Google Play How to prevent downloading a large APK extension file when a user installs APP from the market.

Question

Many of my users had problems installing my application from the Play Store due to a lack of internal memory. Application Size: APK 37MB + EXPANSION 1.3 GB.

I knew that many users do not want to have such large data in the system memory and implemented an example of licensing and downloading library, and also changed the code that the extension file will be downloaded directly to the physical sd card. But the user can start my boot process only from the options menu inside the application.

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Problem :

Google stated here :

"... If Google Play cannot download extension files, it only downloads the APK."

But that seems wrong. Many users complain about installation problems and pending / freezing downloads. They say that when they install the application from the market, Google tries to try to load the OBB extension file first and (even worse) into the internal memory. Thus, the user cannot start the application and use my download.

Since I want to use the security features of the Google licensing mechanisms, I had the following idea:

• Download my application to the developer console without extension.
• Download another 1.3 GB dummy and don’t publish it
• Try downloading the extension from the options menu from my original application and use the license key from the dummy apk.

Can someone confirm that this might work?

Is there a way to get Google Play to download a large extension directly to external memory? Maybe if I change the manifest with:

android:installLocation="auto" 

Any ideas appreciated!

Answer 1

Why don't you put the preferExternal value for installLocation into your manifest? This will place all the files in external storage. Do this for all your apk files.

 <manifest xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android" android:installLocation="preferExternal" ... > 

from: application installation location