Android - Removing pre-installed applications with adb

2023-04-17 ADB ANDROID

We show how to remove pre-installed apps from an Android phone or tablet using ADB (Android Debug Bridge) from the command line.

Android phones and tablets come with pre-installed applications that can sometimes be uninstalled or at least disabled. However, disabling is not a proposed option for certain apps. But you can still uninstall them without rooting by using the command line tool Android Debug Bridge (adb).

Note that uninstalling via adb does not prevent the device from receiving and installing official updates.

Also, keep in mind that with adb, applications are not completely removed. They are only uninstalled for the default user.

Installing adb on Ubuntu

We begin by installing ADB (Android Debug Bridge) with:

sudo apt-get install adb

Once adb is installed, you can check its version with the following command:

adb version

In our case, it responds as follows:

Android Debug Bridge version 1.0.41
Version 29.0.6-debian
Installed as /usr/lib/android-sdk/platform-tools/adb

Of course, you can install adb on Windows or Mac. The following explanations remain valid for these environments.

Activating the developer mode and enabling USB debugging

Before using the command adb the developer mode must be enabled on your device. The procedure for activating Developer Mode can change depending on brands and models, see this page Android Studio User Guide - Enable options for developers.

For Samsung tablets and smartphones go to Settings → About phone → Software information and tap 7 times on the "Build number" field.

Then, enable USB Debugging. The activation process depends on the Android version of your device. See this page Android Studio User Guide - Enable USB debugging on your device (in our case, it's Settings → Developer options → USB Debugging).

Using adb

After connecting your smartphone or tablet to the computer via USB, a message will appear asking for permission to access the device data by the computer. Once you have granted this permission, you can verify on your PC that the device is detected by adb using the following command:

adb devices

The command responds as follows in our case:

* daemon not running; starting now at tcp:5037
* daemon started successfully
List of devices attached
RF6M430T52E	device

A message will appear on the device asking for permission to enable USB debugging. Choose "Authorize."

Now we can list all the packages present on the device using this command:

adb shell pm list packages

Or, to get a sorted (alphabetical order) list of packages, use this command:

adb shell pm list packages | sort

This gives us a list of more than 400 packages:

package:android
package:android.auto_generated_rro_vendor__
package:android.autoinstalls.config.samsung
package:com.android.apps.tag
package:com.android.backupconfirm
package:com.android.bips
package:com.android.bluetooth
package:com.android.bluetoothmidiservice
package:com.android.bookmarkprovider
package:com.android.calllogbackup
package:com.android.cameraextensions
...
...

(to get the number of listed packages, execute the following command: adb shell pm list packages | wc -l)

Now we will try to find all the pre-installed (or intentionally installed) Facebook packages. To do that, filter the command adb shell pm list packages with a grep.

adb shell pm list packages | grep facebook

This responds as follows in our case:

package:com.facebook.services
package:com.facebook.katana
package:com.facebook.system
package:com.facebook.appmanager

The uninstallation of a package is performed by the command:

adb shell pm uninstall -k --user 0 <nom_du_package>

The four Facebook packages can be uninstalled using the following commands:

adb shell pm uninstall -k --user 0 com.facebook.services
adb shell pm uninstall -k --user 0 com.facebook.katana
adb shell pm uninstall -k --user 0 com.facebook.system
adb shell pm uninstall -k --user 0 com.facebook.appmanager

A useful list of adb (Android Debug Bridge) commands is maintained in this file on GitHub.

Removing of Bixby

Bixby is Samsung's intelligent personal assistant found on smartphones and tablets similar to Siri from Apple. On certain models, there's a dedicated Bixby button located on the left side below the volume keys. On other models, it uses the power button for launching Bixby, which can lead to unintended launches. However, you can disable or even uninstall Bixby via adb. Here is how:

The command :

adb shell  pm list packages | grep bixby

In your case, the following are the returned packages:

package:com.samsung.android.app.settings.bixby
package:com.samsung.systemui.bixby2
package:com.samsung.android.bixby.service
package:com.samsung.android.bixby.agent
package:com.samsung.android.bixby.wakeup

You can then proceed to uninstall the packages one by one using the following commands:

adb shell pm uninstall -k --user 0 com.samsung.android.app.settings.bixby
adb shell pm uninstall -k --user 0 com.samsung.systemui.bixby2
adb shell pm uninstall -k --user 0 com.samsung.android.bixby.service
adb shell pm uninstall -k --user 0 com.samsung.android.bixby.agent
adb shell pm uninstall -k --user 0 com.samsung.android.bixby.wakeup

After executing the above commands, pressing the Bixby button no longer has any effect on my phone which continues to work fine as before (which was also our goal!).

However, there remain two applications Bixby Routine and Bixby Vision with package names that do not contain the word bixby: "com.samsung.android.app.routines" and "com.samsung.android.visionintelligence". You can uninstall them using these commands:

adb shell  pm uninstall -k --user 0 com.samsung.android.app.routines
adb shell  pm uninstall -k --user 0 com.samsung.android.visionintelligence

Re-installing pre-installed apps that were removed

As stated above, only the user by default has their apps removed, but the packages are not deleted. Re-installing an app can be done with the command:

adb shell pm install-existing <nom_du_package>

For example to reinstall Gmail app:

adb shell pm install-existing com.google.android.gm