The role of different mass loadings on the corresponding areal capacities, capacity retention, and rate performance in high-capacity Ge electrodes was studied. Micro-sized porous Ge powders were synthesized by a facile single-step reduction of GeO2 with hydrogen gas. The porous Ge electrode exhibited a high capacity retention over 1800 cycles at 8 A/g (∼73% retention) at the low loading of 0.56 mg/cm2. Even with the high loading of 4.45 mg/cm2, high areal capacity (>3 mAh/cm2) for over 100 cycles were observed. Excellent electrochemical stability for a full cell was also observed for about 180 cycles with a LiCoO2 cathode. Post cycling analysis reveals that the stability of the porous electrode stems from the ability of the grains to maintain their electrical contacts with each other even after undergoing transformation in the morphology and crystallinity.