How to delete and uninstall apps from your Android phone

(Pocket-lint) – Chances are that if you’ve owned your Android phone for a while then you’ve probably installed a fair few different apps. Some of which you don’t need and are keen to remove and uninstall from your phone.  If you’ve found that your phone is complaining about being too full, running a bit slow or just feels clogged full of unnecessary things then follow this guide to uninstall unwanted apps and return a sense of normality. 

Find your unwanted apps

If you’ve got a lot of installed apps and you want to remove some, the first step is to find the offending ones.

To do this you need to open up the app drawer and access them all. This is usually done by swiping up on the home screen of your phone. You can then see all the apps and seek out the problem ones. 

How to uninstall apps

The process for uninstalling apps varies slightly from phone to phone but is generally quite similar. 

  1. Find the app you want to uninstall
  2. Press and hold on the app icon
  3. Either look for the option to uninstall or a button that says “app info” and tap that

If you tapped on “app info” you may find yourself on another screen where you have several options including one to open the app, one to force stop if it’s causing problems and the uninstall button. 

Alternatively, you may find on some Android phones that pressing and holding on an app and then swiping up towards the top of the screen brings up a bin icon with “uninstall” text. Drag the app to that area and you’ll be prompted with an option to uninstall or cancel.  You can repeat this process for each and every app that you wish to remove from your device. 

It’s worth noting that if you’re trying to remove apps from your main home screen, rather than the app drawer then you might see an option to “delete” or “remove” the app. This doesn’t uninstall, but instead just deletes that app from the home screen and will keep it on your phone. If you’re trying to uninstall an app completely from your device make sure you click uninstall. 

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How to uninstall multiple Android apps at once

An alternative to uninstalling apps individually from your phone is to do it via the Google Play store.

This allows you to select multiple apps and remove them quickly.  To do this follow these steps:

  • Open the Google Play app on your phone
  • Click on your profile image on the top right
  • Press on “manage apps and devices”
  • Click on the “manage” tab
  • Scroll through the list and tick any of the apps you don’t want to use 
  • Tick the check box on the right-hand side to select multiple apps
  • Click on the bin icon at the top of the app to remove the apps

There are useful filters that you can use within Google Play to sort the apps and find the ones you want to delete. When you’re in the “manage apps and device” section you’ll see an option on the right-hand side that shows as “recently updated”.

Click that and you can then filter and sort by name, most used, least used, recently updated and size.  If you want to uninstall old unused apps then filters by least used is handy. If storage space is a problem then filtering by size instead is the best option. 

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Delete apps from your phone’s settings

Another way to delete apps from your phone is via the settings.

Open up your phone settings and you’ll find there is a way to get to the entire list of apps with a few presses. 

  • Open your phone settings
  • Click on apps
  • Then you can click to see all apps or scroll down to see unused apps
  • You can then either click on the app and click the bin icon or just click the bin icon next to the app to uninstall

You can’t easily select multiple apps this way, but you can clean up apps you don’t want really quickly. 

Writing by Adrian Willings.