Android Apps Must Meet New Memory Limits

Android developers have until February 2027 to get leaner or risk consequences on Google Play.

Google is introducing new Play Store thresholds covering runtime memory, bitmap usage and code optimization. Apps that repeatedly exceed the limits could lose visibility or face restrictions on publishing updates, putting new pressure on developers to reduce the amount of memory their software consumes.

The requirements arrive as Android devices face competing demands for RAM, including increasingly memory-hungry AI features and higher costs for memory components. Google is also changing Android’s own memory management, making app efficiency a bigger part of both development and day-to-day device performance.

What developers must fix before February 2027

The new Google Play requirements will measure how much memory apps use while running, how much memory they devote to images, and how much unnecessary code they carry.

The limits depend on the phone’s RAM and the type of app, with games having higher limits than normal apps due to their higher RAM requirements for standard operation.

Using Google’s own example of an 8GB device, a regular app gets a 2.25GB memory threshold in the foreground and 1.5GB in the background. Google also sets separate limits for bitmap memory, meaning developers will need to avoid loading or retaining unnecessarily large images.

Developers also need to optimize their app’s Dalvik Executable (DEX) code. Apps with more than 10MB of DEX code and games with more than 50MB must achieve at least 25% coverage across optimization, obfuscation, and shrinking.

In practice, developers will need to find memory leaks, reduce unnecessary memory use, optimize images, and remove excess code before the deadline.

Google is also adding Android-level optimizations

Google isn’t just making these demands of developers. The company is also updating Android’s core memory management to adapt more efficiently to these changes.

In an Aug. 19 Android Developers Blog post, Google detailed Android 17’s per-app memory limits, which will start with Pixel devices and expand to more manufacturers over the coming year. When an app reaches its allocated limit, Android can force some of its memory pages into compressed zRAM, which can slow performance. If memory use continues to climb, Android can terminate the process.

Google is also adding more memory-related data to Android vitals, giving developers visibility into how their apps perform across different devices without relying entirely on their own testing.

What this means for developers and phone users

Phone users have already been on the receiving end of rising memory costs, from higher device prices to the possibility that an app in use may be abruptly terminated if it exceeds Google’s set threshold.

The bigger issue is what Google’s response says about the memory crunch itself. Google’s response also suggests that memory efficiency is becoming a longer-term design consideration for Android developers, rather than something they can treat purely as a temporary response to current supply constraints.

Developers and device makers may therefore have to treat efficient RAM use as an increasingly important part of Android performance as apps, AI features and other workloads compete for available memory.

If Google’s approach works, it could also set a precedent for other mobile platforms and Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) to impose similar requirements on developers. That could mean stricter consequences for poorly optimized apps, but it could also push developers toward leaner software that makes better use of the hardware already in users’ hands.

Also read: Google’s Android performance overhaul shows how the company is using real-world app data to make the operating system faster and more efficient.