Problem Solved: Delete AtlasCache to rebuild sprite atlases.
Ever since cloud build went to a paid service, I have had to build my game locally. However, the result is a DRASTICALLY larger data folder. It is particularly bad when building for Mac and Linux. Building for Windows seems to not be affected as much.
The biggest difference comes from sharedassets*.assets.resS files, with one of them (for Linux) being a full 100MB larger, for example. The size differences are so large that it actually doubles the size of the data folder (from around 200MB to nearly 400MB).
My cloud build (I’ll miss you!) was set to compile with the exact same version of Unity that I’m running (5.3.6f1).
Locally, I am just switching from Win to Linux/Mac and building, I don’t (that I can remember) have any Linux/Mac specific code in my project. I am not building for mobile.
One thing that was curious is that when I downloaded my own repository it had to update it from 4.6 (from when I originally started developing the game) to 5.3.6. So apparently unity cloud build was auto-updating it every time? I don’t know if that matters, but it’s something out of the ordinary so I thought that I’d mention it.
What could be causing such a large difference in file sizes?
Info:
Unity 5.3.6f1
Windows 7 x64 Home
Building for Win, Linux, Mac