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We have an app currently in the App Store, and its size is as follows according to iTunes connect:

iPhone 6: Download size 21.8MB, install size 28.5MB

Now this is not too bad. But with a newer version we have uploaded to iTunes connect, the sizes are like this:

iPhone 6: Download size 35.5MB, install size 73.1MB

And the original package compressed size is 114MB.

Now this is too large, even unacceptable. I have checked the .app file within the archive(which is 178MB), and surprisingly discovered that my code alone takes 55MB(which in debug mode is only 11MB), and swift standard libraries around 40MB.

The function of code of this version does not differ much with the previous: we added iPad support, added a few images(the asset is 7.8MB on both debug and release archive, which is not a problem), and updated our project to swift 3.

All the release sizes above are with whole module optimization turned on. Might there ba a configuration in my build settings that may leads to this huge size? If not, what else could I do to reduce the app's size as much as possible?(especially the 50MB codes)

Besides, WHAT is the cause of this? Is it swift 3 since we didn't change our code much?

Nicholas
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    Could you have BitCode issues? Have a look here: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/32588757/after-switching-to-xcode-7-app-size-grew-from-9-mb-to-60-mb-is-there-a-fix as well as here: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/37280325/are-testflight-app-sizes-bloated-by-a-large-amount-compared-to-actual-download-s – Yohst Dec 29 '16 at 22:04
  • It's not Swift 3. My app, spanning Swift 2.2 and with 3 updates, hasn't really grown. It sounds like you've been thoughtful about what you've checked. Things you haven't mentioned - any dependencies on third party code? Any particular component in your app bundle that may account for this? –  Dec 29 '16 at 22:15
  • @dfd Yes we do use quite a few pods, but I have check all of them in the archive and they take up around 5 MB altogether. – Nicholas Dec 29 '16 at 22:17

1 Answers1

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We also face such kind of issue in our previous app. At that time we make below steps to check which part of application is taking more space.

1) Copy Final IPA file which was generated by Archive.

2) Rename "application.ipa" to "application.zip"

3) Unzip application.zip file.

4) Open unzip folder and find "application.app" file in "Payload" folder.

5) Right click on "application.app" file and select "Show Package Contents".

6) After click on that you will see the list of all the files added in your final application bundle.

From that file listing you can see which file is taking lager space and act accordingly.

  • Assets.car : it's for image assets added in your application.
  • Frameworks : all frameworks list which are added by you in your code.
  • file_name.nib : This file is for your xibs added in your project.
  • file_name.storyboardc : This file is for your Storyborad added in your project.
  • Apart from that their will list of font, images, videos, bundles, etc. files.

From these step you can get an idea that is the cause of build size.

Patrick R
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  • That's what I did, and found out that our code along took 50MB plus swift standard libraries 40M. But strangely, the app compiled in debug mode has only 11MB of code and 20MB of libraries – Nicholas Dec 30 '16 at 19:45
  • Besides, things were not that large. – Nicholas Dec 30 '16 at 19:48
  • As in debug mode, xcode is created for specific device that's why the size of debug build is less. But we can not be sure based on the size of build because of size is display in app store is different for different devices. Application size depends on your assets and library & we do not make any changes in libraries but for assets we can perform some improvements. To reduce image size without compromising image quality, you can use “https://tinypng.com/” One more factor is when we enable a bit code at time of creating IPA using achieve. As per comment of Yohst – Patrick R Dec 31 '16 at 06:52
  • All right, thanks. Since the images took only 7.5 MB, perhaps we won't worry too much about it. – Nicholas Dec 31 '16 at 15:58