I recently got my own Fairphone Gen6. It has quite a bit of Google Apps (that I call it mostly bloatware) preinstalled on it, including an app from Fairphone itself. How to get rid of these?
The fastest way is probably using Android Debug Bridge (adb) to remove packages. I have done so in the past.
- Install adb
- Enable the developer options
- Enable USB debugging
- Fire up a terminal and use adb to fiddle with the phone
#start the server process on the desktop machine
adb start-server
#check whether your device is connected
adb devices
#list all the packages
adb shell pm list packages
#list the packages with "google" in their namespace
adb shell pm list packages | grep google
I removed these:
adb shell pm uninstall -k --user 0 com.google.android.apps.nbu.files # Files
adb shell pm uninstall -k --user 0 com.google.android.calendar # Google Calendar
adb shell pm uninstall -k --user 0 com.google.android.contacts # Google Contacts
adb shell pm uninstall -k --user 0 com.google.android.apps.wellbeing # Digital Wellbeing
adb shell pm uninstall -k --user 0 com.google.android.keep # Google Keep
adb shell pm uninstall -k --user 0 com.google.android.gm # Gmail
adb shell pm uninstall -k --user 0 com.google.android.apps.tachyon # Google Meet
adb shell pm uninstall -k --user 0 com.google.android.videos # Google TV / Videos
adb shell pm uninstall -k --user 0 com.google.android.apps.maps # Google Maps
adb shell pm uninstall -k --user 0 com.google.android.apps.youtube.music # YouTube Music
adb shell pm uninstall -k --user 0 com.google.android.apps.docs # Google Drive
adb shell pm uninstall -k --user 0 com.google.android.apps.photos # Google Photos
adb shell pm uninstall -k --user 0 com.google.android.youtube # YouTube
adb shell pm uninstall -k --user 0 com.google.android.googlequicksearchbox # Google app / Assistant
adb shell pm uninstall -k --user 0 com.google.android.marvin.talkback # Google TalkBack
# adb shell pm uninstall -k --user 0 com.google.android.inputmethod.latin # Gboard
adb shell pm uninstall -k --user 0 com.google.android.deskclock # Google Clock
adb shell pm uninstall -k --user 0 com.google.android.calculator # Google Calculator
adb shell pm uninstall -k --user 0 com.google.android.apps.bard # Gemini
adb shell pm uninstall -k --user 0 com.google.android.apps.safetyhub # Safety / Personal Safety UI
adb shell pm uninstall -k --user 0 com.google.android.apps.restore # Google restore
adb shell pm uninstall -k --user 0 com.google.android.apps.adm # Find My Device
adb shell pm uninstall -k --user 0 com.google.android.apps.work.clouddpc # Android Device Policy (only if you don't use work management)
adb shell pm uninstall -k --user 0 com.google.android.feedback # Google feedback
- Don’t remove Gboard unless you’ve installed another keyboard first.
- Don’t remove Contacts if your Fairphone’s dialer/contacts app depends on Google’s contacts provider.
You may remove more of course, just be aware that some might be required by the system.
Uninstalling does not actually remove the package from the device, it just does not load them. You may restore packages later using:
adb shell cmd package install-existing --user 0 PACKAGE_NAME