How to Export Source Code ZIP in Android Studio

Sometimes, you will need export the source code of your android studio app project, to share it with others or just to save a copy or for backup.

Most people go to the windows explorer and zip the entire project folder using WinRar or other Archiving softwares. But is this the right way to do it?

No. This is not the right way to do it because this makes the zip file size larger because it can contain unnecessary files, caches etc. that don’t need to be in a ZIP archive. I had customers send me android projects that are above 100MB size when infact the original project size was less than 10MB. So in this post, you can learn how to do it by Archiving only the files required by android studio

What’s the right way to zip android studio project source code?

It’s super simple, you can do it from android studio itself.

To zip your project source code, go to android studio and go to the Editor panel then Double Click Shift key.

Then a search window will appear, type “Export Zip” in the search box, you should see the Export to Zip file.. option, click on it and then save the zip file in a preferred location in your storage. That’s it!

Reducing the zip size further

If you already built APK and AAB files, it’s possible the APK and AAB files exist in the project folder, so if it is not needed, you can delete them before zipping the project by going to project folder and delete the APK and AAB files. These files by default are stored in “..Project folder > app > release” or “..Project folder > app > build..“

If you have built AAR Library, it should be in “..Project folder > app > build> outputs > aar“

You can delete those files if they are not needed so you can save some extra storage