I removed Samsung's unremovable apps, and now my phone zips along

17 May 2026, 11:00 by Oluwaniyi Raji · Android Police

Not too long ago, my mid-range Samsung started installing apps I didn't ask for.

I noticed new games, shopping apps, and gallery apps sitting in the app drawer with no memory of downloading them.

The culprit was the Galaxy Store. It has an "auto-install over Wi-Fi" toggle hidden in its hamburger menu, and it was on my phone by default.

I force-stopped Galaxy Store, cleared its data, and disabled the auto-update and auto-install toggles. As a result, the unwanted installations stopped, and the storage and background data they'd been eating were freed up.

That fix had me thinking about everything else on the phone running in the background without my permission. I only needed to check my battery usage to see the full picture.

I knew how to disable most Samsung bloatware through Settings, but I wanted something more permanent. So I loaded up Android SDK Platform Tools and got to work.

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By Ben Khalesi

The Samsung apps I cleared out

I reclaimed much more than storage space

Bixby was the first to go, for a couple of reasons. I've never used it, and I'd already been a Google Assistant (and then Gemini) user long enough that I didn't consider switching. And so, Bixby Services had been using up battery in the meantime.

Galaxy Store was next. I don't know anyone who uses it for anything other than occasionally trying out a font or updating other Samsung apps. After the whole auto-install fiasco, I had no reason to keep it on my phone.

I also removed T-Mobile's Mobile Services Manager. My phone shipped on T-Mobile, and even after I switched carriers and unlocked the connectivity, the carrier apps remained.

MSM is just like the Galaxy Store, quietly fetching carrier-branded apps and diagnostics. I couldn't remove it by switching networks, but ADB could.

I was pleasantly surprised to find that I could remove Samsung Free. When enabled, it's on a panel one swipe left of the home screen, and it pulls content in the background whether you open it or not. I've swiped into it by accident more times than I've opened it on purpose.

AR Zone and Samsung TV Plus went too. TV Plus is a reasonable app for people who want free ad-supported streaming, but I wasn't one of them. As for AR Zone, I had no idea what it did before looking it up, and I wasn't interested in trying it out.

I cleared out a handful of smaller Samsung services I didn't recognize. The package names made it obvious they were tied to features I didn't use.

Microsoft's productivity suite

One company's bloatware just isn't enough, apparently

Samsung has a partnership with Microsoft that ships some of Microsoft's apps preinstalled on Galaxy devices. Outlook, LinkedIn, Microsoft 365, and a few others come pre-built.

I'm a Google ecosystem user. And even if I wasn't, I don't want two productivity suites taking up space on the same phone. These apps are not tied to system features the way OneDrive is, so removing them was a no-brainer.

There's no good reason for these to ship preinstalled. The Play Store handles app discovery just fine, and Samsung's own setup screen offers a list of optional installs that any of these could be on instead.

What I didn't remove

Some preinstalled apps actually earn their spot

OneDrive stayed because Samsung's Gallery app uses it as the default backup, and Gallery is tied to Camera and a handful of other features. Removing that integration to replace it with Google Photos wasn't worth the effort, especially since OneDrive doesn't misbehave in the background.

Knox Security also stayed because it's a great example of what a preinstalled app should be. It works, has clear integrations, and enough people use it to justify its inclusion.

I kept Samsung Keyboard because Gboard isn't necessarily the better option on a Samsung phone. Samsung's keyboard handles split-screen and a few One UI gestures more reliably. Plus, the prediction quality is quite close to Gboard's, so I hardly notice the difference.

Samsung Notes is actually great for handwriting, so it stayed. The S Pen integration on the models that support it is better than anything Google ships.

Put simply, when a preinstalled app does something specific to the hardware or ecosystem that no third party can match, it earns its spot. When it's a duplicate or a background service for a feature I don't use, it doesn't.

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By Faith Leroux

My phone feels new again

Improvements showed up in the right places

The performance improvements I was looking for were exactly where I thought they were: behind the bloatware that came with the phone.

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The Battery panel got shorter, and Bixby Services dropped out of the rankings entirely, along with the other background services I cleared. My phone can now last a whole day with a full charge and even leave enough power to spare.

More importantly, I stopped hunting through Storage looking for random downloads to clear up. Before the Galaxy Store fix, new apps randomly popped up in the drawer every few weeks.

I also noticed that my mobile data usage dropped considerably. Galaxy Store auto-installs were running on cellular, not just Wi-Fi, depending on how the toggle was set. Removing that saved a chunk of monthly data I didn't notice I was losing.

Finally, my app drawer just looks better. This is purely cosmetic, but I like the feeling of knowing my phone is lightweight and that random apps are not running amok in the background.

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No matter the phone, these apps have to go

Posts 5
By Jon Gilbert

Half an hour, one USB cable

Half an hour and a USB cable were the entire investment. Next time I get a Samsung upgrade, I'll probably try wireless ADB to skip the cable step entirely.

The lesson here is that the phone could have shipped like this. Samsung knows which apps the average user doesn't open, and a "skip these" toggle at setup would solve most of the problem for most people. Until that exists, ADB is the workaround.