Android phones will often contain apps that you aren’t able to uninstall. All of the OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) stick their own apps on your phone before it ever reaches you, and the carriers follow suit with their own bundle of bloatware. Occasionally these apps serve a useful purpose, but all too often they are useless to you.
Sadly, even if you aren’t using them, many of these apps may still run in the background, eating up system resources and/or spamming you with notifications. We’ve looked athow to shut off Android notificationsbefore, and how togo from mere mortal to superuser, but today we’re going to explain how to disable Android apps you have no interest in.
How to disable Android apps
It’s very easy to disable apps, here are the steps required:
How to re-enable Android apps
It’s equally easy to get those apps back if you want to:
You have to be careful about disabling apps randomly because there are apps running that perform important functions and it’s not always obvious what they are. You may also find that some apps don’t have a disable option, or are grayed out.
Try searching for a list of apps that it’s safe to disable for your specific device. You’ll find some useful threads with suggestions for most Android smartphones over atXDA Developers forum.
How to freeze or uninstall any app
If you want to disable an app, but there’s no option to do so, or the option is grayed out, then you may still do it by rooting your Android phone. This will also allow you toremove any app you want.
For a look at the pros and cons and some advice about how to proceed, check out ourhow to root Androidarticle.
There you have it, that’s how you disable apps on Android. If you have any comments or questions then please post a comment.
