New Feature Spotlight: 

Estimated Package Size While Publishing

What Is It? – 

After you hit the “Package” button for an application, our packager will now tell you an estimated size of the app while it compiles it. This will include the total size of the application — both the app container and all the media in it.

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Why is this Important? – 

Though this feature may seem like a subtle feature add, it actually has significant value.

For InstaVR Pro users, the total packaged app size limit by default is 2 GB. This is based on Google Play’s existing limit of 2 GB for fully downloaded apps. (Side note: as recently as 2015, Google had raised their allowable size limit from 50mb to 100mb. We’ve come a long way since then!)

But here are a couple times when you may want to take action based on Estimated Package Size:

If you’re building an Android APK, and the estimator indicates it will be over 100MB, you need to publish with a separate Expansion file by checking the box like below. You’ll need to upload the .apk and expansion files to Google Play, if submitting for wide distribution. 

If your estimator indicates your app will be over 2GB, you’ll need to cancel packaging and use our “Download or Stream” option found in the Branding section, under Add-on screens. This will allow your downloaded app to be relatively small in size, with the user choosing if they’d like to Stream the large app, or download it in its entirety. 

Even if your app is under 2GB, it may be larger than you’d like, particularly if your users are going to need to download or stream it over a non-ideal internet connection. If that’s the case, it may make sense to cancel the packaging, and re-package with Compression or 2k video selected in the packaging section. 

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How do I use it? – 

You don’t have to do anything!

Free and InstaVR Pro users will see the size estimate in the package processing bar immediately after initiating the package creation. (see top of this page for screenshot)

To cancel a package, you just hit the “Cancel” button on the far right of the package processing bar.

It’s not a huge feature add, but incredibly useful, and will hopefully help you save time and energy while using InstaVR!

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