Help Cleaning bloatware

[groston]

I decided to clean some of the bloatware off of my rooted Pixel 3XL. The first bloatware I removed using ‘adb shell pm uninstall --user 0 <package>’ and there were no problems. However, it was pointed out that I should have TWRP installed in case something goes wrong. While I can do this, the phone is actively used and I am concerned about making a mistake. So, a bit more looking and I found something that suggested using ‘adb shell pm disable --user 0 <package>’.

The problem is that this didn’t work. When I tried ‘adb shell pm disable --user 0 com.verizon.obdm_permissions’, I got the error message ‘Security exception: Shell cannot change component state for com.verizon.obdm_permissions/null to 2’. Did some searching, but nothing indicated how to resolve this issue.

My question: Can 'pm disable' be used (and what should I do to avoid the error) or is ‘pm disable’ not a viable option for non-system bloatware?

 

[Milo Williamson]

https://www.xda-developers.com/universal-android-debloater-remove-unwanted-bloatware-apps/

 

[ocnbrze]

if you can use adb, then you should be able to install twrp with no problem. twrp is very important when you have a rooted phone......just saying.

and @Milo Williamson 's suggestion is a good one. i would give that a go. it is basically a script that runs adb and removes unnecessary system files.

this is the actual xda thread:
https://forum.xda-developers.com/t/script-2021-01-30-v2-9-universal-android-debloater.4069209/

i would read its entirety if you have the time.

 

[Hadron]

But installing TWRP will require unlocking the bootloader, which will trigger a factory reset. So everything important should be backed up first.

 

[GameTheory]

I decided to clean some of the bloatware off of my rooted Pixel 3XL. The first bloatware I removed using ‘adb shell pm uninstall --user 0 <package>’ and there were no problems. However, it was pointed out that I should have TWRP installed in case something goes wrong. While I can do this, the phone is actively used and I am concerned about making a mistake. So, a bit more looking and I found something that suggested using ‘adb shell pm disable --user 0 <package>’.

The problem is that this didn’t work. When I tried ‘adb shell pm disable --user 0 com.verizon.obdm_permissions’, I got the error message ‘Security exception: Shell cannot change component state for com.verizon.obdm_permissions/null to 2’. Did some searching, but nothing indicated how to resolve this issue.

My question: Can 'pm disable' be used (and what should I do to avoid the error) or is ‘pm disable’ not a viable option for non-system bloatware?

You're using the old adb command which is unreliable. Try the new command instead.

adb shell pm disable-user --user 0 <package>