When you're ready to release your Flutter app, APK size matters — especially for users on slow networks or low-end Android devices.
In this guide, I'll show you how to reduce your Flutter APK size using one powerful command:
flutter build apk --release --split-per-abi
🧠 Why App Size Matters
Default flutter build apk creates a fat APK that includes binaries for all Android architectures:
- - armeabi-v7a
- - arm64-v8a
- - x86_64 (used mostly by emulators)
That means one giant APK, sometimes 70MB+ in size. 😬
⚙️ The Solution: --split-per-abi
Instead of bundling all architectures into one APK, this flag tells Flutter to generate separate APKs per ABI:
flutter build apk --release --split-per-abi
📁 Output Files
(Located in build/app/outputs/flutter-apk/):
app-arm64-v8a-release.apk
app-armeabi-v7a-release.apk
app-x86_64-release.apk
These are much smaller than the default fat APK!
📉 Size Comparison
APK Type Approx Size
Fat APK ~70 MB
armeabi-v7a ~30 MB
arm64-v8a ~34 MB
✅ Why Use This?
- 🚀 Faster app installs
- 📱 Better experience on low-end devices
- 🏆 Improved Play Store install success
- 🧩 Less storage = more retention
🔗 Official Docs & Resources
📖 Flutter Docs – Build and release APK
📚 More Flutter tutorials at TechyCodex
💬 Wrapping Up
Using --split-per-abi is a must-have trick in your Flutter production workflow. It’s simple, powerful, and drastically reduces your APK size.
👉 If you found this helpful, follow TechyCodex for more dev tips, Firebase tricks, and mobile build strategies!
🧠 Got questions? Drop them below — I’d love to help or learn from your experience!
✍️ Written by Parikshit Verma for TechyCodex
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