How to Delete Apps on Android [Preinstalled and New Apps]

Waftr.com
5 min readJan 14, 2020

The smartphone user burns through an absurd number of apps in a year. We get bored quickly, and app developer companies keep coming up with new products. And we most definitely will try out the new one, stick with it, and get rid of the old one. To do this fast and efficiently and perhaps arrive at the app of your choice quicker, you should know how to delete apps on android.

A quick answer to uninstall Android Apps

  1. Open Menu (App Drawer)
  2. Long press the app you want to uninstall
  3. Click Uninstall

Android operating systems these days come with a lot of preinstalled apps. These apps work best with the phone’s built-in functions, but they may not be what you are familiar with. If you are used to other apps that can sync through all your devices, you may want to get rid of these pre-existing apps. But most phones do not allow you to uninstall these, and they take up a lot of your storage space. These kinds of apps are called Bloatware.

It will either just keep using the internal storage, or restore all the data you moved back from the external storage. Eventually, you will run out of storage space, and the performance of your smartphone will drop drastically. To avoid this, you need to retain only those apps that are necessary. Knowing how to delete apps on android is, therefore, more important than ever.

Before we start purging your phone of all the unnecessary apps, make more space for your new apps by clearing all the data, previous apps will leave, even if you uninstall them. One crucial step to take when you are learning how to delete apps on android in the neatest way possible is to head over to the Clear Data setting for all the apps you are uninstalling. But be careful with this — if there is any chance you would want to reinstall the app and want your mobile to remember the settings and accounts it had previously, this is not a good idea:

The Clear Data option is usually found in the Storage section near the Uninstall option of your apps.

There are multiple types of Android Operating systems out there, the most basic of which is the stock android. Here is how to delete apps on android (stock):

  1. Go to your app drawer or home screen and select the Settings button.
  1. Scroll down to find Apps and Notifications.
  1. Select ‘See All Apps.’
  1. Locate the app you want to be removed and select it.
  1. Press the Uninstall button right next to the force stop.

You can also force stop and delete the app cache to freed memory if you don’t want to delete the app.

Stock android is the simplest and lightest operating system out there, but it also has adverse reports when it comes to managing storage space. Sometimes, there will be apps that you cannot uninstall from the phone because it is part of the OS. In this case, your next best option is to Disable it. While this does not remove the app in its entirety, it can reduce the amount of storage it takes up on your phone and keeps it from interfering with your phone’s general performance. This should be enough to guide you on how to delete apps on android if you own a phone with Stock Android.

The more advanced generation of android operating systems include the Samsung or One UI OS. It is far easier to figure out how to delete apps on android if you own one of these because the interface is much simpler and user-friendly. If you are doing a mass deletion of apps from your phone, you can do it the old manual way on the Settings app. But these operating systems offer a shortcut.

Here is How to delete apps on Android in Samsung or One UI:

  1. Browse through your phone and find the app you want to remove,
  2. Long press the app icon. (Tap on it and hold your finger there)
  3. A pop-up menu should appear, showing you the various tasks it can do from the home screen.
  4. If it is an app that can be uninstalled, press ‘Uninstall.’
  5. If you are doing a mass clean up of apps you no longer require, you can select multiple apps at the same time. Select ‘Select multiple items’ from the pop-up menu.
  6. Select each app you want to remove and press Uninstall, which is found on the top left.

How to deal with the PreInstalled App?

Just like in Stock Android, if the phone does not let you uninstall the app in its entirety, choose to Disable it instead.

There are other operating systems available, like the ones Huawei produces. You can follow the same steps to figure out how to delete apps on android on most operating systems.

While you are on your app removal spree, be careful that you do not delete any apps that you actually may need in the future. The removal or disabling of certain apps may affect the performance of your phone detrimentally. Share this article so your friends and family can learn how to delete apps on android.

Originally published at https://www.waftr.com on January 14, 2020.

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