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I am using Moto E(1st gen) with Android 4.4.4 KitKat. It is unrooted.

I wish to disable some of the built-in apps, which I do not use, e.g. Motorola Assist, Motorola Migrate, Google Play Books etc., to free up internal storage and increase the smartphone speed.

Whenever I try to disable a built-in app, the following warning pops up: "If you disable a built-in app, other apps may misbehave. Your data will also be deleted."

Is it safe to ignore this warning and proceed with disabling it? Or does it really cause the problems it mentions? Also, can disabling these apps have the reverse effect of slowing the phone down, further?

I looked up questions related to this in Android Enthusiasts Stack Exchange, and found these : How can I prevent unwanted pre-installed apps from automatically running on Android?, and How can I stop applications and services from running?, but they do not exactly address this issue.

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satvik.t
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    I don't think there's really a "generic" answer to this. It's mostly going to depend on the specific app you're hoping to disable. Disabling Google Books is very different from disabling, say, SystemUI. – eldarerathis Mar 18 '15 at 20:49
  • If you disable something like 10 apps, how do you know which app is misbehaving or making others misbehave? You May go one by one and check it out, but that is tedious. I've tried that and it doesn't always fix the problem because I get lost with all those apps going back and forth. I don't know if you consider that an answer but it can be ! David –  Mar 05 '16 at 10:25

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Most apps on android are safe to disable, however some can have some pretty bad side effects. This however depends on what your needs are. You can disable the camera for example but it will also disable the gallery (at least as of kitkat and I believe Lollipop is the same way).

Android does have some core applications that are essential to the function of the actual system itself. For example disabling Package Installer will disable the ability to install any application and will likely cause your phone to go into a boot loop/soft brick.

More to the question, if you are unrooted you should be relatively safe since I can't recall any application without root privileges that can access and 'take down' any vital apps on the system. That being said going mucking around with the core applications that make your phone/tablet function shouldn't be done lightly.

Source: I build custom roms, and I am a former PAC ROM maintainer.

kenny727
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Disabling system apps won't free up your space, since they are disabled, not deleted. They are still stored in your system (since you can re-enable them), and besides, they are in /system partiton, whereas the apps you download are on the /data partition, therefore, even if you did free-up the space, you wouldn't be able to use it since it's located on the /system partition.

To answer your question, yes, it is safe to disable your apps, and even if it did cause issues with other apps, you can just re-enable them.

Aleksandar Stefanović
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First, not all apps can be disabled – for some you will find the "disable" button unavailable or grayed out. It would e.g. make no sense at all to disable "Android System": nothing would work anymore on your device.

If the app-in-question offers an activated "disable" button and press it, you might have noticed a warning popping up: If you disable a built-in app, other apps may misbehave. Your data will also be deleted. That warning is not always true – but yes, sometimes there are dependencies. If you're absolutely sure you don't need the given app, you can try anyway: You cannot disable any app which is really essential. So in the worst case, you re-enable the app and reboot – all that might be lost would be the app's data then.

As I find this information essential (especially for people new to Android), I've just added that (and more details) to our corresponding disable-app tag-wiki – which you might wish to check for the other details :)

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Izzy
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Yes you can disable Google apps ,I'm using moto e 1st gen lollipop,my internal memory was full now after disabling Google play ,book , movies & TV newsstand & Google hangout ..I've got more space for other apps to install

All d best Happy moto E

Rahul
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Disabling apps will free up memory and make the device faster. However, you need to check what they are for and what dependencies they have. Apps related to phone or hardware functionality should not be disabled. Google Books can be disabled if it isn't required. Google Framework and Google Account should not be disabled if you need to use other Google apps.

Some system apps renable themselves after sometime or when you restart the device. A startup manager app will help the device remember and re-disable them at startup. You can also use a task killer app to kill apps that cannot be disabled.

To free up space in the non-volatile storage, you need to move the app to SD card. I don't think system apps can be moved to SD card and will be part of the main internal storage.

The Somberi
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