electron package: reduce the package size

Question

I made a simple Electron app:

main.js

const {app, BrowserWindow} = require('electron')
const path = require('path')
const url = require('url')

let win

function createWindow () {
  win = new BrowserWindow({
    width: 800, 
    height: 600, 
    icon: path.join(__dirname, 'icon.ico')
  })

  win.maximize();

  win.loadURL('https://stackoverflow.com/', {"extraHeaders" : "pragma: no-cache\n"});

  win.on('closed', () => {
    win = null
  })
}

app.on('ready', createWindow)

app.on('browser-window-created',function(e,window) {
    window.setMenu(null);
});

app.on('window-all-closed', () => {
  if (process.platform !== 'darwin') {
    app.quit()
  }
})

app.on('activate', () => {
  if (win === null) {
    createWindow()
  }
})

package.json

{
  "name": "test",
  "version": "1.0.0",
  "main": "main.js",
  "build": {
    "appId": "com.test.app",
    "copyright": "test",
    "productName": "test"
  },
  "devDependencies": {
    "electron": "1.7.9",
    "electron-builder": "^19.46.4",
    "electron-packager": "^10.1.0"
  }
}

with electron-packager i have builded the package to release:

electron-packager . --overwrite --asar=true --platform=win32 --arch=ia32 --prune=true --out=release-builds

the total size of the builded package is 107 MB.

Anyone have tips to reduce the size of the package?

Answer 1

You can reduce the electron app size by packaging using electron-builder package.

PicArt is an electronjs app which I developed recently. It is built using reactJS. Initially when I packaged the app using electron-packager the Window's build size was around 98 MB. Then I found this awesome boilerplate electron-react where they configured the electron-builder to produced optimised build size. After using those configuration setup, PicArt's build is now around 36 MB.

Yes, it is possible to reduce the app size , but it quite painful and time consuming to configure the build setup.