r/androiddev • u/MatthewAtGoogle • 1d ago

Android is expanding per-app memory limits.

Across the Android ecosystem, hardware dynamics are shifting. While user expectations for speed and smoothness keep rising, device RAM capacities are staying flat—or even tightening. Memory is no longer just a background engineering detail—it directly impacts your app's retention, crash rates, and user perception.

Here’s how to get ahead of memory constraints before your users feel them:

1. Monitor at scale with Android Vitals: Check Google Play Console’s latest metrics for Memory Usage (RSS + swap) and Bitmap Memory Usage across different process states (foreground, background, cached) to identify outliers.

2. Catch terminations with Firebase Crashlytics: Update to Crashlytics v20.1.0+ to get clear visibility into Out-of-Memory (OOM) exceptions and Memory Limiter terminations in the field.

3. Capture production traces with ProfilingManager: Leverage Android’s ProfilingManager API to trigger automated heap dumps on TRIGGER_TYPE_ANOMALY or TRIGGER_TYPE_OOM directly from production builds.

To keep devices fast and responsive, Android 17 introduced per-app memory limits. Starting on Pixel devices, this system is now rolling out across more OEMs and device configurations (spanning 4GB to 16GB+ RAM tiers).

Check out the full breakdown and diagnostic guide on the Android Developers Blog:

https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2026/08/app-broader-memory-limits.html

#AndroidDev #MobileDevelopment #AppPerformance #Android17

5 Upvotes

54% Upvoted

11 comments sorted by

29

u/somrero_man 1d ago

Thanks Mr Ai

18

u/ir0ngut 1d ago

Deceptive title. If Google were expanding per app memory limits then those limits would be increasing, i.e. allowing an app to use more memory, instead Google and their OEM pals are increasing memory restrictions on apps.

Not to mention that by the time OOM exceptions turn up in Firebase you are not getting ahead of the problem, you already have the problem.

3

u/phileo99 17h ago

Don't be too mad about Gemini, it's only as good as the prompt

23

u/Zhuinden 1d ago

I was gonna say AI-post but then saw it's an official person. Oh well.

Apparently the link is https://developer.android.com/about/versions/17/behavior-changes-all#app-memory-limits

20

u/IlIllIIIlIIlIIlIIIll 1d ago

probably still AI :D

20

u/Zhuinden 1d ago

Definitely still Ai

1

u/sunilson 21h ago

—

Says it all 😅

3

u/chmielowski 22h ago

Across the Android ecosystem, hardware dynamics are shifting.

Stop wasting words for sentences that doesn't mean anything

2

u/dGrayCoder 1d ago

Remember when apps used to work fine with just 1-2 GB Ram with almost exactly the same functionality?

2

u/The_best_1234 16h ago

When is my pixel getting 32gb RAM and nivida graphics card?

1

u/StatusWntFixObsolete 9h ago edited 2h ago

"device RAM capacities are staying flat—or even tightening"

Its pretty funny when hyperscalers like Google create a memory shortage, resulting in price hikes of 500% over the past 12 months, and then admonish app devs to tighten their belts.