5 ms·

You can uninstall any app by using adb shell: 1. sudo apt-get-install android-tools-adb 2. Connect phone using usb, choose file transfer 3. In term

by dvh 6y ago

You can uninstall any app by using adb shell: 1. sudo apt-get-install android-tools-adb 2. Connect phone using usb, choose file transfer 3. In terminal type: adb shell 4. On phone allow dialog that appeared 5. In terminal in adb shell type: pm list package 6. Find which app is it and uninstall it: pm uninstall -k --user 0 com.facebook.services

EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 6y ago
Better else - disable adb shell pm disable-user --user 0 com.samsung.android.email.provider
- pas 6y ago
  Why disabling is better than remove/uninstall?
  - jasonjayr 6y ago
    You can't uninstall what was burned into the OEM ROM, only disable them so they no longer run nor get updates.
maxwelldone 6y ago
I recently learned that the uninstall cmd doesn't uninstall the app from the phone but only for the user. This may come handy if you uninstall something by mistake, say, an essential service. Forgot the reinstall cmd but it's easy to find.
NathanielK 6y ago
I don't believe you can uninstall OEM apps from the drive of the phone unless you have root permission. As another comment mentioned, you can disable them for the single user over adb. On my sony phone you can disable OEM apps the same place you'd normally uninstall them in the GUI. It took some clicking (tapping?), but I disabled a bunch of cruft 2 years ago when I bought the phone and haven't had any issues.
Angostura 6y ago
... or, of course, hit the phone repeatedly with a hammer.
ssss11 6y ago
Not sure if this should be taken seriously or in jest!
maratc 6y ago
A friend of mine used to say "Is your grandma so senile that she can't type `configure; make; make install`?" The problem GP is pointing at is that uninstalling an unwanted app shouldn't be hard like that.
- zrm 6y ago
  It's kind of unfortunate how the "easy" works. For a programmer sitting in front of a desktop that already has Linux on it, following those instructions would take less than five minutes. Easy. For a typical Android user, they wouldn't know what they were looking at even if they had a Linux machine, which they don't. And would then get turned around by a simple typo like "apt-get-install" instead of "apt-get install" if they even make the attempt. But because it's already "easy" for the people with the expertise to make it easier, the only people who could solve the problem are the people not experiencing it.
  - puzzlingcaptcha 6y ago
    Arguably you can download SDK Platform tools much the same on Windows/Mac. This command does not however always work (or at least wouldn't for some bundled software in older Androids).
  - foobar33333 6y ago
    > the only people who could solve the problem are the people not experiencing it. Its more that companies provide some hard to use escape hatch for their anti features which silences all criticism "You just run this command" while still keeping it out of the hands of the normal user. The problem has already been solved, you don't have to run abd to remove apps on android, unless the app is specifically preventing you from using this feature.
  - rjzzleep 6y ago
    I generally agree with you, nonetheless someone just released this: https://github.com/A2L5E0X1/debloat-adb https://github.com/A2L5E0X1/debloat-adb Sometimes the scripts on xda-developers come bundled with an older adb version specifically because they don't expect people to know how to install it themselves. Although, on a second thought if a user then decides to run the `debloat-google.sh` without knowing what he does the user might end up quite frustrated as a result. So I guess you're right. I think google has been gradually restricting what adb is able to do.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
