Tips

How to Remove Default Applications from Rooted Android Phones

By Neal

Posted on September 10, 2011

Gone are the days when the phone manufacturer will refuse to attend your phone just because of a reason that since the phone is rooted the warranty stands lapsed. As due to the biggest advantage of Android being Open Source, you can now easily not only just root the phone but also you can revoke the root access just with the help of some simple tricks with which you can then claim the warranty back. With the hep of rooting, one can easily access the system level files after which the customization becomes not only possible but also easier.

The reason being stating the above paragraph is that many of the Android users still ask on what are the benefits of rooting the phone, though there are many advantages of rooting the device and will not be possible to list and explain each of them but we will see one biggest advantage of rooting the phone which is on how you can remove the stock / default application from your Android phone which otherwise is not possible to remove with a non-rooted phone. So, in the due course of this article we will see on how you can easily remove stock apps by following a simple procedure which is mentioned below.

Basically this Android Terminal Emulator lets you access the Android’s built in Linux based command line kernel and changes the registry level entries to satisfy your needs of removing the stock applications as it emulates the Digital Equipment Corporation VT-100 terminal which powers the Android smart phones. The only requirement to make this possible is that you will be needing the rooted Android Phone so as to grant the Super user access

Note : If you want to Root your phone then you can find the procedure on how you can root your device from the site androidadvices.com. Just in case if you are unable to find the same in our site then in the comments section mention your Android device Name and Model number along with which version of firmware your phone is on so that we can guide you on how you can root your phone and can proceed to remove the default applications on your Rooted Android Phone.

Caution: Kindly ensure and double check the command before proceeding to deleting any application as if you delete any crucial application then the only way you can retain that app is by installing the firmware again on your phone which again is a very tedious task, so its recommended to use the below trick very wisely.

Procedure to Remove Stock Apps from the Rooted Android Phone:

So, before you proceed you will have to ensure that the phone is rooted successfully. The simplest way to find out whether the phone is rooted or not is that in the list of Applications you will find an icon named as “Super User” which will be in the skull shaped.

So, once you see that the phone is rooted you will now have to download Android Terminal Emulator to your Android device be it a tablet or a smart phone. Once this app is installed, you need to open the same on your Android phone after which you will see that a blue screen terminal window will be opened up as shown in the below screen shot.

Now, in this screen you will have to type in “su” without the inverted comas and need to just press “enter symbol” on your keypad. Once its done, you will be prompted to confirm the Root access from the Super user Application, just tap on the “Allow to Proceed”.

su

Now next up you will have to type in the command which is mentioned below in a step by step manner as shown below,

mount -o remount,rw -t yaffs2 /dev/block/mtdblk3 /system

Up next is you will have to now type in the command as “ls /system/app” without inverted comas after which you will see that all the applications which are there in the phone will be listed as shown in the below image.

ls /system/app

Now, after the application listing you will see that all the apps will be listed, to remove any application of your choice, you will need to enter in the below command as shown below,

rm /system/app/<app-name>

Just in case suppose if you wish to remove the amazon MP3 application from your phone then the command which you need to enter is

rm /system/app/com.amazon.mp3.apk

Similarly, just in case if you wish to remove the Voice Dialer you need to enter the command as,

rm /system/app/VoiceDialer.apk

rm /system/app/VoiceDialer.odex

Now, to check again whether the application has been successfully removed or not, you will need to enter the command as, “mount -o remount,ro /dev/mtdblock3 /system” without the inverted comas to again get a list of apps which are present on your phone.

mount -o remount,ro /dev/mtdblock3 /system

So, that’s it you have now successfully seen on how one can easily delete / remove the stock applications which are there in your phone. Many times it has been found that some of the unknown language apps are found as soon as you update your phone’s firmware. In such times, you can use the above mentioned method to remove all such applications from your phone. Just let us know if you face any issues in the comments section below while removing the apps from your phone as we will try our level best to address the issue