How to delete HTC, Samsung or LG apps from your Android phone

Let me ask you something. What were your first reactions and impressions when you bought your last smartphone? You probably couldn’t wait to open the package, slowly removing the display protection (great feeling, right?), and hitting the power button. If you didn’t get a Nexus or Google Play Edition device, you’re happiness curve probably dropped a bit when you opened your app drawer:

So many [insert random manufacturer] apps!

So-called bloatware is for most people a major disadvantage when buying a smartphone from a manufacturer like Samsung, HTC or LG. You have to deal with front-end interfaces such as Sense and TouchWiz. Of course, the first thing tech-savvy Android users do is getting root access and flash a custom ROM to get a more pure and modified Android experience. Another option is to use root access to completely delete all the unwanted apps.

Disable all your unwanted apps from your manufacturer without root

If you’re device is rooted, then I suggest you go for one of the two options. But, if you belong to the majority of Android users, you don’t have a rooted device and probably never heard about it. There’s still an easy way to get rid of bloatware by disabling unwanted apps in your phone’s settings. The keyword here is ‘disable’ because the apps won’t be actually deleted but rather disabled . That means that all disabled apps will be hidden and won’t run at all. They won’t use any of your phone’s resources. The only difference to deleting an app is that disabled apps are still stored on your phone.

So let’s get to it:

1. Go to your device’s settings and look for ‘apps’ or ‘applications’. Where you can find that submenu and how it’s named depends on your phone’s front-end interface. For example, on LG it is under Settings > General > Apps.
2. Once you’re inside the apps menu, swipe over to the “All” tab which shows you a list of all apps installed on your phone.
3. Select all the bloatware apps you want to get rid of and hit the disable button. You can click ‘OK’ on any prompts that might follow. Disabling an app won’t do any damage since you can easily enable it again. That’s it!

Disabling all the unnecessary waste on your phone definitely improves both your phone’s performance and your experience with it. If you want to go one step further, you should check out all the different Launchers that substitute your manufacturer’s interface. But if you really want to have a pure and highly customizable version of Android, then you should really read about rooting and check out our rooting knowledge database.