# Smartphone Apps, Have you Disabled or Uninstalled Any on Your Phone?



## SeaBreeze (Nov 10, 2019)

I'm on my first smartphone, a Moto E5 Play.  I went in to see if I could get a keyboard on it that had larger and easier to use keys, but only wanted to use something that was already in the phone, didn't see an easy change.  But I don't text, I might if it was easier to tap a letter and get the right one.

Anyhoo, I believe there were just a little over 30 apps already on the phone when I bought it.  Now there are 43, so I'm thinking apps are being installed without my permission.  I've only installed 3 apps since I've had the phone.

I don't even know what some of these apps are for, or if I would ever use them, I'd like to just disable or uninstall ones I will never use.  I really only just use the phone for simple things.  I don't want any photos or info on my phone to go anywhere else online unless I upload something myself, like a photo to the forum.

Some apps I'm wondering about and thinking might be spam are:

CQA Test
Drive
Native Drop Box Agent
Google Zhuyin Input
Google Japanese Input
Google Korean Input
Google Pinyin Input


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## Mike (Nov 11, 2019)

Hi SeaBreeze, you can "Force Stop" on any Apps on
your phone and most can be "Uninstalled", go to
"Settings", then "Apps", then you need to open them
all one at a time, I do this quite regularly and Force Stop
on most, or "Disable" on the ones that I know that I don't
want and will never use.

You can force stop on all of them and they will come back,
when you touch the icon for one on the screen that one will
wake up, also when an update in installed that wakes them up,
I used to go through them all regularly, another thisng you can
do is don't allow notifications, they wake them up too.

As for a larger keyboard, you need to allow the screen to rotate
and when you need to type, look at the screen in "Landscape",
I have to do this to get a larger screen.

Another move is to go into high battery saving mode complete
with the "Black Screen", this limits the Apps that you have available,
but you can add them, you do lose some functions, but you can
switch it off to get the full range of functions, I use this when the
updates start draining the battery quickly.

As for those that you have listed, I think that you can delete them,
except maybe drive that can be used as a navigator, but the others
especially the Google ones might not allow you to uninstall them.

Good Luck.

Mike.


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## Ronni (Nov 11, 2019)

I wish I could help, but I am only facile with iPhones and their operating systems.  I find the android OS confusing.  One thing that seems ubiquitous cross-platform is that updating the OS will sometimes automatically load additional code that will show up on your phone as a new app or widget.  Have you been prompted to update since you've had the phone?


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## SeaBreeze (Nov 11, 2019)

Thanks Mike for your advice.  Ronni, I have updated the phone's security a couple of times already when prompted.  I didn't pay attention to when the new apps appeared.  I shut it off and put it away just like I did with my old Tracfone, so I don't look around on it very much.


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