K
Karooboertjie
Guest
Hi guys, I have all this unnecessary programs on my Samsung S3 that I would love to delete/uninstall from my phone. How do I go about it?
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If they have been installed to /system then you would have to root to uninstall them.
However, they are in a different storage partition from your own apps (/system rather than /data), so you would also not gain any space in /data by uninstalling them. So what you can do is go to Settings > Apps > All, select the app you want to remove, and do the following (in this order):
* uninstall updates (if available)
* clear data
* disable
The app lives in /system, but updates live in /data, so uninstalling updates, if there have been any, will free some space. Similarly clearing the app's data will free the space they were occupying. Then disabling the app will mean it will vanish from your app drawer and no longer run. Do all of this and the effect is equivalent to uninstalling for a system app, except it is reversible (by enabling the app) and does not require root.
If the app does not have a disable button your only option would be to root. Note though that the absence of a disable button might mean that the app is more important than you think it is, so getting rid of it might not be a good idea (or, of course, it could be a piece of junk that either Samsung or your carrier just doesn't want you to get rid of).
However, they are in a different storage partition from your own apps (/system rather than /data), so you would also not gain any space in /data by uninstalling them. So what you can do is go to Settings > Apps > All, select the app you want to remove, and do the following (in this order):
* uninstall updates (if available)
* clear data
* disable
The app lives in /system, but updates live in /data, so uninstalling updates, if there have been any, will free some space. Similarly clearing the app's data will free the space they were occupying. Then disabling the app will mean it will vanish from your app drawer and no longer run. Do all of this and the effect is equivalent to uninstalling for a system app, except it is reversible (by enabling the app) and does not require root.
If the app does not have a disable button your only option would be to root. Note though that the absence of a disable button might mean that the app is more important than you think it is, so getting rid of it might not be a good idea (or, of course, it could be a piece of junk that either Samsung or your carrier just doesn't want you to get rid of).
chanchan05
The Doctor
Also, remember to be sure that these things are actually unnecessary. There have been cases of people rooting and uninstalling stuff they think are unnecessary and don't use, but ended up with broken phones. A simple example would be the Samsung S Planner. You might think you can uninstall it safely when rooted since you downloaded Google Calendar. But in truth Google Calendar app is just a front end for the Android Calendar service, which Samsung has replaced with the S Planner service, hence no calendar app will work if you uninstall it.
Indeed. If you do root a safer option might be to "freeze" apps using Titanium Backup, at least until you are sure there is no side-effect. That's the same as disabling, but you can freeze any app. But while that's easy to undo, still apply a little thought, because if you freeze something critical you may not be able to run the app to undo it.
funkylogik
share the love peeps ;)
Yeah I was gonna ask how you unfreeze an app frozen by tibo. Safe mode same as a disabled app? (like does tibo freeze the app at boot time?)