For most apps, this is plenty of space for all the app's code and assets. However, some apps need more space for high-fidelity graphics, media files, or other large assets. Previously, if your app's compressed download size exceeded MB, you had to host and download the additional resources yourself when the user opens the app.
Hosting and serving the extra files can be costly, and the user experience is often less than ideal. To make this process easier for you and more pleasant for users, Google Play allows you to attach two large expansion files that supplement your APK.
Google Play hosts the expansion files for your app and serves them to the device at no cost to you. The expansion files are saved to the device's shared storage location the SD card or USB-mountable partition; also known as the "external" storage where your app can access them.
On most devices, Google Play downloads the expansion file s at the same time it downloads the APK, so your app has everything it needs when the user opens it for the first time. In some cases, however, your app must download the files from Google Play when your app starts. If you'd like to avoid using expansion files and your app's compressed download size is larger than MB, you should instead upload your app using Android App Bundles which allows for up to a MB compressed download size.
Additionally, because using app bundles defers APK generation and signing to Google Play, users download optimized APKs with only the code and resources they need to run your app. You don't have to build, sign, and manage multiple APKs or expansion files, and users get smaller, more optimized downloads. Each file can be up to 2GB and it can be any format you choose, but we recommend you use a compressed file to conserve bandwidth during the download. Conceptually, each expansion file plays a different role:.
