Minimizing package size

I’m creating a completely blank project to try and understand what is causing my package size to be larger than expected. I use the following steps to obtain the smallest runnable project:
(for reference, I’m in Windows on a PC and building for Windows)

  1. New Project > Blank
  2. Uncheck “Include starter content”
  3. Create project
  4. File > New Level > Empty level
  5. Save level
  6. File > Package Project > Build Configuration > Shipping
  7. File > Package Project > Packaging Settings… > Uncheck “Use Pak file”

The main project folder is fine and mostly contains the project executable (which is ~18MB). Nothing to improve there.

I’m going to focus on the “Engine” folder. Screenshot below of possible improvement points.

Seems like ~25MB of wasted space in the build that I can’t easily get rid of. This isn’t a huge deal – UE4 is a AAA engine and as such I doubt players will mind a minimum download size of ~25MB. (size of the total package compressed)

Still, I wanted to start a thread to see if anyone else has noticed this and found a way to minimize package size further. Any thoughts?

Also like much of a tool that would allow check what the final size of a build, and what is being used and taking up space and what is not.

Do not know if it’s allowed to post this kind of thing, but it has a plugin for Unity for verifying such information.


I would really like Epic, implement something similar in the UE4 Cooking tool.

I’m so disappointed for this problem! Where are UE4 Developers.

How do you get that tree view?

It seems to be a problem with mobile development as well. I takes forever to get my game running on the phone after tiny incremental changes. In the past, when I used to make Android games with my own engine, the app would deploy considerably faster if I got rid of extra junk that wasn’t used.

Hey Everybody,

We have a bug in our database (UE-11529) that addresses this issue exactly. No promises on when a fix will make it in, but it’s a known issue that went in recently.

You can simply use PakBlack list for release to exclude the above contents.
I have succesfully managed to get 29 mb of ETC2 build for android using it.