My shiny new phone comes with a bunch of bloatware. Rooting the phone and removing that way is one option. But, a few apps dislike rooted phones. There is another way using the Android Debug Bridge (ADB). Bonus, I already had that installed and working on my laptop.

Some of the bloaty apps:

  • Xiaomi Cloud
  • Mi Music
  • Mi Video
  • Mi Services & feedback

And some other apps I wish to send to the void:

  • Chrome
  • Youtube
  • Youtube Music

I can make a list of all apps installed on the phone and review to see what else to get rid off:

adb shell pm list packages > apps.list
sed 's/^package://' < apps.list | grep -e 'xiaomi\|miui'

There are 90+ packages from xiaomi/miui on my phone - some are needed, but a few can go. As well as some google apps. Some examples below.

adb shell pm uninstall -k --user 0 com.miui.analytics
adb shell pm uninstall -k --user 0 com.miui.misound
adb shell pm uninstall -k --user 0 com.miui.player
adb shell pm uninstall -k --user 0 com.miui.videoplayer
adb shell pm uninstall -k --user 0 com.google.android.apps.youtube.music
adb shell pm uninstall -k --user 0 com.google.android.youtube

ADB then reports either success or failure for each app. Bye-bye bloat!

For a more in depth look; some further reading.