ghoomketu 6y ago
I really hate this concept of preinstalling apps on the phone that cannot be uninstalled/disabled. Especially crap apps like Facebook and Instagram. Why o why I cannot remove Facebook or Instagram when I don't even use it anymore. And this is even worse with brands like Oppo. They have good hardware but so much crap wasting battery and cpu running on by default which cannot be disabled or uninstalled. I was able to disable/uninstall with adb a lot of it but with every "Security update" it gets right back on the phone and then I have to do it all over again (SOs phone). Also it's getting more and more restrictive and even adb fails on half of these apps like Game center, etc nowadays :/
- Mindwipe 6y ago
  By and large they aren't full apps, they're small shims, but ultimately this a decision that Google took when they started misusing the system designation for apps to mean all of "should come back on hard reset" and "should have full admin permissions beyond userland" and "should be difficult to remove because you'll bork the OS services" at the same time.
- simonh 6y ago
  I've no problem with the basic concept of built-in apps that provide a standard base set of capabilities. For example I'm fine with Microsoft putting a default browser in Windows 10 that you can't uninstall, or Apple building Safari into iOS. User unintentionally deleting the app and from their POV getting locked out of the internet would be bound to happen. On the other hand clearly carriers and vendors loading up their products with crapware and junk is a serious problem. Lets be clear though, this is about poor judgement, bad execution and incentives that are severely miss-aligned between vendor and customer. It's not fundamentally a technical issue.
- freebuju 6y ago
  You may want to warm up your SO to a something like lineage os. Hoping they haven't gotten too spoilt by Oppo's tools, banking and netflix pretty much work okay on these alternative softwares.
smichel17 6y ago
First, thank you for the tip. I'd tried this a while back and it didn't work; I didn't realize you needed the --user flag! That said, one nitpick: > any app I was not able to uninstall the Samsung Pay Framework (com.samsung.android.spayfw) with this method; it hangs forever. Trying to uninstall via the gui tells me that it cannot be uninstalled since it is required by the device administrator. Going to the device administrator screen shows nothing enabled, so I cannot disable whatever is preventing the uninstall.
- rhacker 6y ago
  This kind of shit makes me really wish I had donated more to all of the pure linux phone projects of the past. They call this thing a smart "phone" but the "phone" part is the least advanced thing about it. Smart means it runs a bunch of apps but none of them actually advance what a phone should do: namely record calls - with auto prompts to make it legal, block spam. Instead I'm inundated with societal shit: amber and silver alerts at 2am (yes I have been woken up when my phone was on silent in the middle of the fucking night. What the fuck am I going to do while I'm boondocking in the middle of the ari-fucking-zona desert to help a child abducted by a dad at 2 am in the state of Washington - but the parent's are originally from Phoenix?) I'm so damn sick of Android.
Jasper_ 6y ago
I don't think they were looking for serious advice on removing the icons, but simply lamenting how absurd it is that multiple of the default apps on a phone released nine months ago are now broken.
- ilyagr 6y ago
  I don't know about the great grandparent comment's author, but for me this info is both interesting and potentially useful. Thanks, grandparent comment!
thiagowfx 6y ago
No need for root?
- dvh 6y ago
  Works without root

