Android: Delete & Deactivate Pre-installed System Apps (bloatware)

If you don't want to intervene deeply in Android's system processes, you can “only” deactivate pre-installed apps. As a result, they do not start in the background and do not consume any resources. Our picture series shows how it works:

Start photo gallery (4 photos)

Depending on the manufacturer of your smartphone, you can deactivate or uninstall more or fewer apps. This is exemplary for the Moto-G series from Lenovo-Motorola: the smartphones come with almost no bloatware and many of the system apps can be deactivated as described above.

Which pre-installed (Samsung) apps can I delete?

It depends on the cell phone model:

1. Opens the app overview (drawer) and selects Uninstall / Deactivate apps in the top right.
2. Now a minus symbol appears on all apps that you can remove.

These include:

• Dropbox
• Facebook
• Flipboard
• memo
• OneDrive
• OneNote
• Peel Smart Remote
• computer
• S Health
• S Voice
• Skype
• Google apps
• Provider apps

For stubborn cases, you could previously download the Disabler Pro (Samsung) package from the Play Store, which disables unwanted apps and packages on your Samsung device. However, the app has been removed from the Play Store.

Delete pre-installed system apps

To delete system apps, you need root rights on your smartphone. The easiest way is with one-click root apps, as we describe here under a general root explanation. It used to be much more difficult, as you can see from the example of the HTC Desire and the Samsung Galaxy S.

The following one-click root apps are available:

• KingRoot
• KingoRoot
• OneClickRoot

You can find out whether your smartphone is supported by Google research.

You take full responsibility for rooting. The warranty of your device will then also expire in most cases.

Danger:

• In the root process, your smartphone can become unusable (softbrick & hardbrick)
• If you play around with system files and apps after successfully rooting, your device can also be made unusable afterwards.
• Because it is also possible to remove the market, dialer, phone book, alarm clock and almost any other system-relevant function.
• For this reason, after successful rooting, you usually run a custom recovery with which you can back up the entire system.

Example:

Frank from the editorial team has not only deleted the memo and mini diary apps, the Aldiko reader, various fonts and live wallpapers that are useless for him, but also the radio tuner, as he uses the Handy never listens to the radio, the e-mail app, since it gathers all accounts in Gmail anyway and "My Documents" because it uses Root Explorer as a file manager.

The TouchWiz interface can also be removed if you install an alternative launcher beforehand. If you have previously backed up your smartphone, you can use the trial & error principle. If something is shot afterwards, you can simply restore the system backup.

Method 1: remove system apps using Titanium Backup

The Titanium Backup app is available in a free and a paid version. However, the free app is completely sufficient for our purposes.

Download Titanium Backup ★ root needed Developer: Titanium Track Price: Free

1. After installing Titanium Backup, you have to confirm the superuser request, click away a few notes and then select the menu item Backup / Restore.

   

2. Here you have a list of all installed apps. System apps, i.e. apps that cannot be deleted regularly, are marked in red.
3. There are also green entries for settings and white entries for normal apps.

4. Tap an app you want to remove. In our example, it is the "Dual Clock" widget provided by Samsung.

   

5. For safety, you can from the app before using the button back up / backup make a backup.
6. Click the Uninstall button and confirm the warning messages.

If something doesn't work properly afterwards, you can restore the backup of the app. You can see a detailed video instruction here:

Method 2: Uninstall pre-installed apps using Root Explorer

The following method is even faster and painless, but only for people who know what they are doing 100%:

Install the Root Explorer (or any other file manager that has write access to system directories).

Download File Manager Root Browser Developer: JRummy Apps Price: Free

1. Switches write access on (Mount R / W).

2. Opens the directory

   /system/app/

   

3. Identifies the relevant APKs there and changes to the respective subfolder.
4. Hold down the respective APK file and select Delete to delete it.

Important: For apps that you have uninstalled, you should deactivate the automatic updates in the Play Store. Otherwise it can happen that the smartphone will automatically reinstall them without you wanting to.

What should the next version of Android be called?

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