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The way the Google support page ("Android 8.1 and up") is written suggests that this option may have been only available in third-party ROMs:

Disable apps that came with your phone

You can’t delete some system apps that came pre-installed on your Android phone. But on some phones, you can turn them off so that they won't show on the list of apps on your phone. To learn how to disable apps, contact your device manufacturer.

I don't personally have an issue with bloatware as I run LineageOS, but temporarily turning off apps would have often been beneficial for various reasons (some, while useful, are rarely used and may run at boot; issues with the latest update and no roll-back option).

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  • With root privileges you can disable any app.
    – Irfan Latif
    Jul 2, 2020 at 18:19
  • @IrfanLatif: Natively in Android?
    – user598527
    Jul 2, 2020 at 18:24
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    What does that mean? Aren't we talking about Android?
    – Irfan Latif
    Jul 2, 2020 at 19:07
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    AFAIK, based on my personal experience, even without root, system apps can only be disabled (and uninstall updates, but not uninstall the app) on vanilla Android 2.x (or in fact, probably older than that). And I've also disabled some LineageOS' built-in apps since I don't intend to use it. Open the app's info and you can either disable (for system apps) or uninstall (for user apps).
    – Andrew T. ♦
    Jul 3, 2020 at 1:52
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    @IrfanLatif hmm, I probably need a distinction between "apps signed with system certificate" and "apps that reside on the system partition"... also, is this limitation added since Android 10 (or even Android 8.1)? I also have to clarify that most of my experience is still limited up to Android 7.x...
    – Andrew T. ♦
    Jul 3, 2020 at 5:04

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