It is a reality that, as the years go by, smartphones offer more and more storage capacity. Thus, it is already common to find mobiles with 128, 256 or 512 GB (and up to 1 TB) of internal space to store applications, documents, music, photos and videos, and that allows us to forget about worrying about how we manage it. However, there are still many phones, especially in the Android ecosystem, that offer very limited benefits and that require us to take maximum care of every GB — every MB, even — available.
The good news is that Google is working on a new feature that will allow save the storage space occupied by Android apps. The Mountain View company made it known through the developer blog of your mobile operating system; basically, the company proposes to activate the option to archive a part of the APK files until they are needed again.
What does this mean? That users of a mobile with Android they would no longer be forced to uninstall those apps that use little or nothing; instead, they might temporarily remove a fraction of a given app’s package, without needing to remove it entirely.
Undoubtedly, it is presented as a very interesting option, especially now that many of the most popular Android applications arrive with increasingly frequent and heavy updates.
As the Californians explained, in order for this new function to fulfill its objective, the Archived APK, a new type of package for Android apps that will be smaller and will preserve user data until it is restored. This way, if a user decides to archive an app, instead of deleting it entirely, it would retrieve up to 60% of the storage it originally occupied.
Android apps would no longer be a problem for your smartphone’s storage
The new Archived APKs will be generated for apps created with version 7.3 of the Android plugin for Gradle, they indicated from Google. And while it has been mentioned that this feature will be released during 2022it has not been specifically mentioned at what time of the year it would occur.
Once released, the archive feature will bring great benefits to both users and developers. Instead of uninstalling an app, users could “archive” it, temporarily free up space, and quickly and easily reactivate the app. Developers can benefit from fewer uninstalls and substantially less friction to get back to their favorite apps.
Google, about the ‘Archived APK’ for Android
It is important to mention that the implementation of this feature will not be mandatory. This means that the developers they can choose not to include it in their apps, At least in the beginning. It remains to be seen if over time it becomes a standard within the Android ecosystem.
The other point that is still not very clear is how the option will be presented in the Google mobile operating system interface. That is, if users will be able to choose between archiving or uninstalling an app by pressing and holding on its icon, or if they must do it from the mobile settings; and the same in reverse, if the reactivation will be done manually or if the application will be automatically restored when re-entering it.
For now, there are still several questions to answer. We’ll see if this new feature debuts directly in Android 14, or if it will hit the market sooner. Nor should it be ruled out that Google thinks of this tool as a key element for the future of Android Gothe low-end mobile OS version.