Google Play shows Unoptimized APK for Cordova App

Question

I was trying to publish my first Cordova app on Google Playstore. When I upload my release apk, it shows below warning and I cannot rollout the release.

Unoptimized

Answer 1

This is a new policy from Google, now, instead of submitting the apk, we need to generate a bundle, and the Play Store itself will generate the app.

The steps are:

1. Navigate to your platforms/android folder inside your project;
2. Execute ./gradlew bundle;
3. Sign the bundle as you would the apk;
4. Send it to the Play Store;

More details here: https://medium.com/swlh/generating-an-android-app-bundle-from-your-ionic-app-without-android-studio-5bc3acaf4528

Answer 2

Well, it's just a warning I think. You could ignore it and rollout the release. The problem is that you haven't completed and provided enough information for important contents like store listing, content rate, pricing & distribution, and app release. When all of them show "green check", you could rollout the app.

Answer 3

The youtube video explains it well and with the appropriate solution.

Click Here for Youtube Video Explanation and solution

Answer 4

According to your mention problem, you can solve in cordova 9.0.0 by this way:
Go to your respective project directory, then go to platforms/android directory, then open cmd/terminal and write this command as gradlew bundle. After completing this process, It'll be generated app.aab. You can find the output into the outputs/bundle directory.

Answer 5

The disadvantage is what i saw is, that in the Play Store there will be a message " your app might not be optimized for your device" that is annoying, and this may force you to use the bundle and Google's signing. Because people might consider not to use your app, while in fact there is nothing wrong with it. Even if an app is just 12MB, Google is going to say that it is too big. But i don't know if it works corectly if you use the bundle method with apps not generated by Android Studio.

Answer 6

This is just a warning, and you can carry on uploading Cordova APKs. The Cordova team know about this, and you can follow their feature request to support Android App Bundle here