Android is the most widely used mobile Operating System followed by iOS at present. But there are certain limitations that have been continuing to exist on this platform for years. One of which is not able to record videos in size more than 4GB. Yes, you heard it right, your Android smartphone can record videos only up to 4GB in size. But thankfully, this limitation will be eroded out in the next release Android which will be simply called Android 11.
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Today’s Android smartphones can do lots of things but still can record videos only up to 4GB in size. Once your recording hits 4GB size limit, it will get stored without your consent but the recording will continue by splitting into consequent 4GB files depending on how long you record. Which means your gallery will be filled with a number of videos instead of a one single piece video. Although you can mux the independent video files into a single video as you intended to be while recording, it is not the ideal way to go.
This limitation was first introduced by Google in 2014 when 4K video recording on smartphones just started popping up. So, it makes sense back then when smartphones had lower internal storage and almost all of them could only record videos up to 1080p. But now, it is a silly drawback that should have been reverted at least a couple of years back since even budget smartphones these days can record 4K videos.
Now as new phones from Samsung and Xiaomi are expected to feature 8K video recording, Google is finally removing the 4GB limitation after years of requests from developers. This change was spotted by XDA Developers in a description of a new commit in the AOSP Gerrit. During testing, the developers have managed to store a video of 32GB and even filled the entire internal storage of a phone with a single recording.
Anyways, this commit has not been merged but if it does, this feature will most likely debut on Android 11 beta which could be released in March like Android Q.
