I know there’s been a lot of posts concerning this issue but none of the proposed solutions worked for me. So here goes…
I have UE 4.6 (did not build from source code!)
I have started a blank project with code
I have 10.3 MB worth of content (textures, sprites, animations, blueprints, ect.) in my Content folder.
All sprites are unlit.
I only have one level with only 4 objects…
Building for ETC1 only
I build either for shipping or development and it gives me an APK of 63.4 MB and an OBB of 39.6MB.
I’ve tried to compress the textures without the alpha… that barely saved 3-4 MB. There’s one odd thing here. Before I tried to compress the textures without the alpha, the APK was around 24MB. Since I tried the option, it went to 63.4MB. Even if the options is turned off again, it still stays at 63.4MB.
I have the same project in Unity3D 4.6 that contains 83MB worth of content (using the same textures i’m using here with the same compression type (ETC1)) with a splash screen, a level with all of my menus inside, and 12 levels and my APK is barely 20MB with no OBB. Now, I know that Unreal is “heavier” than Unity but an 80MB difference?
I’m familiar with the link. The problem is that the solution is for people that have compile the engine thus having the source code in their project folder. In my case, I don’t have the source code so it doesn’t apply to me.
Hi maparizeau,
I just double-checked and you don’t need to have the source codes in order to implement the workaround. You just need to delete the following folders (make a backup of them first, because the Unreal Editor will not work the next time you start it) from the location where the engine was installed on your machine:
Engine/\Content/\Slate/\Fonts
Engine/\Content/\Slate/\Common
and change the entry in the BaseEditor.ini in Engine/\Config from
When I made a search for those folders in my project folder, I did not find them… ok it was 1 in the morning and I had to get up at 7 the next day…
I will look into it again tonight… duhh Are you talking about the editors folder?.. yes you are (sorry writing this while my brain is telling where I should have looked in.
I, too, have the same problem. Spent the better part of the week trying to figure out WHY OH WHY UE4 would package my main-menu-only not-yet-a-game game with 10MB content (9MB of which is a placeholder audio file) to a size of 115 MB! I got it down to just over 60 using shipping settings and some voodoo (no idea what actually worked, maybe exporting to c++? I didn’t change anything there, though). A few more MB via the “brute force method” quoted above. However, this is for a game which has almost no content nor functionality yet! (After all, I only got UE4 a week or so ago.)
This is what I found so far in my quest for understanding of what’s going on:
The underlying problem seems to be - from what I am seeing in the logfiles - that UE4 not only packages what it may or may not need from the engine, but - for whatever reason - parts of the editor as well. My game, being no more than a main menu for now, DOES NOT HAVE a landscape! So why would the editor need to include its “landscape resources”? Similarly, the game does not have a damage system of any sort. So why…? Most interestingly, the “mesh sphere” which is used in the material editor seems to end up in the game package as well… Reasons? And so on.
Unfortunately for us, the so-called workaround does NOT work around this problem. Most of the editor materials cannot be deleted while the editor is running, and the editor won’t run without them. Since we need to package from the editor (or did I miss something here?), those resources will be included in the package. Similarly, since I cannot figure out what is in this 60MB lib file, how can I even start thinking about how to smallify it?
Since the first stop in case of questions is the references site, this is where I went. In the Build System references part it states:
Well, from my perspective, UEBuildGames is doing a horrible job taking care of this. I certainly need to intervene. However, although it does say I can configure my build, this isn’t of any use since I cannot seem to find a list of all the engine content or functionality that I could disable if not needed nor a way to find out what is needed by the engine even though I am not using it. However, for a UMG main menu a 60 MB lib file seems ridiculous in any perceivable case. As a consequence, as it is now I can use UE4 for the prototype only unless I figure out how to manage this problem, and will have to move the project back to a different engine for the actual game. For my pretty much logic-only game, an acceptable size would probably be less than 30MB FOR THE FINISHED GAME (if I am feeling very tolerant), a size I can hardly achieve right now with 80% or more still missing. This is sad since I actually like the UE4 workflow.
So I put this here as a starting point for a discussion on how to teach UE4 to output less bloat, possibly via the cited configurability functionality. Unfortunately, my c+±knowledge is not such that it could be of much help here. But maybe someone reading this knows more?
I got same problem with 4.26, anyone find out how to decrease size the apk or aab in shipping configuration? I am develop an app around 3mb of content size, and with all compressions setting my final apk or aab after installed on device is about 200mb. Also inside of apk or aab, the biggest file from all files is libUE4.so with ~140mb.
