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I am building a Xamarin (Android) app in Visual Studio 2017. When building in Release mode,

  • If Use Fast Deployment (debug mode only) is checked - the app size is 33 MB
  • If Use Fast Deployment (debug mode only) is not checked - the app size is 153 MB

I would like to keep it checked since the app size is significantly less. But does Visual Studio emphasizes that its for debug mode only? Since there is surely something going on in release mode.

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  • Review Xamarin's App Package Size: learn.microsoft.com/en-us/xamarin/android/deploy-test/… and use then you need to review use of the Mono Linker and the Java Proguard tools Commented Apr 24, 2018 at 18:17
  • I am not asking about Mono Linker and ProGuard. I am already using both of them. I am asking about significance of fast deployment in release mode. Why is there such a difference in app size? Commented Apr 24, 2018 at 18:20
  • Using fast deployment creates a APK without CIL-based assemblies, just the Mono runtime, the assemblies are dynamically added after the APK is install so the APK itself does not have to be changed (and thus reinstalled) on each debug cycle, only the assemblies need to be pushed as "files". Commented Apr 24, 2018 at 19:33

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With Fast Deployment checked you're not aggregating the assemblies of the app in the package, that instead are copied to their final destination with adb push meaning that can work only in Debug.
For options to reduce/optimize the size of your app in Release mode you can check out this article.
This speeds up the build/deployment process because if only the assemblies are modified the package is not reinstalled but only synchronized in your device.

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