Google has increased the Android app size limit from 50MB to 4GB

It looks like Google has announced some changes in terms of how big an Android app APK fill can be. And nicely done, they have increased that limit by quite a bit. But that being said, the increase does come with a slight catch. You see, Google increased the limit from 50MB up to 4GB. But at the same time, Android developers will still be limited to a 50MB file in the Android Market. This is said to have been done to “ensure secure on-device storage.” So what gives? Google increased the limit from 50MB to 4GB but still requires the APK to be 50MB? For those thinking this makes no sense what so ever — here is how that breaks down;

“Each app can have two expansion files, each one up to 2GB, in whatever format you choose.”

Basically, the APK file in the Market will be limited to 50MB and can have those two expansion files if needed which IN TOTAL will make for what appears to be one large app once downloaded and installed. The nice part (for users) here is that they will be able to see the “total size of your app and all of the downloads before they install/purchase.” In other words, you are not going to have an Android app give a 50MB file size only to start the process and find out that it is really a much larger file and end with an error given any device storage limitations. Otherwise, Google notes that;

“On most newer devices, when users download your app from Android Market, the expansion files will be downloaded automatically, and the refund period won’t start until the expansion files are downloaded. On older devices, your app will download the expansion files the first time it runs, via a downloader library which we’ve provided below.”

Via [Android Developers]