Android 12 may let you hibernate unused apps to free up space !!

It will be achieved by Deleting Compilation Artifacts.

It may be hard to believe, but we’re likely only a little over a month away from the release of the first Android 12 Developer Preview. After all, the first Android 11 Developer Preview was released back in February of 2020! We’ve been scouring the Android Open Source Project (AOSP) Gerrit for hints of new features coming to the next version of Android, and recently we’ve spotted evidence that Google is working on an app hibernation feature for Android 12.

In a new commit submitted to the AOSP Gerrit late last week, Google engineers revealed how Android’s app hibernation feature will optimize storage space at the package/APK level. Comments left in the code changes reveal that, when an app is hibernated for all users, its compilation artifact files (.vdex/.odex) will be deleted. According to Google, vdex files contain the uncompressed DEX code of an APK, while odex files contain the ahead-of-time compiled code for methods in the APK.

The amount of space that will be freed up by deleting these files likely won’t be a lot, especially when compared to the file sizes of cached images or videos. However, on lower-end devices with small amounts of internal storage, saving dozens of megabytes will free up space for dozens of additional photos.

Source: XDADevelopers