Exactly 1 year ago today, we had our biggest tweet ever about @gmail's iOS app size And funny enough, Gmail's size is making the rounds again 🧵 Looking at why Gmail is ~700 MB (+ why it's increased by 100 MB in the last year)Here's the original thread - would recommend checking it out for more info, but TL;DR - Large main app binary - Localizations - Big share extension plugin - Overhead from having many files in the appOver the last year, Gmail has increased by 100+ MB Most of that is coming from increases to the areas mentioned above 2024 → 2025 📱Main App Binary: 223 MB → 285 MB 🌐Localizations: 130 MB → 150 MB150 MB of localizations is crazy and it's uniquely an iOS problem On iOS, a user downloads every language an app supports, regardless of if they use it or not But there is a way to optimize thisAn app like Gmail supports ~60 languages + has thousands of localizations See thread for more detail, but Gmail could cut localization size by ~90% (135 MB) if they compressed unused languages and changed storage format to de-dupe keysAnother fun iOS quirk - what if I told you that of Gmail's 100 MB increase, 25 MBs are simply because Gmail added a lot of small files ☠ On iOS, minimum file size allocation is 4.1 kB. That means that even if an app is under 4 kB, it will be 4 kB when shipped in the app2024 → 2025, Gmail added 6k files < 4 kB Those 6k files caused an additional 22 MB in bloat from incremental app size (Also had 3 MB increase in Code Resources file, see og thread) In all, Gmail could shave off another ~80 MB by moving its small files to an asset catalogWell this was fun to do again, appreciate everyone who tagged us in the thread going around 🫶We've been hard at work integrating into @getsentry and have completely open-sourced two of our Emerge products 🎉 Here's our post on open sourcing Launch Booster, which tbh every single iOS app should use b/c it just makes your app faster like magicAnd just this week we open sourced Reaper b/c in the words of Bertram Gilfoyle, the best way to get rid of all the bugs is to get rid of all the software (and also to use Sentry)S/o @aarongrider for the initial post

Exactly 1 year ago today, we had our biggest tweet ever about @gmail's iOS app size And funny enough, Gmail's size is making the rounds again 🧵 Looking at why Gmail is ~700 MB (+ why it's increased by 100 MB in the last year) ... Here's the original thread - would recommend checking it out for more info, but TL;DR - Large main app binary - Localizations - Big share extension plugin - Overhead from having many files in the app ... Over the last year, Gmail has increased by 100+ MB Most of that is coming from increases to the areas mentioned above 2024 → 2025 Main App Binary: 223 MB → 285 MB Localizations: 130 MB → 150 MB ... 150 MB of localizations is crazy and it's uniquely an iOS problem On iOS, a user downloads every language an app supports, regardless of if they use it or not But there is a way to optimize this ... An app like Gmail supports ~60 languages + has thousands of localizations See thread for more detail, but Gmail could cut localization size by ~90% (135 MB) if they compressed unused languages and changed storage format to de-dupe keys ... Another fun iOS quirk - what if I told you that of Gmail's 100 MB increase, 25 MBs are simply because Gmail added a lot of small files On iOS, minimum file size allocation is 4.1 kB. That means that even if an app is under 4 kB, it will be 4 kB when shipped in the app ... 2024 → 2025, Gmail added 6k files < 4 kB Those 6k files caused an additional 22 MB in bloat from incremental app size (Also had 3 MB increase in Code Resources file, see og thread) In all, Gmail could shave off another ~80 MB by moving its small files to an asset catalog ... Well this was fun to do again, appreciate everyone who tagged us in the thread going around 🫶 ... We've been hard at work integrating into @getsentry and have completely open-sourced two of our Emerge products Here's our post on open sourcing Launch Booster, which tbh every single iOS app should use b/c it just makes your app faster like magic ... And just this week we open sourced Reaper b/c in the words of Bertram Gilfoyle, the best way to get rid of all the bugs is to get rid of all the software (and also to use Sentry) ... S/o @aarongrider for the initial post