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I have a non-rooted Nexus One running stock firmware. I'd like to uninstall unused stock applications to free their space: which is the quickest and safest way to do that (i.e. rooting + uninstalling)? Apparently you need to root the phone first, and there are many ways to do that, which may or may not imply also wiping all the memory...

When some of these apps are base non-updated version, the application manager says they take "0B", and this makes me wonder if they are actually really uninstallable without changing firmware...

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Even being a late response -- just in case someone else stumbles upon this: In terms of "freeing their space" you gain nothing, as those apps are installed in an area inaccessible to "normal" apps and data (/system, which is mounted read-only during normal operation). But you still may gain ressources, if it's about bloatware running in the background if you use them or not. – Izzy Feb 5 at 15:15
@Izzy very good point! Can't the partition size be changed accordingly on rooted phones? – Lohoris Feb 5 at 15:23
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Technically maybe (but not from a system booted into normal mode -- from recovery it might work), but the question is: Do you really want to do that? What with updates (expecting the original size)? Flashing a custom ROM might also proof problematic with the /system partition being slightly too small / smaller than expected. And I don't know which other side-effects there might be... – Izzy Feb 5 at 15:39

1 Answer

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Once you're rooted, use Titanium Backup. It will allow you to freeze the app to see if everything still works without it. If it does you should be able to uninstall it. You can use it to back up the app in case you need to restore it as well.

As for which apps are needed, mostly it's obvious. Don't touch Android System but go ahead and remove Amazon MP3, for example. Most ROMs rely on the stock messaging, dialer, and contacts apps (among others), so you might not want to touch those either.

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sorry for the confusion, I meant this question as including the "which root method should I use" step. – Lohoris Jan 8 '12 at 22:37
@Lohoris That's a little broad for one question. We currently have one question listing root guides that you might find useful, though we're planning to break it apart and have one question per device. – Matthew Read♦ Jan 8 '12 at 22:44

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