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I've got a Samsung 10.1 2014 which recently stopped recognizing the card in the SD card slot. Card is recognized fine by a PC, but in the tablet, nothing.

Apparently, some of my apps installed themselves to this SD card. At least that is my impression; all these apps now have lost their default icon which has been instead replaced by a transparent default Android icon with "SD" next to it. If I try to open them I get a toast message which says "Application not installed". I don't know anything about how to install or move apps to the SD card, so I assume it was done automatically by the Amazon app store, which is where all these apps were from.

Android itself doesn't recognize that these apps are installed. However, the icons are still there and I assume there must be some traces of them still present on the device (not on the SD card). I would like to get rid of all that by uninstalling. The Amazon App store says on device but not installed by amazon appstore but for some reason which is beyond me, Amazon chose not to implement any way to uninstall an app. I never knew there was an OS way to uninstall apps before this, as I always uninstalled directly from the app store that I installed it from. So Amazon's behavior is puzzling to me.

I have read this related question asking how to uninstall but the answers which don't talk about how to do it from Android directly (which won't work for me) mention how to delete the app, which is not what I want. When I try to delete, it tells me that if I delete the app I will lose it and have to repurchase it from the store again later if I want to install again, which is not what I want.

I thought about maybe trying to re-install the app on the device (although, not sure what it would do since it may want the SD card present!), and then uninstalling, but the Amazon app store doesn't provide any way to install the app. Since it thinks it is already installed, it only provides an "open" button, which does nothing.

How do uninstall the remnants of these apps from my device?

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    It seems like you might be mixing up some terminology here. Do you have two Amazon accounts, or two accounts on your device? Which account are you trying to remove the app from: your Amazon account or your device's user account? The answer you appear to be referencing on the other question provides instructions for deleting an app from your Amazon account's purchase history, but if you just want to uninstall the app from a user account on your device that would be completely unnecessary. That answer is not related to the uninstall process.
    – eldarerathis
    Commented Feb 5, 2015 at 4:48
  • @eldarerathis I have two accounts on my device. I want to remove the app from one of the user accounts on my device. The Amazon AppStore on my device doesn't seem to provide this capability, and the OS itself doesn't list the app as installed. But the Amazon AppStore says it is installed, but not by the AppStore.
    – Michael
    Commented Feb 5, 2015 at 5:20
  • What device do you have? What version of Android? Device accounts, and Amazon accounts, have nothing to do with the process you're describing, and the uninstall process is handled entirely from the device, not the account. This is a really messy question to understand.
    – TurboFool
    Commented Feb 5, 2015 at 5:36
  • @TurboFool Samsung Galaxy 10.1/2014, Android 4.3. I'll try to rewrite it tomorrow to make it less messy.
    – Michael
    Commented Feb 5, 2015 at 5:46
  • @TurboFool Ok, after a bit more troubleshooting, I have rewritten the question based on my latest understanding of the problem.
    – Michael
    Commented Feb 5, 2015 at 15:44

3 Answers 3

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1. If the app is available from your launcher, simply drag it onto the "Uninstall" button like you would normally do when uninstalling an app.

2. If the app isn't available from launcher

Navigate to Settings->Applications and find it. Tap it then tap Uninstall.

3. If it's not showing up even in Settings

Get a terminal emulator or connect to it on your computer via adb shell, and run

pm list packages -f

and from its output, you'll be able to identify apps on removed SD card because their associated file paths are shown. Take down its "package name" which comes after the equal sign (looks like com.example.foo) and type

pm uninstall <package name here>

Hit Enter and it's ultimately uninstalled. No more troubles!

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  • Wanted to note that I had a similar issue with the Netflix app (which was on an SD that was removed). I was able to uninstall it with adb, but then I still couldn't reinstall with Amazon Appstore (the install kept failing). I had to download the appropriate apk and install via adb install. Then I was able to uninstall and reinstall via Amazon Appstore, which finally got everything back in sync.
    – Andrew
    Commented Sep 29, 2021 at 18:03
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I had a similar problem, I solved it by opening the amazon app, going to my apps, then tapping and holding the app I can't use, and pressing uninstall. If the app isn't actually installed, it will disappear from the list in a few seconds, and then you can go over to the cloud tab to reinstall it.

Hope this helps,

Adam

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Go to Settings > Applications/Apps

Find the App you want to Uninstall, then Clear Data, and Clear Defaults, if any.

Try and Uninstall it.

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