Why is the Gmail app 700 MB?

Re:Why is the Gmail app 700 MB? by throwaway81523 on Tuesday January 06, 2026 @05:40PM (#46519858)

I remember hearing that even a trivial React Native app is around 100MB on Android.

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Re:Why is the Gmail app 700 MB? by marcosdumay on Tuesday January 06, 2026 @06:07PM (#46520146)

If you use Electron, yes, any application starts from around 100MB.

But there are alternatives that reuse the OS's libraries nowadays.

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Re:Why is the Gmail app 700 MB? by presentation on Tuesday January 06, 2026 @08:11PM (#46521237)

React Native doesn’t use Electron

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Re:Why is the Gmail app 700 MB? by efskap on Tuesday January 06, 2026 @08:06PM (#46521200)

Why Electron? React Native doesn't even use HTML.

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Re:Why is the Gmail app 700 MB? by emchammer on Tuesday January 06, 2026 @06:17PM (#46520254)

How does a web application reuse browser system-native libraries?

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Re:Why is the Gmail app 700 MB? by oxidant on Tuesday January 06, 2026 @07:04PM (#46520731)

Electron ships a version of Chrome. Other frameworks like Tauri use the device's webview.

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Re:Why is the Gmail app 700 MB? by marcosdumay on Tuesday January 06, 2026 @07:04PM (#46520733)

The entire discussion is about native applications, not web.

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