Android and the DEX 64K Methods Limit & Online Tool

Our apps are limited to a 64K method reference limit. If your app reaches this limit, the build process outputs the following error message:

Unable to execute dex: method ID not in [0, 0xffff]: 65536

Tools

This is a drap and drop tool which helps us to find the number of method in apk http://inloop.github.io/apk-method-count/.

Which helps us to be in safe-guard in optimizing things. Know we need some solutions to optimize the problem. Let find them

Solutions

MultiDex

MultiDex allows you to use multiple DEX files contained within one APK. With a few steps, your classes will split automatically into several DEX files (classes.dex,classes2.dex, classes3.dex, etc) in case you reach the method index limit.

ProGuard

ProGuard is a tool that shrinks, optimizes and obfuscates your code by removing unused code and renaming classes, fields and methods with semantically obscure names.

JarJar

Jar Jar Links is a utility that makes it easy to repackage Java libraries and embed them into your own distribution.

Conclusion

At this point, Google Play Services is perhaps the biggest common threat on your methods count. I would love to see this API broken into separate modules. A detailed summary of this problem was published a while ago by Jake Wharton & Android and the dex 64k methods limit by Tom Renzik, so feel free to dive into that as well.

Another interesting blog post was published a while ago by Cyril Mottier, illustrating how to reduce APK size using various different techniques. 

Thanks for reading :) 

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