Setting android:extractNativeLibs=false to reduce app size

Question

I am not sure, if I got this right. It seems it is doing the oposite. If I keep the flag android:extractNativeLibs set to true, the app is taking about 70MB of user\'s space

Answer 1

extractNativeLibs="false" could be counterproductive if your APK contains multiple ABIs. Let's say you're using a library which is 10 MB for each ABI and can be compressed to 5 MB. If you have 3 ABIs, then the result is:

extractNativeLibs="true":

APK:       15 MB (3 x 5 MB)
Extracted: 10 MB
Total:     25 MB

extractNativeLibs="false":

APK:       30 MB (3 x 10 MB)
Extracted:  0 MB
Total:     30 MB

As of 2019, the recommended way to mitigate this is to use the Android App Bundle formet.