After GitHub Warned Me About a Huge AAB File — Moving Build Artifacts to Local Version Control

Why I'm writing this

I built an AAB file to upload to the Play Store. Then, thinking "version control means git!", I committed store/v1.0/app-release.aab and pushed it to GitHub.

The moment I pushed, this warning showed up.

remote: warning: File store/v2.0/app-release.aab is 63.80 MB;
remote: this is larger than GitHub's recommended maximum file size of 50.00 MB
remote: warning: GH001: Large files detected.
remote: You may want to try Git Large File Storage - https://git-lfs.github.com.

Two 64MB files were enough to light up a warning on GitHub.

AAB/APK files are build artifacts — compiled binaries, not source code. These shouldn't go into git at all. This is the textbook case for .gitignore.

Why build artifacts don't belong in git

Reason	Explanation
Size	AABs are typically 50–100MB. Repo size balloons fast as versions accumulate
Useless diffs	Binary files produce meaningless git diffs
Reproducible	You can always rebuild from source
GitHub limits	Pushes are outright rejected past 100MB

The fix: version control in a local-only folder

I chose to keep these out of GitHub entirely, organizing them by version in a separate local folder instead.

Folder structure

~/Documents/workspace/apk_build_files/
└── tilt/
    ├── v1.0/
    │   └── app-release.aab   ← initial release
    └── v2.0/
        └── app-release.aab   ← version with the tutorial added

One folder per project, version folders inside it. Simple, but sufficient.

What I actually did, step by step

Step 1 — Create the local storage folder and move the files

# Create the folders
mkdir -p ~/Documents/workspace/apk_build_files/tilt/v1.0
mkdir -p ~/Documents/workspace/apk_build_files/tilt/v2.0

# Move the AAB files out of the git repo into the local folder
mv store/v1.0/app-release.aab ~/Documents/workspace/apk_build_files/tilt/v1.0/
mv store/v2.0/app-release.aab ~/Documents/workspace/apk_build_files/tilt/v2.0/

Step 2 — Remove the files from git

Files already committed need git rm to stop tracking them. This doesn't delete the local file — it only removes it from git's tracking list.

git rm -r store/v1.0/ store/v2.0/

Step 3 — Add to .gitignore

echo "store/v1.0/" >> .gitignore
echo "store/v2.0/" >> .gitignore

# Or as a single pattern
echo "store/v*/" >> .gitignore

Step 4 — Commit & push

git add .gitignore
git commit -m "chore: remove AAB build files from git, switch to local management"
git push origin main

Building a new version going forward

# Build
./gradlew bundleRelease

# Copy the output
mkdir -p ~/Documents/workspace/apk_build_files/tilt/v3.0
cp android/app/build/outputs/bundle/release/app-release.aab \
   ~/Documents/workspace/apk_build_files/tilt/v3.0/

When uploading to the Play Store, use apk_build_files/tilt/v3.0/app-release.aab.

Worth adding to .gitignore up front (Android/Expo)

# Build artifacts
android/app/build/
*.apk
*.aab
*.keystore   # Signing keys should never be committed either

# Local version control folder
store/v*/

.keystore files in particular can turn into a real security incident if pushed to GitHub. Make sure they're gitignored right alongside your build artifacts.

Summary

Item	Approach
Storing build files	Local-only folder (`apk_build_files/`)
Version distinction	By folder name (`v1.0/`, `v2.0/`)
Removing from git tracking	`git rm -r`
Preventing recurrence	Add the pattern to `.gitignore`

Source code goes in git. Build artifacts stay local. That's the basic principle.