Not all preinstalled apps on your smartphone will be of use to you. By removing apps you don’t want or need, you’ll be able to improve your phone’s performance and free up storage space. Apps you don’t need but cannot uninstall are called bloatware. With our tips, you can delete, remove, disable, or at least hide your preinstalled apps and bloatware.
What is Bloatware?
Bloatware is an informal term for software that is packed with too many features and therefore slow or inefficient. Bloatware is often commercial software that is preinstalled on a device by the manufacturer, whether it’s useful or not, and tends to waste memory and resources.
Most users never touch a lot of pe-installed apps on their new phone, but rather than leave them there wasting precious computing power and slowing down your phone, it’s best to remove or at least disable them, and this guide will show you how.
Disabling bloatware: general guidance
Many apps continue to consume resources while they’re not in active use. They also take up space in the app drawer. Since Android 4.0, however, there has been the option to disable apps.
Head to Settings > Apps/Applications.
Here, on most phones, you will find three tabs: All Apps, Disabled, and Enabled.
By tapping on this or that app, you will notice that some apps can be uninstalled. This applies to apps you may have downloaded yourself but there will also be unnecessary bloatware that you can remove.
Some apps cannot be uninstalled or disabled (the Settings app, for example). These applications are essential for Android to run properly.
Anything that does not fall into one of these two categories can usually be disabled, unless it is on a protected system partition (some manufacturers deliberately do this with their apps).
Some apps, as with TalkBack in the next screenshot, you can disable, but there is also the option to Uninstall Updates, which will reset the app to its factory state.
Or, if you use a third-party app for emails, you can make the default email app on Android disappear. When disabling an app, the system warns you that some programs might not work properly afterwards. This refers to applications that rely on the app in question to function normally.
Should you change your mind, you can return to the app list and reverse the process. Every application will continue to be listed there, even if it is invisible in the app drawer. Although the layout can vary slightly depending on the manufacturer’s OS, the process is very similar on most smartphones. Below you can learn how easy it is to uninstall Samsung apps.
How to delete or disable Samsung’s preinstalled apps
Samsung’s UI deviates from stock Android in a few ways, and it comes with an alternative process to disable apps:
Simply open the App Drawer
Then long press on any app to bring up a bubble that will allow you to disable the app, or uninstall if possible.
A disabled app will no longer run in the background and will not receive any updates, eliminating unnecessary drain on resources.
How to delete preinstalled apps
It can be frustrating when you really want to delete an app but the system only lets you disable it. If you really know what you’re doing, there’s a way to get complete control over your phone’s software.
If you are not afraid of voiding your warranty, and getting rid of apps like Samsung Pay, you can also root your device. Then you can completely uninstall any app. System app remover (ROOT) helps you do just that. However, be warned – by doing this it might make any number of other apps stop functioning properly.
What happens if I disable Android apps?
Once disabled, the apps disappear from your app drawer, stop receiving updates and no longer run silently in the background. In addition, any apps that depend on the disabled app will stop working. Should you disable Google Play Services, for example, several system applications will go down and, more than likely, a few apps that are not directly related to Google will start to behave erratically.
It is therefore important to have a reliably researched list of apps that do not cause collateral damage when you disable them. The above list is incomplete, and will remain that way without your help. Therefore, we invite you to share your experiences with deactivated apps in the comments.
Uninstall tons of apps
We are all guilty of being at least a little lazy when it comes to cleaning up our smartphones. Apps that we no longer use can quickly accumulate out of sight. Uninstalling individual apps through the Play Store is time consuming, so it is more practical to remove a load all at once. In our guide, we have summarized how multiple applications can be deleted at once using the free app ES File Explorer.