How to Delete Apps on Android

If you need to clean up your device memory, uninstalling old apps is the way to go. You can quickly uninstall apps downloaded from the Play Store. If the apps are already built into the device, you need to take extra steps to remove them. Also you can disable any apps that cannot be deleted.

Table of Contents

Uninstall downloaded apps

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Open the Settings app. You can delete any downloaded apps using the Settings app on your device. Open the Settings app in the app store.

You cannot use this method to delete pre-installed apps on the device. See the next section to learn how to remove built-in apps.

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Click “Apps” or “Applications” . This step opens the device application manager.

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Scroll through the “Downloads” tab. This card includes all apps that you have downloaded from the Play Store or installed from another source. The “Downloads” tab is usually located on the left side.

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Find and click the app you want to remove. Scroll down the downloaded list and click on the app you want to remove. This step opens the details of that app.

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Click the “Uninstall” button. You will be asked to confirm that you want to delete the app. Click “OK” to confirm that you want to remove this app.

If the “Uninstall” button can’t be found and you only see the “Uninstall updates” or “Disable” button, the app is already pre-installed on the device. Even pre-installed apps still appear in the Downloads tab. The only way to remove these apps is to jailbreak the device and uninstall them with a command. See the next section to learn how. Instead, if you just want to hide the app, you can “Disable” and the icon will disappear from the app store and home screen.

Uninstall system and carrier apps

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Jailbreak Android device. This is the hardest part of the process, as every Android device has a different way of jailbreaking. Even the mobile network you use affects your ability to jailbreak your device. For some phones, such as the Nexus series, jailbreaking is fairly straightforward. However, jailbreaking on other devices is not possible. Jailbreaking requires deleting the built-in apps on the device.

Learn how to jailbreak popular Android phones as well as some device-specific instructions.

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Install the Android SDK on your computer. Once your device is jailbroken, you can use the Android Debug Bridge (ADB) tool included with the Android SDK to uninstall apps via the command line. You can download Other free Android SDK here. You only need the “SDK Tops only” package, instead of the entire development environment. Download and run the installation for the device operating system.

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Connect Android device to computer via USB. Use a standard USB cable to connect your Android device. Install the driver that you are asked to install.

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Enable USB Debugging mode (Find and fix USB errors) on the device. If this mode is not enabled during the jailbreak process, you need to enable USB debugging now. ^{[1] X Research Source}

Open the Settings app and click “About phone”.
Click the “Build number” item seven times to activate the hidden “Developer options” menu.
Open the “Developer options” menu at the bottom of the preferences screen.
Enable “USB debugging.”

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Run ADB on the computer. ADB runs through Command Prompt (Command Prompt). The best way to enable it is to search with Windows Explorer first.

Navigate to the ADB installation directory. By default is C:Users username AppDataLocalAndroidandroid-sdkplatform-tops .
Hold ⇧ Shift and right-click the folder.
Select “Open command window here”. This step activates the Command Prompt in the current location.

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Displays a list of installed applications on the device. After entering the Command Prompt, you can ask ADB to get back the list of installed applications on the device. Type the following into the Command Prompt:

Type adb shell and press ↵ Enter . This step starts a dedicated command prompt for the device.
Type cd system/app and press ↵ Enter . This step opens the apps folder on the device.
Type ls and press ↵ Enter . This step displays a list of all installed apps on the device.

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Find the app you want to remove. The list of applications is usually quite long. Scroll down the list and find the app you want to remove. Note the entire file name of the application.

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Uninstall the system you want to remove. Type rm AppName .apk and press ↵ Enter to remove the app. You can repeat the process for the other app you want to uninstall. ^{[2] X Research Source}

Type reboot and press ↵ Enter after completing the app deletion to reboot the device and complete the process.

Advice

If you delete a paid app, you can reinstall it at no additional cost. To install a paid app that opens the “Play Store” on an Android device, click “Menu,” then “My Apps.” The application will show up in the folder and be ready to download.

Warning

When you delete an application, all the information of the application on the Android device will also be deleted. It is recommended that you back up or extract the information you want to store to another location before deleting the application from the device.
Be careful when uninstalling apps from the ADB terminal. If you delete apps that are necessary for your device to function, you may end up rendering the device inoperable. Always research the app you’re about to delete.
Some Android devices may not allow you to delete certain apps, especially if they are already built into the device. Also, some apps cannot be deleted if the Android device needs them to function properly.

Steps

Uninstall downloaded apps

Uninstall system and carrier apps

Advice

Warning

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