Xamarin Android exclude files from archive/apk

Question

I have a Xamarin android app which uses a number of .net standard 2.0 libs from the same solution. During build I have integrated the Babel obfuscator and merge all the libs into the final app dll.

Using DotPeek I'm able to verify that the libs have been added to the main dll, and have been internalized/obfuscated. I've set Copy Local to false so the lib dll's also do not show up in the target build folder.

But when I archive the project, the dll's do get included inside the apk. I deleted them from the apk, but when I distribute the apk (ad-hoc mode), the dll's are again inside the apk.

Is there anyway to prevent Xamarin archive/distribute from including these dll's?

Answer 1

Solved it using github link

Changes in Xamarin build made previous ways to do this not work.