---
title: "Reducing the size of your app"
canonical_url: "https://www.nutrient.io/guides/ios/best-practices/reduce-app-size/"
md_url: "https://www.nutrient.io/guides/ios/best-practices/reduce-app-size.md"
last_updated: "2026-09-02T09:24:06.299Z"
description: "Learn effective strategies to reduce your app size, from optimizing images with ImageOptim to inspecting your final `.ipa` file for unnecessary files."
---

Apple has a [Q&A article about the various ways to reduce the size of your application](https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/qa/qa1795/_index.html). Most noticeable is the `Fastest, Smallest [-Os]` optimization level and enabling Strip Debug Symbols During Copy.

We recommend using [ImageOptim](https://imageoptim.com/) to reduce the size of your images. Applications like Adobe Photoshop save a lot of additional metadata in file formats such as PNG, and ImageOptim is very good for both removing such metadata and reducing image size by up to 90 percent. There’s an [interesting case study](https://imageoptim.com/tweetbot.html) detailing how using ImageOptim halved the size of Tweetbot.

We recommend archiving your app and then [inspecting the final `.ipa` file](http://osxdaily.com/2011/04/07/extract-and-explore-an-ios-app-in-mac-os-x/). Sometimes files that should not be in the application end up there, and a simple check can find files that have accidentally been copied for release.

You can [view the `.ipa` file contents sorted by compressed size](https://web.archive.org/web/20140409144750/http://realmacsoftware.com/blog/slimming-down-your-app) using the following:

```shell

zipinfo -l path/to/app.ipa | sort -nr -k 6

```

This allows you to quickly identify which files take up the most space in the compressed `.ipa` file.
---

## Related pages

- [Carthage integration](/guides/ios/best-practices/carthage-integration.md)
- [Nightly Builds](/guides/ios/best-practices/nightly-builds.md)
- [Transferring File Edits To A Server](/guides/ios/best-practices/transferring-file-edits-to-a-server.md)
- [Using Automatic Saving Safely](/guides/ios/best-practices/using-automatic-saving-safely.md)
- [Version Numbering](/guides/ios/best-practices/version-numbering.md)
- [Customizing The Page Number](/guides/ios/customizing-pdf-pages/customizing-the-page-number.md)
- [Bitcode](/guides/ios/faq/bitcode.md)
- [Framework Size](/guides/ios/faq/framework-size.md)
- [iOS PDF SDK security](/guides/ios/faq/sdk-security.md)
- [Strategies For Multiple Bundle Ids](/guides/ios/faq/strategies-for-multiple-bundle-ids.md)
- [Manage your iOS status bar with view controllers](/guides/ios/faq/view-controller-based-status-bar-appearance.md)
- [Airdrop](/guides/ios/features/airdrop.md)
- [Customizing the log level on iOS](/guides/ios/features/logging.md)
- [Modifying permissions in your iOS app](/guides/ios/getting-started/permissions.md)
- [Using Document Efficiently](/guides/ios/getting-started/using-document-efficiently.md)
- [About Memory Usage](/guides/ios/memory-and-storage/about-memory-usage.md)
- [Saving Data Externally](/guides/ios/memory-and-storage/saving-data-externally.md)
- [Advanced Carthage integration](/guides/ios/miscellaneous/advanced-carthage-integration.md)
- [Advanced CocoaPods integration](/guides/ios/miscellaneous/advanced-cocoapods-integration.md)
- [Optimize PDF documents for mobile rendering on iOS](/guides/ios/miscellaneous/optimize-pdf-documents-for-mobile-rendering.md)
- [Powered By Nutrient](/guides/ios/miscellaneous/powered-by-nutrient.md)
- [Third Party Compatibility](/guides/ios/miscellaneous/third-party-compatibility.md)
- [Youtube Links](/guides/ios/miscellaneous/youtube-links.md)
- [App Transport Security](/guides/ios/pspdfkit-instant/app-transport-security.md)