100MB Google Play limit?

Games
#1

I had an old app get pulled from Google Play. I thought maybe it just needed to be recompiled with current SDKs.
I think I got it compiled correctly and it created an APK (and an .AAB, but whatever). The size of this file was 171MB. The old version was around 15.3MB. It’s a very simple app.
I read something about Expansion Files. So I added the sample code into the build.settings file and it came down to 11.6MB and also generated a .OBB file.
I only uploaded the APK as a new release but not the .OBB and it’s currently in review.

Is this going to work?

APK size issue
#2

I find it unlikely that the prior build was 15.3 MB and the new one is 171MB without there having been some kind of change in your app.

The only things that I can think of that would cause this are:

  1. Adding new assets to the app folder and including them in the build.
  2. Having old rules to remove assets in build.settings and some reason the remove is not working.

I would:
A. Zip up the app folder and see how bit the ZIP is. If it is tiny then something is wrong. If it is big, then you’ve got assets you may not need in the app folder structure.

B. If you are depending on file exclusion settings in build.settings (https://docs.coronalabs.com/guide/distribution/buildSettings/index.html#excluding-files) be sure they are written correctly. OR better yet clean up your build folder manually if at all possible. If the exclusion process goes wrong you may run into the problem you’re seeing (assuming you have assets that should be excluded.)

#3

I also have to ask, “Are you using any plugins?” Maybe something went wrong in this process.

#4

Sorry folks, coming back to this stuff so I’m practically starting from scratch.
As it turns out, I had a bunch of other files in the directory with the source code. I didn’t realize building the app would add all of that other stuff.
I took out things that were not app assets and code and it’s back down to 22MB.

Not sure if I can retract the release review so I can upload this version instead.