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Consequences of disabling unwanted apps

4K views 17 replies 7 participants last post by  jiwawa 
#1 ·
I have a Google Nexus 9 tablet running Nougat. I want to remove as much unused stuff as possible as I am close to running out of memory.

There are many apps that I don't want, didn't put on in the first place, don't have the Uninstall option but can be disabled. YouTube is one of them. If I select Disable then I get the message:

If you disable this app, other apps may no longer function as intended.

I don't use YouTube but it takes up 864KB of internal storage and it has apparently used 21 MB of memory in the last 3 hours. Since the tablet has been sitting idle for the last 3 hours at least this is remarkable.

Please can anyone tell me what the worst case scenario would be if I disable YouTube- and other unwanted but uninstallable apps that give the same message ?
 
#2 ·
You may well get that particular message with all you try and disable.
It is intended as a safety net.

Only familiar with PCs so unless you have a straight forward step back or restore option I don't know.

Perhaps a tablet expert will appear?:wink2:
 
#3 ·
Hi Grizzly

Not a scientific answer, but they all give that message and I've ignored it no end of times with (so far) no adverse effects. I can't see how disabling YouTube, or better still uninstalling it back to the factory setting, is going to cause a problem. Then disable it or it will nag you to update all the time.

The amount of internal storage it uses is quite small, but where did the 21Mb of memory come from. Switch off completely and re-boot is the best suggestion I can give. It may have been doing something it shouldn't in the background, and a re-boot should re-set it.

There shouldn't be too much cr@pware on a Nexus phone as they run Android "Vanilla". Some of the big name phones are chock full of junk, which is why, like you, we also have Nexus phones. Only the 7 though - I know my place!! :grin2:

Hope this helps
 
#5 ·
Have a look on the web to see if it crops up elsewhere.

Our Samsung tablets have mini-SD slots and we have 64gb cards in them, this gives us room for extra apps without using the system memory.

Choosing a model with the biggest memory to start with also helps, all of ours have 16gb of internal memory.

Our Kindle Fire 6's were very disappointing, great screen but no GPS, no expansion slot and no external ports.

The Samsungs have all these but we only bought the Tab4, not the phone versions.

Peter
 
#6 ·
There are certain apps that come "bundlled" with devices and are a result either of them paying the manufacturer or the manufacturer having an interest in their proliferation. These apps are impossible to uninstall without "rooting" your device, after which you can get rid of them for good.

Dick
 
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#7 ·
Thank you Peter: I'm very happy with my Nexus 9 and still have a few spare GB to go before I reach the 28 GB capacity. I have no SD card in it or option to put one in but this was a choice I made a when I bought the Nexus as it had such good reviews and general specs and I like the split screen option for when I'm doing family history searches. I've had it several years and still like it very much and it does all I ask of it but, I do want to remove some unwanted stuff. It's still very fast but all the space taken up by unwanted apps annoys me. When I want the Pinyin alphabet I would download it ! Pretty well all the apps I have are data apps as I'm not into social media or games and use my Kindle Voyage for reading.

Dick: "rooting" ?? I've not heard of this.

Thanks again all
 
#8 ·
Dick: "rooting" ?? I've not heard of this.
Not for the faint hearted or those who are not fairly expert.

You could easily turn your phone into a brick!!! :surprise:

Have you got a file manager on your phone? This one is quite good and only £2. It has the look and feel of a PC directory structure which is what I like, and it does open up a few more possibilities for managing your content.

Dave
 
#9 ·
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#10 ·
Thanks both...I think " faint-hearted " sums up my attitude to fiddling with anything serious with my various computers.

I have thought about a factory reset but I've got everything working nicely and it would mean re-installing bought apps and generally fiddling which I am loathe to do at the moment.

I'll have a go at disabling some of the ones that seem to be working behind my back.
 
#11 ·
Just to reassure re bought apps. Once you sign in with your Google account after a reset it will recognise what apps you have bought and not charge you again when you reinstall.

Dick
 
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#13 ·
I've disabled several Google-added apps, Keep, Sheets, Fit and so on, and, so far, no adverse effect. It's reassuring to see that ENABLE is written beside them so I can change my mind, though that means they must be there on the device somewhere.

Please, one further question. Am I right to assume that Google-added apps are not part of the operating system and so can't be required for the normal running of the tablet ? If they were required then surely they'd have been added as part of the OS and it would not be possible to disable them by simple means ?
 
#14 ·
Update: a mystery. I disabled 5 apps, none of them with any data that I have added to them and none with a huge use of memory.

I wrote down the storage capacity before I started all this and I appear to have gained 8 GB by simply disabling these apps.

I don't see how that can happen.
 
#15 ·
You are right in your assumption that Google added apps are not essential for the operating system Grizzly. As to your 8gb? I'm afraid I'm at a loss on that, treat it as a bonus. You have got a virus checker haven't you?

Dick
 
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#17 ·
Farcebook on Samsung phones created problems with the battery draining prematurely so I uninstalled it on mine and sure enough the battery lasted a lot longer after that......I didn't use it on my phone anyway. I have recently cleaned out a lot of unused apps on my Nexus and as you say you get the warning spring up but I ignored it and went ahead anyway and so far no problems......fingers crossed.:wink2:
 
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