APK shrinking

Minimizing APK size is an important aspect of developing a good Android app. This is particularly true when targeting developing markets, and also when developing an Android Instant App. For such cases, it may be desirable to minimize the size of the ExoPlayer library that's included in the APK. This page outlines some simple steps that can help to achieve this.

Use only required dependencies

Depend only on the library modules that you actually need. For example, the following will add dependencies on the ExoPlayer, DASH, and UI library modules, as might be required for an app that only plays DASH content:

implementation("androidx.media3:media3-exoplayer:1.5.1")
implementation("androidx.media3:media3-exoplayer-dash:1.5.1")
implementation("androidx.media3:media3-ui:1.5.1")

implementation "androidx.media3:media3-exoplayer:1.5.1"
implementation "androidx.media3:media3-exoplayer-dash:1.5.1"
implementation "androidx.media3:media3-ui:1.5.1"

Enable code and resource shrinking

You should enable code and resource shrinking for your app's release builds. ExoPlayer is structured in a way that allows code shrinking to effectively remove unused functionality. For example, for an app that plays DASH content, ExoPlayer's contribution to APK size can be reduced by approximately 40% by enabling code shrinking.

Read Shrink, obfuscate, and optimize your app to learn how to enable code and resource shrinking.

Specify which renderers your app needs

By default, the player's renderers will be created using DefaultRenderersFactory. DefaultRenderersFactory depends on all of the Renderer implementations provided in the ExoPlayer library, and as a result none of them will be removed by code shrinking. If you know that your app only needs a subset of renderers, you can specify your own RenderersFactory instead. For example, an app that only plays audio can define a factory like this when instantiating ExoPlayer instances:

val audioOnlyRenderersFactory =
  RenderersFactory {
    handler: Handler,
    videoListener: VideoRendererEventListener,
    audioListener: AudioRendererEventListener,
    textOutput: TextOutput,
    metadataOutput: MetadataOutput,
    ->
    arrayOf<Renderer>(
      MediaCodecAudioRenderer(context, MediaCodecSelector.DEFAULT, handler, audioListener)
    )
}
val player = ExoPlayer.Builder(context, audioOnlyRenderersFactory).build()

RenderersFactory audioOnlyRenderersFactory =
    (handler, videoListener, audioListener, textOutput, metadataOutput) ->
        new Renderer[] {
            new MediaCodecAudioRenderer(
                context, MediaCodecSelector.DEFAULT, handler, audioListener)
        };
ExoPlayer player = new ExoPlayer.Builder(context, audioOnlyRenderersFactory).build();

This will allow other Renderer implementations to be removed by code shrinking. In this particular example video, text and metadata renderers are removed (which means any subtitles or in-stream metadata (e.g. ICY) won't be processed or emitted by the player).

Specify which extractors your app needs

By default, the player creates Extractor instances to play progressive media using DefaultExtractorsFactory. DefaultExtractorsFactory depends on all of the Extractor implementations provided in the ExoPlayer library, and as a result none of them will be removed by code shrinking. If you know that your app only needs to play a small number of container formats, or doesn't play progressive media at all, you can specify your own ExtractorsFactory instead. For example, an app that only needs to play mp4 files can provide a factory like:

val mp4ExtractorFactory = ExtractorsFactory {
  arrayOf<Extractor>(Mp4Extractor(DefaultSubtitleParserFactory()))
}
val player =
  ExoPlayer.Builder(context, DefaultMediaSourceFactory(context, mp4ExtractorFactory)).build()

ExtractorsFactory mp4ExtractorFactory =
    () -> new Extractor[] {new Mp4Extractor(new DefaultSubtitleParserFactory())};
ExoPlayer player =
    new ExoPlayer.Builder(context, new DefaultMediaSourceFactory(context, mp4ExtractorFactory))
        .build();

This will allow other Extractor implementations to be removed by code shrinking, which can result in a significant reduction in size.

If your app is not playing progressive content at all, you should pass ExtractorsFactory.EMPTY to the DefaultMediaSourceFactory constructor, then pass that mediaSourceFactory to the ExoPlayer.Builder constructor.

val player =
  ExoPlayer.Builder(context, DefaultMediaSourceFactory(context, ExtractorsFactory.EMPTY)).build()

ExoPlayer player =
    new ExoPlayer.Builder(
            context, new DefaultMediaSourceFactory(context, ExtractorsFactory.EMPTY))
        .build();

Custom MediaSource instantiation

If your app is using a custom MediaSource.Factory and you want DefaultMediaSourceFactory to be removed by code stripping, you should pass your MediaSource.Factory directly to the ExoPlayer.Builder constructor.

val player = ExoPlayer.Builder(context, customMediaSourceFactory).build()

ExoPlayer player = new ExoPlayer.Builder(context, mediaSourceFactory).build();

If your app is using MediaSource directly instead of MediaItem you should pass MediaSource.Factory.UNSUPPORTED to the ExoPlayer.Builder constructor, to ensure DefaultMediaSourceFactory and DefaultExtractorsFactory can be stripped by code shrinking.

val player = ExoPlayer.Builder(context, MediaSource.Factory.UNSUPPORTED).build()
val mediaSource =
  ProgressiveMediaSource.Factory(dataSourceFactory, customExtractorsFactory)
    .createMediaSource(MediaItem.fromUri(uri))

ExoPlayer player = new ExoPlayer.Builder(context, MediaSource.Factory.UNSUPPORTED).build();
ProgressiveMediaSource mediaSource =
    new ProgressiveMediaSource.Factory(dataSourceFactory, customExtractorsFactory)
        .createMediaSource(MediaItem.fromUri(uri));