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Ricardo Fernández Serrata edited this page Jul 29, 2024 · 12 revisions
  • Recommended -- Pointless or outright negative packages, and/or apps available through Google Play.
  • Advanced -- Breaks obscure or minor parts of functionality, or apps that aren't easily enabled/installed through Settings/Google Play. This category is also used for apps that are useful (default keyboard/gallery/launcher/music app.) but that can easily be replaced by a better alternative.
  • Expert -- Breaks widespread and/or important functionality, but nothing important to the basic operation of the operating system. Removing an Expert package should not bootloop the device (unless mentioned in the description) but we can't guarantee it 100%.
  • Unsafe -- Can break vital parts of the operating system. Removing an Unsafe package have an extremely high risk of bootlooping your device.

Where are the logfiles?

UAD write logs to the user’s cache directory (see more)

  • Linux: $XDG_CACHE_HOME/uad or $HOME/.cache/uad (e.g: /home/alice/uad/)
  • Windows: Win + R => %LOCALAPPDATA%\uad (e.g: C:\Users\alice\AppData\Local\uad)
  • MacOS: $HOME/Library/Caches/uad (e.g: /Users/alice/Library/Caches/uad/)

Tip

You can easily locate the logfiles from UAD-ng by pressing the Locate the logfiles button in the About section.

How is it possible to delete a system package without root permission?

It's actually not possible.

All system apps are installed on the /system partition by the phone's manufacturer. This partition is in read-only and only the manufacturer has the right to write things on through OTA updates.

System apps also use another partition: the /data partition (also called user-space). All the users' data and cache are stored in this partition. It basically stores all the modifications you could have done on the phone. All the apps you install are fully stored in there, including updated system apps. FYI, performing a factory reset from recovery is simply doing a wipe of /data and a wipe of /cache.

Without the right to mount /system as read-write, it is thus impossible to delete system packages from the phone. The only thing you can do is delete its cache and all the related user data. In the end, this method doesn't save any space on your phone.

Note

You understood right. A factory reset will restore all the debloated packages!

So what is the point if you can't delete packages from /system?

The good thing is you can prevent any package to be loaded in memory. That's the trick. Even after a reboot, these process will not be waken up. This software clears all the system bloat in /data and freezes these packages by uninstalling them for all the users. That means for the current user (id=0) and for any other user's profile.

Why is the disable mode setting not available for my device?

Before Android 6.x (Marshmallow), pm disable <package> or pm disable-user --user <user> <package> can't be used without root permission.

What are the ADB commands used by UAD?

Android 6+

Uninstall: pm uninstall --user <user> <package>

Restore: cmd package install-existing --user <user> <package>

Disable: pm disable-user --user <user> <package> + pm am force-stop --user <user> <package> + pm clear --user <user> <package>

Enable: pm enable <package>

Android 5.x (Lollipop)

Uninstall: pm hide <package>

Restore: pm unhide <package>

Android 4.4 (KitKat)

Uninstall: pm block <package>

Restore: pm unblock <package>

Older

Uninstall: pm uninstall <package>

This will needs root. You can't really do anything without root on those really old devices.

Is this software safe?

Yes, but only in the sense that you can't brick your phone. You shouldn't encounter bootloop but... We can't guarantee it 100%.

We try to list all the packages we came across. Even those you should not delete. Those are classified in the unsafe list. This way, you know the purpose of each package.

You can, for instance, freeze Play Store and Google Play Services (not recommended if you need WhatsApp, Discord, etc...). If you mostly use apps from F-Droid, de-googling shouldn't cause too much trouble.

If you plan to replace stock apps (Gallery, Videos etc...) by other apps, we'd like to propose the install of FOSS replacement, stay tuned.

There is no debloat list for my phone's brand. Can you add it?

If I don't have the phone on hand, I can't do anything... but you do! and it will be very nice if you can do it ! 😃

We'd gladly add your list into this software!

See the How to contribute section

I've removed multiple apps, and have encountered problems

You should do a binary search, similar to how git bisect works:

  1. Restore half of the apps you've uninstalled recently.
    • If issue persists, restore the other half and (optionally) re-uninstall current half.
    • If issue is fixed, re-uninstall half of the apps within the half you've just restored (quarter of total)
  2. Repeat until you've found the app you need

This method has some caveats:

  • If the issue is caused by multiple apps being dependencies of some other app, it'll be very hard to find which ones you should restore
  • In the worst case, there might be multiple layers of dependencies: where multiple apps are responsible for the same feature, and each app has multiple dependencies

Help! my phone is stuck in a bootloop

Common steps to perform a full reset:

  1. Hold power and vol-down keys
  2. Wait for vibration
  3. Instantaneously (upon vibration), hold vol up key
  4. Proceed and perform a "clear data"
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