by dvh 6y ago

EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 6y ago

Better else - disable adb shell pm disable-user --user 0 com.samsung.android.email.provider

pas 6y ago
Why disabling is better than remove/uninstall?
- jasonjayr 6y ago
  You can't uninstall what was burned into the OEM ROM, only disable them so they no longer run nor get updates.

maxwelldone 6y ago

I recently learned that the uninstall cmd doesn't uninstall the app from the phone but only for the user. This may come handy if you uninstall something by mistake, say, an essential service. Forgot the reinstall cmd but it's easy to find.

NathanielK 6y ago

I don't believe you can uninstall OEM apps from the drive of the phone unless you have root permission. As another comment mentioned, you can disable them for the single user over adb. On my sony phone you can disable OEM apps the same place you'd normally uninstall them in the GUI. It took some clicking (tapping?), but I disabled a bunch of cruft 2 years ago when I bought the phone and haven't had any issues.

Angostura 6y ago

... or, of course, hit the phone repeatedly with a hammer.

ssss11 6y ago

Not sure if this should be taken seriously or in jest!

maratc 6y ago

A friend of mine used to say "Is your grandma so senile that she can't type `configure; make; make install`?" The problem GP is pointing at is that uninstalling an unwanted app shouldn't be hard like that.

zrm 6y ago
It's kind of unfortunate how the "easy" works. For a programmer sitting in front of a desktop that already has Linux on it, following those instructions would take less than five minutes. Easy. For a typical Android user, they wouldn't know what they were looking at even if they had a Linux machine, which they don't. And would then get turned around by a simple typo like "apt-get-install" instead of "apt-get install" if they even make the attempt. But because it's already "easy" for the people with the expertise to make it easier, the only people who could solve the problem are the people not experiencing it.
- puzzlingcaptcha 6y ago
  Arguably you can download SDK Platform tools much the same on Windows/Mac. This command does not however always work (or at least wouldn't for some bundled software in older Androids).
- foobar33333 6y ago
  > the only people who could solve the problem are the people not experiencing it. Its more that companies provide some hard to use escape hatch for their anti features which silences all criticism "You just run this command" while still keeping it out of the hands of the normal user. The problem has already been solved, you don't have to run abd to remove apps on android, unless the app is specifically preventing you from using this feature.
- rjzzleep 6y ago
  I generally agree with you, nonetheless someone just released this: https://github.com/A2L5E0X1/debloat-adb https://github.com/A2L5E0X1/debloat-adb Sometimes the scripts on xda-developers come bundled with an older adb version specifically because they don't expect people to know how to install it themselves. Although, on a second thought if a user then decides to run the `debloat-google.sh` without knowing what he does the user might end up quite frustrated as a result. So I guess you're right. I think google has been gradually restricting what adb is able to do.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

ghoomketu 6y ago

I really hate this concept of preinstalling apps on the phone that cannot be uninstalled/disabled. Especially crap apps like Facebook and Instagram. Why o why I cannot remove Facebook or Instagram when I don't even use it anymore. And this is even worse with brands like Oppo. They have good hardware but so much crap wasting battery and cpu running on by default which cannot be disabled or uninstalled. I was able to disable/uninstall with adb a lot of it but with every "Security update" it gets right back on the phone and then I have to do it all over again (SOs phone). Also it's getting more and more restrictive and even adb fails on half of these apps like Game center, etc nowadays :/

Mindwipe 6y ago
By and large they aren't full apps, they're small shims, but ultimately this a decision that Google took when they started misusing the system designation for apps to mean all of "should come back on hard reset" and "should have full admin permissions beyond userland" and "should be difficult to remove because you'll bork the OS services" at the same time.
simonh 6y ago
I've no problem with the basic concept of built-in apps that provide a standard base set of capabilities. For example I'm fine with Microsoft putting a default browser in Windows 10 that you can't uninstall, or Apple building Safari into iOS. User unintentionally deleting the app and from their POV getting locked out of the internet would be bound to happen. On the other hand clearly carriers and vendors loading up their products with crapware and junk is a serious problem. Lets be clear though, this is about poor judgement, bad execution and incentives that are severely miss-aligned between vendor and customer. It's not fundamentally a technical issue.
freebuju 6y ago
You may want to warm up your SO to a something like lineage os. Hoping they haven't gotten too spoilt by Oppo's tools, banking and netflix pretty much work okay on these alternative softwares.

smichel17 6y ago

First, thank you for the tip. I'd tried this a while back and it didn't work; I didn't realize you needed the --user flag! That said, one nitpick: > any app I was not able to uninstall the Samsung Pay Framework (com.samsung.android.spayfw) with this method; it hangs forever. Trying to uninstall via the gui tells me that it cannot be uninstalled since it is required by the device administrator. Going to the device administrator screen shows nothing enabled, so I cannot disable whatever is preventing the uninstall.

rhacker 6y ago
This kind of shit makes me really wish I had donated more to all of the pure linux phone projects of the past. They call this thing a smart "phone" but the "phone" part is the least advanced thing about it. Smart means it runs a bunch of apps but none of them actually advance what a phone should do: namely record calls - with auto prompts to make it legal, block spam. Instead I'm inundated with societal shit: amber and silver alerts at 2am (yes I have been woken up when my phone was on silent in the middle of the fucking night. What the fuck am I going to do while I'm boondocking in the middle of the ari-fucking-zona desert to help a child abducted by a dad at 2 am in the state of Washington - but the parent's are originally from Phoenix?) I'm so damn sick of Android.

Jasper_ 6y ago

I don't think they were looking for serious advice on removing the icons, but simply lamenting how absurd it is that multiple of the default apps on a phone released nine months ago are now broken.

ilyagr 6y ago
I don't know about the great grandparent comment's author, but for me this info is both interesting and potentially useful. Thanks, grandparent comment!

thiagowfx 6y ago

No need for root?

dvh 6y ago
Works without root