Uninstalling apps from android

How to Uninstall Bloatware and System Apps without Root in Android

When you buy a new Android phone, chances are it comes with plenty of preinstalled bloatware. While you can uninstall those third-party bloatware apps, some of the apps are installed as system apps and cannot be removed. This is especially true for the whole suite of Google apps. If you are not a fan of Google Play Music or Google Duo, sorry, you can’t remove them from your phone. To get rid of system apps, the easiest way is to root your phone. The bad thing is, it is not easy to root your phone, and you will void your phone warranty by doing so.

Here are a few ways to uninstall bloatware/system apps without root in Android.

Also read: How to Free Up Storage Space on Android

Uninstall/Disable the bloatware

For the third party bloatware, most of them can be easily uninstalled.

1. On your Android phone, go to “Settings -> Apps & notifications.”

2. Tap on “See all apps” and find the app you want to uninstall and tap on it.

3. If there is an “Uninstall” button, tap to uninstall the app.

4. If you see a “Disable” button instead of an Uninstall button, this means the apps cannot be uninstalled but can be disabled.

“Disabled” means the app becomes dormant, won’t show up in your application list, and won’t be recognized as an installed app.

Tap on the Disable button to disable the app.

For Xiaomi phones, first install the “Hidden Settings for MIUI” app.

1. Open “Hidden Settings for MIUI.”

2. Go to “Manage applications” and find the application you want to disable.

3. Tap on the “Disable” button.

Uninstall system apps on Android using adb

Adb is a powerful tool to debug your phone. It also comes with commands to manage app packages (in this case, uninstall packages).

1. To use adb, you need to install adb on your desktop computer.

For Linux, you can just install “android-tools” from your Software Center or package manager.

For Windows, follow the instructions here to install adb.

2. Next, you need to enable “Developer Options” on your phone. Once enabled, go into the Developer Options, scroll down the list and enable “USB debugging.”

3. Connect your phone to the desktop via USB cable. When prompted, change the “charge only” mode to “file transfer (MTP)” mode.

4. In Windows, navigate to the adb directory and launch the command prompt in that folder. For Linux, just open the Terminal.

Type the following command to start adb and verify that the phone is connected.

If you see an entry listed under the “List of devices” section, then your device is connected.

5. Start the adb shell.

6. List all the packages installed in the phone.

The list will be very long. You can use grep to narrow down the list. For example, to only show Google packages, use the command:

7. Find the name of the app you want to uninstall. The name is the entry after Package: . For example, the package name for the Google Contact app is com.google.android.contacts .

If you have trouble identifying the package name, simply go to Google Play Store on your browser and search for the app. Check the URL for the package name.

8. Type the following command to uninstall the app.

You should see the word “Success” if the uninstallation is successful.

The —user flag in the above command is important because it tells the system to uninstall the app for the current user only (and 0 is the default/main user of the phone). There is no way you can uninstall the app from all users unless you root the phone.

As a word of warning, uninstalling system apps has the potential to break the system, so only uninstall the apps that you are sure of. Apps like Gmail, Google Play Music, Google Play Movies, etc., are safe to uninstall but never remove Google Play Store or any of the files associated with it. If the phone becomes unstable after you uninstall a particular app, either reinstall it back from the Google Play Store or factory reset your phone.

Disable system apps using Debloater Tool

If you find the process of ADB commands a bit tricky and lengthy, then fortunately for you, there is a Debloater tool available that will ease up the process of disabling unwanted apps on your Android device.

Some features of this Debloater tool are it allows blocking or disabling apps on your Android device, allow unlocking all apps at once, import blocked listings, etc. It is a pretty straightforward tool: once your device is connected, it shows you a list of apps installed on your Android phone.

Do note that in order to remove the apps, you need to have root access on your Android phone. This tool does not uninstall system apps from your Android phone without root access. However, disabling apps also is efficient, as the disabled apps won’t run in the background and eat up your phone’s resources.

Here’s how you can use the Debloater tool:

1. First, make sure you have USB Debugging enabled on your Android device.

2. Download and install the Debloater tool on your Windows PC.

3. Connect your phone with the PC via a USB cable. Open the Debloater tool and wait for it to detect your device.

4. Once your device is detected, the “Device Connected” and “Sync” notification located at the bottom of the interface will turn green, indicating that the connection is successful.

5. To populate the list with the apps installed on your Android phone, click on the “Read Phone Packages” button just below the “Activity Status” menu.

6. Simply scroll through the list of apps and check the box next to the app that you wish to disable.

7. After the selection is done, hit the “Apply” button at the top. The tool will execute that task and show you a completion message.

Note: a word of caution. Please do not disable any system apps because it may harm your phone by bricking it. Always double-check before selecting any app.

