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The worldwide memory shortage will soon impact your Android apps.

If you've missed the headlines, let us bring you up to speed: there has been a massive shortage of memory chips for the majority of this year, driven largely by the massive demand from artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure consuming vast quantities of the same components found in your everyday gadgets. It's caused several tech brands like Samsung, Apple, Roku, Microsoft, Sony, British startup Nothing, and others to raise their prices across products.

With prices for these components spiralling, manufacturers could be forced to release devices with less RAM to keep down costs. To ensure those perform as expected, Google has told Android app developers to restrict their memory usage in their apps and how it's used on Android devices.

In a blog post, Google states: "Maintaining a healthy Android ecosystem is a shared commitment where every app and game has a role to play. To help you deliver the premium experiences users expect, Google Play is introducing two new quality requirements: one focused on reducing app memory footprint, and another on providing a secure, seamless device migration experience."

While this might restrict developers, this update could be ideal for the life of your handset.

Apps that use less RAM should leave more memory available for everything else, making it easier for you to multitask without apps constantly closing and reloading.

The company wants apps to work smoothly across everything from modest mobiles holding 4GB of memory right up to flagship devices packing 16GB or more.

This could be especially useful if you have a more budget-friendly phone with less RAM, while also reducing the need for you to pay extra for 12GB or 16GB of memory. Better-optimised apps could also use fewer resources in the background, potentially helping your battery last longer and reducing frustrating crashes.

Developers have until February 2027 to get their apps in shape across three key areas.

First up is dynamic memory usage — basically how much temporary data an app uses while it's running or sitting idle in the background. Apps need to be smarter about freeing up memory when you're not actively using them.

Then there's bitmap memory, which covers images and graphics for the app's overall appearance. Google wants developers to handle visuals more efficiently, especially when an app isn't on screen.

Finally, there's code optimisation. Apps often ship with bloated, unnecessary code that wastes memory. Under the new rules, developers must trim their app's code by at least 25% before publishing on the Play Store.

If developers don't follow the new rules, apps that go past the memory thresholds will be actively slowed down or even forcibly shut down to stop them dragging the whole phone to a crawl.

Google's blog post also warns that apps and games failing to meet the new standards "may see reduced app visibility and publishing capabilities on Google Play," meaning the app could become harder to find in search results. Developers might also face restrictions on pushing out updates.

It's worth noting that apps won't be outright banned for exceeding the limits. But between performance penalties and reduced discoverability, there's a pretty strong incentive to slim things down.

The RAM crunch is already visible in Google's own hardware. The Pixel 11 Pro and 11 Pro XL now come with 12GB of RAM in their base models, down from 16GB on last year's versions.