Method to Disable Android’s Bloatware Without Rooting

[karen jodes]

Bloatware is unnecessary apps that come along with a software update on your Android smartphones. Android users must be aware of the challenges they have with these pre-installed apps. More often than not, these apps are not as helpful as they are meant to be, and they consume a lot of internal storage resulting in a slow system. Fortunately, there is a way to disable the bloatware. Although one can remove these pre-installed apps, it is better to disable them as you can enable them again whenever you want.

So, as you are about to learn how to disable these pre-installed apps, your first step should be to install Android Debug Bridge (ADB) and Fastboot tool on your device. Once the installation process is complete, connect your smartphone with your computer via ADB. Now, let’s get the basics right so that you have a better experience while processing the steps mentioned further in the article. Things to remember:

Do not disable any critical apps, like system launcher, system apps updater, apps launcher, cloud, etc. This will lead your device to misbehave, and you will see your screen popping up messages like ‘error’ or ‘stop.’ You might not be able to use your phone’s basics either.
Reinstall or re-enable the disabled crucial apps as fast as you can.
You might see some system apps re-enabling itself right after you disabled them. This happens because the smartphone company and manufacturers smartly add security measures on the system apps to prevent it from hackers and spammers. So, you may find a new app being re-enabled as you disable an existing app. In this case, choose to follow the first two steps we mentioned above.
Now that you are well aware of everything you may experience during the whole procedure, follow this guide to disabling and re-enabling the system apps:

Disabling system apps without root

Fortunately, you can disable the system apps as per your preferences, but some companies like Xiaomi, Samsung, etc. block your way of doing that. Take Xiaomi as an example; it has disabled all the methods that one can use to disable the system apps but gives the freedom to disable security and settings apps only. Some Original Equipment Manufacturers also block your ways. But as soon as you install the ADB tools, you’d be able to disable the pre-installed apps even if you weren’t able to do that manually without the help of any tool.

Follow these steps after installing ADB:

Begin by checking the name of the app’s package, which you want to disable.
If you are unaware of the name of the app’s package, use the Play Store on your computer and check the app’s web address. You can also use an alternate app, such as App Inspector, to get all the details related to the app.
Suppose you want to disable Google Chrome from your device. The package name for this app will be “com.android.chrome.” After you get the package name of the app, run this command in the panel/console:
“adb shell pm disable-user –user 0 ”

4. In this case, the package name is “com.android.chrome”, so we’ll run this command:

“adb shell pm disable-user –user 0 com.android.chrome”

Use this method to disable any bloatware from your smartphone. You must also know the steps to re-enable the system app, in case you change your mind. So here are the steps for:

Re-Enabling system apps

Again, begin by learning the name of the app’s package to feed in the command for re-enabling procedure.
To know the package name of the disabled app, run this command:
“adb shell pm list packages -d”

You will find the list of names of all the disabled app’s packages.

3. Then run this command to re-enable the app:

“adb shell pm enable ”

4. This is how the command should look like (we’re taking Google Chrome as an example):

“adb shell pm enable com.android.chrome”

With this, you will find the app on your smartphone, and the steps will remain the same with any app package you use. If the apps don’t start after this procedure, restart your phone and then follow the re-enabling steps again.

source: https://walcitybase.com/blog/method-to-disable-androids-bloatware-w...