this post was submitted on 16 Jun 2026
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You can't remove lot of apps in most Android phones. I have an older phone S7 Edge which I installed an alternative Android OS called "/e/OS". Its way more private by default. Besides all the benefits of privacy, I also do not use the Google Play Store and do not have any social media on it installed.
A custom rom is great and the best path for the techie users. For the general public, you can still disable non needed invasive apps. For minimalist usage aimed at reducing overall phone usage, that's mostly enough. There's also a launcher called baldphone available on fdroid that turns any android phone in a minimalist phone, aimed at the elderly, but still nice for any minimalism enthusiast. It requires some tech skill to install though.
For the longest time I am using a minimalist desktop too (i mean a launcher or default home app), called Unlauncher.
You absolutely can remove every app (including hidden base OS functionality that is packaged as an installed app) through ADB, or through tools like Shizuku that give you effectively "on-device" ADB. There are GUI based apps to do this for both PC and runnable on Android itself.
It's not easily accessible for the average user, but it's literally easier than flashing a custom OS, if you're already looking into that level of things.
As the owner of a relatively new Android phone, who wanted to disable a software update nag, this is no longer always true.
In my research I built a history of instructions for disabling these nag screens/notifications on phones from this manufacturer. At first, there were things you could do on the phone itself. Then you had to change a setting with ADB. Then you had to disable a system app with ADB. Then you had to get root access to uninstall the app with ADB. And now, for my phone and other recent models, there's literally nothing you can do, even with root access in ADB, short of flashing custom firmware.
Oh okay, I was nor aware this was possible for the regular Android. But it make sense if you get root access. So I learned something new today. :-)