Android - Remove or disable bloatware apps and even system apps!

Enabling ADB

Enabling the so called “Developer Mode” with the use of Android Debug Bridge (ADB) is very easy and very handy sometimes.

For security reasons don’t forget to disable it when you’re done.

Depending on your device’s manufacturer every menu text can look different.

• Go to the settings app of your device. Tap on About phone.
• Scroll down till you’ll find a entry called Build number and tap it 6-7 times.
• If successful you’ll be presented with a little notification at the bottom of the screen which says “You are a developer now!” (Or similar)

Installation

You’ll need android-sdk-platform-tools and there is a very well written article from xda-Developers which explains it: https://www.xda-developers.com/install-adb-windows-macos-linux/

Usage

In my use case I use this method to get rid of bloat apps from my TV’s for example. So therefor I use Termux on my mobile and enable Wireless debugging on my TV’s.

Then I connect to my TV’s with the following command:

adb connect <ip of device>

Then you have to allow this connection, as described in the article before and go to the shell of the device:

adb shell

Uninstall of android apps

You’ll need to identify the package names of the desired app you want to remove / disable. Just long press on the app icon and go to App-Info. Anywhere there you should find the package name. For example for Netflix it is com.netflix.mediaclient.

pm uninstall -k --user 0 com.netflix.mediaclient

It might be a good idea to write down every package you disable. To undo changes maybe… :-)

Undo changes

adb shell cmd package install-existing com.netflix.mediaclient

Universal Android Debloater

This is a powerful tool written by 0x192 to do above described tasks automatically! You’ll find it on GitHub.