Question on after uninstalling an App

[psionix]

Is there any possibility for an app to leave remnants of itself within the phone even after you uninstall it?

I know windows does that, but I have limited knowledge on linux base android.

Someone care to enlighten me?

Perhaps like some left over files and folders within the folders of the root directory?

Cheers

 

[KlaymenDK]

Welcome to the forum!

Yes, some apps create data folders in "/sdcard" which usually get left behind when the app is uninstalled. Which IMHO can be a good thing, and in any case is easily spotted and deleted.

Other than that, no. Apps only consist of the APK file; I do believe the app-specific preferences db gets wiped so there's no gunk left over in a system-wide "registry" if that's what you are wondering.

 

[psionix]

Thanks.

So apart from /sdcard, there should not be any crap left in other directories?

cheers

 

[KlaymenDK]

"/sdcard" is sort of like "My Documuments" in Windows, or rather exactly like "/home/your-user-name" in unix/linux: this is the only place that you (including apps run by you) can write data. To write data outside of "/sdcard" you'd need higher privileges (ie. root). So it's actually rather difficult to "pollute" the phone.

However, it is up to the developer to decide whether the data for the Plugh app is stored in "/sdcard/plugh", "/sdcard/plugh-data", or something entirely different such as "/sdcard/iTunes".