Android’s archive feature will partially uninstall apps until you need them again

Google is working on a tool that should let you “archive” certain apps to help free up space on your device. In a blog post, Google explains any app with the feature will let you partially uninstall it, shrinking the app down by about 60 percent without removing it completely.

Archived APKs are much smaller and “preserve user data until the app is restored”

It does this by creating a new type of APK (Android Package) — otherwise known as the guts that make an app functional on your device — that it calls archived APKs. As Google points out, archived APKs are much smaller and save all your data until you restore it, bringing it back to its original size. The feature will become available to developers with the Bundletool 1.10 release, but...