Wrapping Up

Depending on your phone manufacturer, some phones come with only a few bloatware, and the system apps can be disabled easily while others are full of third-party apps that you cannot remove or disable at all. The instructions above will allow you to uninstall bloatware system apps from your Android phone without having to root your phone, unless you are considering rooting your phone.

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My work has been published on Android Authority, Android Police, Android Central, BGR, Gadgets360, GSMArena, and more. A Six Sigma and Google Certified Digital Marketer who is covering tech-related content for the past 2 years.

3 comments

My aim is to free up RAM – I’ve tried disabling Youtube and afterwards it still shows the same amount of Ram wasted on it. Is there a way of freeing up RAM from unwanted System apps ?

The phone of my mother is old doro liberto 820 mini and nothing works. I try all for root
I installed adb etc. adb recognize the phone but fastboot none. The recovery is minimalist and the recovery on the others sites isn’t of the doro liberto 820 mini’s recovery maybe the version not mini.

After I tried this method.
adb devices is ok
adb shell is ok
pm list packages grep google is ok
pm uninstall … not ok I have the result Error: Unknown option: -u

I don’t like Desactivate because that take always the place and the doro have no place in more is android 4.4 and I cannot move the app on my sdcard.

Do you have a solution ?

Yea, we want to uninstall the app, remove it completely- gone. This is just erasing the updates and disable the app making it inactive, this does NOT delete it. Either change the title or find a solution that matches the title. The app’s still there and taking up space as you can see in your screenshots.

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How to Delete Apps on Android Phones or Tablets

Remove unwanted apps from your Android device

This article explains how to uninstall apps you don’t use anymore for all versions of Android 4.1 and later. As of 2021, most phones run Android 10 or higher.

Uninstall Android Apps from the App Drawer or Using Settings

There are two ways to uninstall a downloaded app on your Android phone or tablet: the Settings app or the app drawer. We detail both methods below.

From the App Drawer

Here’s how to uninstall from the app drawer:

In the app drawer, long-press the app you want to delete.

Drag the icon to the upper-right corner of the screen where the word Uninstall appears. Release your finger.

Confirm that you want to uninstall the app.

In Settings

It’s possible to uninstall an app using the Android settings rather than the app drawer. Here’s how:

Open Settings.

Select Apps & Notifications > See all X apps (the X is the number of apps currently installed on the device).

Select the app you wish to uninstall.

Select Uninstall.

Confirm you want to uninstall the app.

On Old Android Versions

The steps to delete or uninstall an app on pre-4.0 versions of Android are similarly simple. There may be some variation among phone brands and Android versions, but this method works on most Android devices.

For Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich), go to Settings > Apps, then follow the steps for the older versions of Android.

Tap Menu (hard or soft button).

Select Settings, then choose Applications > Manage applications.

Tap the app you want to delete.

Tap Uninstall to remove the app from your device. If there’s no uninstall button, it’s a system app, and you can’t delete it.

On Some Samsung Devices

If the previous instructions don’t work on your Samsung device, try this:

Tap the Recent apps button and then tap Task manager.

Go to the Download tab and find the app you want to uninstall.

Tap the Uninstall button next to the app.

Tap OK.

If you don’t see an Uninstall button, you can’t delete the app using this method.

On a Kindle Fire

Amazon elected to go with an older customized version of Android for its Kindle devices, so the instructions to remove apps are different. You can manage your Kindle from your Amazon account on the web, but here’s how to delete apps using the device:

Go to the Home screen and tap the Apps tab.

Tap the Device tab to show only the apps on the Kindle (as opposed to all the apps you could potentially store on the device).

Long-press the app you want to remove until you feel or see a response.

Tap Remove from Device.

You’re not limited to the Amazon App Store when you install apps. You retain access to Kindle apps you installed through Amazon. However, you don’t necessarily have that same access to apps you installed through third-party app stores or sideloaded on the device.

Purchased Apps and the Cloud

Nearly all Android app stores let you keep your license to reinstall a purchased app. If you uninstall software that you bought from Google Play, for example, you can download it again if you change your mind later.

To delete your access to an app you purchased on Amazon, you must do that through your Amazon account on the web. It’s a more involved process than uninstalling it from a device. This may come in handy if you deem an app offensive and never want to see it again.

Spammy Apps That Make More Apps

Occasionally, you might run into an app that makes other apps, so you might delete things you don’t remember installing. You’re not imagining things. You can read more about avoiding Android spam. If you can identify the offending app, you can get rid of the problem. App stores are cracking down on this sort of nuisance.

System Apps

You can try to delete an app that shipped with your phone, but this often does not work. Most of these apps are tied to the inner workings of your phone, and deleting them could break other apps. Shy of going to drastic measures and rooting the phone, the system apps have to stay.

System apps include Gmail, Google Maps, Chrome, and Google Search. Some manufacturers, such as Samsung and Sony, install their own system apps on their phones and tablets in addition to the Google apps. Some, like the Amazon Kindle, remove all Google apps and include a different set of system apps.

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