Which google apps and bloatware can I safely remove on my rooted phone?

[Yesi Trotamundos]

Hey everyone, I flashed a stock version rom on my Moto 9 g plus and just successfully rooted my phone.

I don't use google for much, I use an alternative for gmail app, gmaps app, and chrome. I am wondering which google apps can be safely removed? Which app would you recommend for uninstalling them (instead of disabling)?

Thanks!

 

[ocnbrze]

do you have a custom recovery(usually twrp)? if so, make a nandroid backup first. after that you can then experiment on what works and what does not. if you have issues, you can always restore your backup thru your recovery.

 

[Yesi Trotamundos]

do you have a custom recovery(usually twrp)? if so, make a nandroid backup first. after that you can then experiment on what works and what does not. if you have issues, you can always restore your backup thru your recovery.

I had twrp installed on the phone, after I flashed the stock rom, when I try to go into recovery mode, it just goes to a screen with the green droid and you can't do anything. Did flashing the rom remove twrp too? I can boot twrp with fastboot, should I install twrp again?

When you say backup, is that meaning like a restore point? Or just to make sure I am not losing any important files? I already have everything important on my sd card anyway.

 

[ocnbrze]

I had twrp installed on the phone, after I flashed the stock rom, when I try to go into recovery mode, it just goes to a screen with the green droid and you can't do anything. Did flashing the rom remove twrp too? I can boot twrp with fastboot, should I install twrp again?

When you say backup, is that meaning like a restore point? Or just to make sure I am not losing any important files? I already have everything important on my sd card anyway.

yes flashing a stock rom usually will replace the custom recovery with the stock recovery. you will need to re-flash twrp.

 

[ocnbrze]

When you say backup, is that meaning like a restore point? Or just to make sure I am not losing any important files? I already have everything important on my sd card anyway.

yes exactly!!!!! its like a restore point in a video game. if you die or messed up in the game, you can always restore back to that point and start over.....same thing with nandroid backups. you mess up you can restore back to a previous phone state.

 

[Yesi Trotamundos]

yes exactly!!!!! its like a restore point in a video game. if you die or messed up in the game, you can always restore back to that point and start over.....same thing with nandroid backups. you mess up you can restore back to a previous phone state.

Perfect, reinstalled twrp on phone and it is backing everything up right now. When it is done, would this be like my new "factory reset"? If something goes wrong, or the phone is super slow in a year, I could just use the recovery to bring it to its current state? Or if I remove one too many google apps?

 

[ocnbrze]

Perfect, reinstalled twrp on phone and it is backing everything up right now. When it is done, would this be like my new "factory reset"? If something goes wrong, or the phone is super slow in a year, I could just use the recovery to bring it to its current state? Or if I remove one too many google apps?

yep....you got it!!!!

also i would save the file not only on your phone(sd card) but i would keep a copy on your computer or external hard drive....just in case.

 

[Hadron]

Simple test: disable them first. If the phone continues to work normally then there's no harm in removing them.

But to be honest if you have disabled the app there won't be any significant advantage in uninstalling them.

None of the apps you mention are essential though: my current phone isn't rooted, but I have GMail and Chrome disabled (I uninstalled them on my previous phones), and Maps certainly isn't essential for the operation of the phone. I also disable the Google app, since I don't use Assistant or Google voice search and hate search widgets cluttering my desktop (those are the 3 things I know that are provided by that app - if it does anything else it's nothing that's I've ever noticed).

 

[Yesi Trotamundos]

Simple test: disable them first. If the phone continues to work normally then there's no harm in removing them.

But to be honest if you have disabled the app there won't be any significant advantage in uninstalling them.

None of the apps you mention are essential though: my current phone isn't rooted, but I have GMail and Chrome disabled (I uninstalled them on my previous phones), and Maps certainly isn't essential for the operation of the phone. I also disable the Google app, since I don't use Assistant or Google voice search and hate search widgets cluttering my desktop (those are the 3 things I know that are provided by that app - if it does anything else it's nothing that's I've ever noticed).

Thanks, one thing I did notice was that after removing gmaps, gps location no longer worked. I reinstalled gmaps and gps was working again. So for me at least, I have to just disable gmaps so I can use maps.me with my location, but the other ones you mentioned, I also have not experienced any problems from removing them.

 

[Hadron]

Curious. Many apps used Google's "fused location service", but that is tied to Google Play Services so it's not obvious why removing Maps would affect it. And if it does you'd expect disabling Maps to do the same thing as removing it. So this is a little curious - if GPS works when Maps is installed but disabled but doesn't work with it removed that sounds like Google have made Play Services check whether Maps is installed, which would be a crappy thing to do (because it would be an unnecessary technical restriction serving nobody but Google), but not impossible (either technically or Google being underhand).