Android: Uninstall Factory Applications

After I rooted my Android phone, via the steps here, my first task was to un-install the bloat-ware.  Before removing apps, I made sure to Google my phone to see what apps were safe to remove.  Here's a sample list I referenced.

Though there are GUI apps available in the Play store, I chose to use Android Terminal Emulator (ATE).   This is a command-line tool for entering Linux commands.  Here are the key commands to use:

1.  Open ATE and give yourself administrative/super user access by typing:

• su

2.  Navigate to the application directory and list the currently installed applications (Note that *.apx are the main application files):

• ls /system/app

3.  To remove an app, type the following command variant:

•  rm /system/app/(APPNAME).apk

Note:  There is no resulting prompt identifying that the file was deleted.

4. It is likely that you will receive the following message: 

• rm failed for /system/app/com.amazon.mp3.apk, Read-only file system

If this occurs, you need to mount your /system as read-write before you can delete.  This is the command I used for my ROM:

• mount -o,remount -t yaffs2 /dev/block/mtdblock4 /system

5.  Many .apk apps have a related *.odex file.  It is beyond the scope of this post to explain the filetypes but you can remove them after you remove the *.apk :

• rm /system/app/(APPNAME).odex

Once you're done with the app removals, you may notice that you have not acquired more free space.  This is because the applications' space are still being held in the Dalvik cache.  This cache is a temporary space used by the Java virtual machine to run Android applications. No worry, you can reclaim this space by utilizing the ATE:

1. Again, open ATE and give yourself administrative/super user access by typing:

• su

 2.  Navigate to the Davik cache:

• cd data/dalvik-cache

3.  Clear the cache:

• rm *

4.  Leave ATE by typing:

• exit

5.  Reboot your device.