android-resource-remover

android-resource-remover is utility that removes unused resources reported by Android Lint from your project. The goal is to reduce your APK size and keep the app clean from unused stuff.

Getting started

Requirements:

• Python >= 2.7.*
• ADT >= 16

To install run:

pip install android-resource-remover 

Usage - general

Open the directory where your app is located and run

android-resource-remover 

Android resources have dependencies to each other. This means that after running resource-remover the first time, it will clean up unused resources file that hold a reference to other resources. You can run this resource remover multiple times until there is no more unused resources to be removed. We've been running it up to 4 times in a row.

Use with gradle

android-resource-remover is build on top of android lint. If you have a gradle project you have to run lint within your gradle build scripts and then use the lint-result.xml as the input file for android-resource-remover

e.g.

./gradlew clean build :lint && android-resource-remover --xml build/outputs/lint-results.xml 

Options

--help

Prints help message.

--lint

Full path to the lint tool like: d:\Dev\Android SDK\tools\lint

This will be executed as the lint command. If not provided it assumes the lint command in available and runs: lint

--app

Full path to the android app like: d:\Dev\My_Android_App

If not provided it assumes the current directory is the app's root directory.

--xml

Use existing lint result. If provided lint won't be run.

--ignore-layouts

Ignore layout directory

Expected behavior

Resource ID in code not found

If you have references to elements in an old layout that you're not using anymore, you will get a compile error that the ID ( R.id.<something>) can not be found. The reason is that the resource file that contained R.id.<something> has been removed as it was not used any more. Time to clean up your code.

FAQ

Q: installing dependency lxml failed with clang: error: unknown argument: '-mno-fused-madd' [-Wunused-command-line-argument-hard-error-in-future]
A: http://stackoverflow.com/a/22322645

Q: installing dependency lxml failed with fatal error: 'libxml/xmlversion.h' file not found
A: There are several ways to fix this listed on stackoverflow http://stackoverflow.com/questions/19548011/cannot-install-lxml-on-mac-os-x-10-9

Issues and PR

When opening an issue please include as much info as possible. pip.log, python varsion/info, os version/info might all be help us understanding what's the problem.

In PR please keep the formatting.

Licence

Apache version 2.0