them
In one of its most recent posts on the Android Developers Blog , Google explained that they have detected a pattern in the behavior of its users: one of the main reasons people uninstall apps on Android is to free up storage space . The company saw this as a problem and decided that something had to be done about it, so they stated the following:
“To avoid unnecessary uninstalls and help users get more out of their devices, we started working on a new feature that would allow app archiving. Archiving is a new feature that will allow users to temporarily reclaim approximately 60% of the storage an app occupies by deleting parts of the app instead of completely uninstalling it.”
Google did not provide details on how this new type of package will work on Android. However, he reported that starting with the next Bundletool update (v1.10) developers will be able to automatically generate archived APKs when creating application bundles. Be careful, they can also choose not to.
When will users be able to use these new packages on Android? Regarding its launch, Google commented that the archiving function will not be available on Android for a few months . They did not even leak if it could arrive with Android 13 or through Google Play Services, so we imagine that the development is quite green. At the moment only developers will be able to test this functionality.
Google continues to work to make Android applications more flexible and take up less
The announcement of the archived APK packages seems excellent to us, although it does not take us by surprise. Why do we say it? Because since 2018 Google made the first change in the way Android applications work so that they take up less space, with the launch of the Android App Bundle (AAB). Then from August 2021 it made this format a mandatory standard.
Now, it’s time to take the next step: applications that save space on Android phones and tablets without having to uninstall them. Are Archived APKs the Ultimate Solution to Storage Problems? Not at all, but they will definitely be a valuable step in reducing the rate of uninstalling apps due to lack of space. After all, no one likes having to remove one app to install another or to save more files, right?
