diff --git a/meta-digi-dey/conf/distro/dey.conf b/meta-digi-dey/conf/distro/dey.conf
index 5f28ef0ce..76e970d23 100644
--- a/meta-digi-dey/conf/distro/dey.conf
+++ b/meta-digi-dey/conf/distro/dey.conf
@@ -85,7 +85,9 @@ PACKAGECONFIG:append:class-target:pn-qtbase        = " examples"
 PACKAGECONFIG:append:class-target:pn-qtdeclarative = " examples"
 PACKAGECONFIG:append:class-target:pn-qtquick3d     = " examples"
 PACKAGECONFIG:append:class-target:pn-qtwebengine   = " examples"
-# libarchive is using "zstd" in its package config.
-# This is not used in the swupdate that is the only consumer of the libarchive package.
-# Remove it to reduce the size of the recovery image.
-PACKAGECONFIG:remove:class-target:pn-libarchive   = " zstd"
+
+# Remove unnecessary libarchive configurations to trim down the recovery image,
+# while keeping the "zlib" one to make sure our file update mechanism still
+# works (libarchive needs to be able to handle .tar.gz files, every other
+# format can be omitted).
+PACKAGECONFIG:remove:class-target:pn-libarchive   = "bz2 xz lzo zstd acl xattr"