How to uninstall apps on Android, and what to do when one will not go

The route in Google’s help

Android Help’s article on deleting apps says some of its steps work only on Android 13 and up. To delete an app that you installed, open the Google Play Store app, tap the profile icon at the top right, tap Manage apps & devices and then Manage, select the name of the app, and tap Uninstall. The article adds that if you delete or disable an app you can add it back to your phone, and that if you bought the app you can reinstall it without buying it again. It also says you can archive apps that you have not used for a while: archiving removes the app data but keeps the app icon and your personal data on the device.

On a Samsung Galaxy

Samsung Canada’s page on managing apps gives a shorter route for a downloaded app: find the app, touch and hold its shortcut for a few seconds, tap Uninstall, and tap OK to confirm. It notes that uninstalling removes the app from the Galaxy and frees up storage space, and that if you reinstall the app later from the Play Store or Galaxy Store you may need to sign in again or reconfigure its settings. Samsung’s US page gives the same gesture from the Apps screen: swipe up or down from a Home screen, touch and hold the app and tap Uninstall. Samsung Canada also describes a separate option for troubleshooting, Uninstall updates, which returns some apps to the version originally installed on the phone.

Delete, disable or archive

The android.com article lays out three actions that affect app storage differently. Deleting or uninstalling removes the app and all its associated data completely, if possible. Disabling hides the app from the home screen, prevents it from running or updating, and stops it using system resources, but keeps it on the phone, where you can still find it in settings and re-enable it. Archiving removes the app from the device but keeps the icon and personal data, so reinstalling is easy; archived apps stay visible but need a download to work again, and the article says the option is available for some apps through the Play Store. Samsung Canada makes the same distinction in its own words: disabling prevents an app from running and removes it from the Apps screen, but the app remains installed.

The android.com article lists four ways to disable an app: a long-press on the icon and the Disable option; the app’s listing in the Play Store, where an enabled app shows buttons to Uninstall or Disable it; Settings, then Apps or Apps & Notifications, then the app and Disable; and Safe Mode, which it describes as useful for disabling apps that interfere with the device and entered by pressing and holding the power button, then long-pressing the power-off option and confirming the restart. It tells you to back up the phone before significant changes. To get a disabled app back, see the section below, or hiding apps on Android when the goal is only to get an app out of sight.

When an app will not go

Android Help says you cannot delete some system apps that came pre-installed, but that on some phones you can turn them off so that they do not show in the list of apps, and it sends you to your device manufacturer for how. The Pixel version of the article is more specific: most system apps on a Pixel can be disabled, by opening Settings, then Apps, then All apps, then the app, and choosing Disable. The android.com article explains why some stay: some system apps are tightly connected to Android’s core features, such as logging in to a Google Account, syncing across apps and receiving security patches, and removing them could break key parts of the phone’s functionality.

Samsung UK’s page, updated on 26 May 2026, says some pre-installed apps can be deleted but essential ones such as Phone, Messages, Contacts, Gallery and My Files cannot, because they are required for basic functions. For those, it says the hide-apps option is available for every pre-installed app, while the disable option is available only for some. Samsung Canada gives the disable steps: touch and hold the shortcut, tap Disable, and tap Disable again; to enable it later, open Settings, tap Apps, select the app and tap Enable. It adds that some apps cannot be uninstalled or disabled because the phone needs them to operate. The pages we read give no other reason for an app that will not uninstall.

Apps you stopped using

Android Help also describes what Android does with apps you have not used for a long time: it deletes temporary files to free up space, stops the app running in the background, and stops it sending notifications. To review them, go to Apps, then Unused apps; to exclude an app, open its App info, then Unused apps, and turn off Pause app activity if unused. For the space side of removing apps see clearing the cache on Android, and for an app that keeps stopping rather than staying, apps crashing on Android. On an iPhone the same question is deleting apps, and on a Mac, deleting apps on a Mac.

What we did not read

Menus differ by Android version and maker; Android Help flags that some steps need Android 13 or later, and the Samsung pages we read are written for Galaxy phones. We did not run any of these steps on a phone. The guides from wikiHow, CNET, Asurion and How-To Geek in the results, and the Play Store listing page, were not read.