Unable to reduce the size of Xamarin forms app while exporting to APK file

Question

I have created a simple application in Xamarin forms, with 5 Tabbed pages, each of which has a WebView in it which calls 5 different websites. Nothing more. Current size of APK is 17 MB.

I tried all the methods available on Google to reduce the size of my app. I don't understand which part I am missing. I have enabled multi-dex,code shrinker, Linking enabled everything mentioned.

I am attaching the screenshot of my settings, APK-analyzer result and the code for my project.

Link to project solution: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/18i3j6qDzlm4nN6DFHjBPLCW9Ab2WdG08?usp=sharing

Answer 1

You should enable Application App bundles (.aab). It will reduce your application size even more once deployed through the Google Play store. (And remove this warning on the store submission)

To enable it, look in your *.Droid.csproj properties

This xamarin blog post is a good reference.

Answer 2

Select App Bundle instead of APK for Android Package Format in Android Options. Also, check Generate one package per selected ABI create a separate packages for armabi-v7a and one for arm64-v8a.

Edit: rereading that error message sounds like using App Bundle will automatically optimize for separate ABIs which i was not aware of. You might not need to check Generate one package per selected ABI, but it doesn't hurt.