How to include only used assets in your Package?

Development Platform & Builds
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I’m packaging a project, but when I look at my package, I see all of starter content assets included with package instead of only ones I have used. How do I go about including only assets I have used in my project with package?

1 Like
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Hey Rwkeith,

Packaging already removes any content not being used by maps being cooked in your package. So simplest way to get rid of that extra content from your package is to remove maps that reference that content from your project.

A more complex but more thorough method can be found here in archives:

Hope that helps!

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Ah I figured it out. Thank you so much.

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Hello,

Starting from a blank project with starter content, I tried keeping only my modified minimal default map, and deleting startermap.umap file.

However, once I package (with shipping, and even distribution checkbox checked - is that latter only for Apple Devices, or should I keep checking it?), my package folder still has all assets present in Content Browser.
I also tried more complex method by editing MyProject/Config/DefaultEngine.ini, to no avail.

So only thing I’ve found to reduce footprint of package is to delete unused assets in content browser before packaging.

I must be doing something wrong, but what?

Thanks for any help or hints your could give me.

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I also have this problem. after migrating some assets to a project, packaged size increases even if assets are never used. Is there a way to avoid this? I would like to be able to have assets available in content browser in case i would like to use them, but not increase size of final game if not utilized. I am packaging for windows only at this time. Hopefully this can be resolved as it is rather disruptive to workflow to have to hunt down individual items for import in an effort to keep release size to a minimum.

EDIT: or, an option to select items in pending deletes that that have references, and remove them from pending deletes? That would help me greatly in process of cleaning up a project.

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Epic there is a problem within this.
I have 25GB of textures, but I am not using them right now… Yet if I package game with a simple empty scene, all 25gb of textures are copied to packaged game even though they are not used anywhere.

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I’m also having this problem in 4.4. One empty map results in over 1 Gb of packed content.

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Experiencing same issue. Quite annoying when you want to share pre alpha stuffs with people. Also, i’m getting bored of UE reseting collision settings at every update :cry:

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Version 4.4.1 having this problem, too (packages everything, even content not in use).

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I retested this with 4.4.3 and still get that issue. From a Blank project with Starter Content, I removed 2 default maps from Content/Maps, and created a simple new empty level, and packaged that. starter content still gets packaged, resulting in a 500Mb “empty” game…

said “Packaging already removes any content not being used by maps being cooked in your package. So simplest way to get rid of that extra content from your package is to remove maps that reference that content from your project.”, yet documentation says : “This can end up being a slow process if you included Starter Content in your project, or if you have made a lot of test/temporary content and maps.”
(Source: Packaging Unreal Engine Projects | Unreal Engine 5.1 Documentation )

I would still be interested to know if there’s indeed a way not to include that content automatically? Because documentation as it stands doesn’t seem to make it case. If there isn’t, is only way painstaking manual removal of unused assets (a risky business, isn’t it?) only way??? There must be something better…

(Other tests : from a new project with no starter content, I get 88Mb. That sound reasonable for just engine. Although I guess you could remove an extra 29Mb if you don’t include Third Party libraries… Then I tried adding Mixamo anim pack, without including any of it in my empty level. And sure enough packaged folder shot up to 350Mb. So it does that with everything, not just starter content. Something clearly isn’t working as intended here, it seems.)

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Any news on this? Is this issue fixed?!

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not fixed yet. I got it in 4.6 preview now.
Deleted all maps except 2, and ended up with 2 GB of cooked content. Some standard assets and mixamo characters etc… which are not used in those maps at all

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this is a MUST thing

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This works: Packaging specific maps within a project - World Creation - Epic Developer Community Forums

Edit defaultengine.ini

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Oh man this is not cool. I thought this was a given. Haven’t been checking size of my packaged levels since it was just to see if they cook without errors (happens from time to time). I figured packaging process would UBER optimize everything. Sh*t…

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A found a solution to this…

Create a blank Project…(with no starting content)

then open your Ddevelopment project / migrate Levels that you want to include…to blank project

open blank project, this should now contain only relevant items…

I went from a 2G project to a 500M project …

:wink:

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Yep, same problem here. I have some fairly large sets of models in my project and currently a single map. packaged game (for some reason only 32-Bit is allowed, why ever) is over 1 GB in size.

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Thanks for tip!

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This still is not working in 4.7.4. I tried building with pak files disabled and confirmed that every single asset in content folder of my project is being included, referenced or not.

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4.10 Preview 1 here, all content is still included in paks.