How To Disable Android App That Cannot Be Removed

Every Android device comes with a number of pre-installed apps. These are apps that Google or your smartphone manufacturer wants you to use. You might find some of them essential, but what about the pre-installed apps that you never use?

These unwanted Android apps are called "bloatware" because most of them cannot be removed through the traditional uninstallation process.

Here, we will show you an alternative method to uninstall pre-installed apps on Android without rooting your device. But first, let's try disabling the default apps.

Disable Pre-Installed Apps

Some smartphone manufacturers allow you to disable pre-installed apps. This won't remove the app from your smartphone, but the app will stop running in the background and will no longer show up in the app drawer.

To disable an app on your Android device, head to Settings > Apps & notifications > See all apps. Now choose the app you want to disable and tap on the Disable button. This method can vary depending upon the Android device you're using.

If you don't see the Disable button, or see an option that reads, "Uninstall updates", it means that you cannot disable the app. You can remove it by following the method below.

How to Remove Bloatware From Android

To remove pre-installed apps from your Android, you will need to install ADB on your device. See our guide on how to use ADB and Fastboot on Android for more on how to do this. If you are running Windows, you can download the minimal ADB setup from xda-developers.com for ease of use.

Before we move forward, you also need to enable USB debugging on your Android device. Go to Android settings > About Phone then tap several times on the Build number to unlock the Developer options. Now, find USB debugging in the Developer options—which you'll usually find under System or Additional Settings—and enable it.

Once you have ADB running on your system and USB debugging is enabled, follow the below steps to remove bloatware from Android:

Connect your Android device to the PC using a USB cable.
Open the command-line on your PC.
Type adb devices in the command prompt and press Enter.
You will get a prompt on your smartphone asking you to authorize a connection with the computer. Tap on OK.
Again, enter the command adb devices. You will now see your device under "List of devices attached".
Type adb shell and press Enter.
Type pm uninstall -k --user 0 <package name> to uninstall your unwanted app.

Package name in this case refers to the name of the file that contains the app you're uninstalling. How do you know what that is? On your Android device, download a free app called App Inspector from the Play Store. You can then use this to find the package name of the app you want to remove.

You can also re-install a default app using the command: adb shell cmd package install-existing <name of package>.

Things You Should Know

This method allows you to remove all the default apps on your Android device, including the system apps. If you are planning to remove system apps, check if their absence won't interfere with the functioning of the device or other apps.

Also, you can only uninstall pre-installed apps for the current user using this method. In other words, the removed apps will reappear if you reset your device. You will need root access in order to uninstall unwanted apps for all users.

However, the silver lining here is that you can easily restore your device if you accidentally remove an essential system app. If you want to uninstall unwanted apps on a rooted device, try considering bloatware removal tools such as Titanium Backup or NoBloat Free.

What Else Can You Do?

If setting up ADB gets too complex, you can try out some other ways to remove bloatware on your Android device.

Hiding apps from the app drawer is a good alternative. For most devices, you will find the option somewhere in the Android Settings. This may vary depending upon the smartphone manufacturer, for instance, the option is located in the app lock settings on my Xiaomi device

But if you're keen to customize and personalize your phone, it is worth learning some of the tricks of ADB.

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