How do I run an adb shell command?

Switch on developer options and USB debugging on the phone, plug it in, then run adb shell from a machine with platform-tools installed — or run adb shell on its own to get an interactive prompt and type the command without the prefix. If the command produces binary output, such as a screenshot, use adb exec-out instead of adb shell: the plain shell service attaches a terminal, which rewrites newline bytes and corrupts the data.

Do adb shell commands need root?

Not the ones on this reference. They run as the shell user, which can manage packages for its own Android user, read most dumpsys services, write the settings provider, inject input and read shared storage. Root is only needed for things this reference deliberately avoids — reading another app's private data (except through run-as on a debuggable build), writing system partitions, or reading /data/anr directly.

Why does the output look different on my phone?

Either the Android version or the manufacturer. Some flags and fields arrived in a specific release, and those are noted per command. The rest is OEM patching, which hits dumpsys hardest: a dump is debug output whose text is whatever the service author last printed, and manufacturers change it and backport their changes. Read fields by name rather than by position, and treat an unfamiliar shape as a difference rather than as a failure.

Can I run this from a browser instead of a terminal?

For many commands, yes — the Web ADB tools on this site talk to a phone over WebUSB from a Chromium-based desktop browser, with no SDK installed and nothing uploaded. Each page links to the tool that runs its command, when one exists. Two limits are worth knowing: only one program can hold the ADB interface at a time, so a desktop adb server has to be stopped first, and adb forward and adb reverse cannot work in a browser at all.

pm uninstall

destructive

Removes a package, or removes it for one Android user only — which is how a preinstalled app is disposed of without root.

Command: adb shell pm uninstall
Commands: Packages (pm)
Risk: destructive

Syntax

pm uninstall [-k] [--user <id>] <package>

Flags and arguments

Token	Meaning
-k	Keep the app's data and cache directories. This is what makes the removal reversible.
--user <id>	Remove for one Android user. For a preinstalled app this is the only form that works without root: the APK stays in the system image and the app simply stops existing for that user.

Examples

```
pm uninstall com.example
```
Remove a sideloaded app completely, data included.
```
pm uninstall -k --user 0 com.manufacturer.bloat
```
Remove a preinstalled app for the primary user, keeping its data so it can be restored.
```
cmd package install-existing --user 0 com.manufacturer.bloat
```
The antidote to the previous line: reinstate the app for that user.

Reading the output

Sample output

Success

One word. `Success` is the whole success message; a failure is `Failure [<reason>]`, and the reason inside the brackets is the useful part — `DELETE_FAILED_INTERNAL_ERROR`, or `Failure [not installed for 0]` when the app was already gone for that user. Read the state back with `pm list packages -u` afterwards rather than trusting the line alone.

Output fields

Field	Meaning
Success	The package was removed for the user asked about.
Failure [<reason>]	Nothing was removed. The bracketed reason is the platform's own code.
Failure [not installed for 0]	The package was already absent for that user — often the answer, not an error.

What access it needs

An authorised `adb` connection and nothing more, provided you stay on the `--user` form. Removing a preinstalled app for one Android user needs no root precisely because nothing leaves the system image: the APK stays where the vendor put it and the package merely stops existing for that user, which is what makes `cmd package install-existing --user 0 <pkg>` able to put it back afterwards. Asking instead to remove a package that lives on the read-only system partition outright is the case privileges would be needed for, and it is refused rather than half-done. No developer-options toggle unlocks any of this, and `adb root` is unavailable on a production build, so a refusal is a signal to change the command rather than to hunt for a switch. Which manifest permission the platform checks for the deletion itself is not verified in this repository; what is verified is the shape of the answer, which is why the Android Debloat Tool re-reads the package list afterwards instead of believing one line.

Failure messages, decoded

Message	Meaning
Failure [DELETE_FAILED_INTERNAL_ERROR]	The package manager refused the deletion and offered no further detail. `runUninstall` passes the bracketed reason through untouched, so this is the platform's own word rather than an interpretation of it. The first thing to rule out is a package on the read-only system image addressed without `--user`; this repository has not confirmed on hardware which conditions map to which bracketed reasons.
Failure [not installed for 0]	Nothing was removed because the package was already absent for that user. Frequently the answer rather than an error — it is what a second run of a removal that already worked prints. Settle it by re-reading `pm list packages -u`, which still lists anything removed with `-k`.
Exception occurred while executing 'uninstall':	The wrapper caught a `Throwable`; the next line names it. `classifyPmUninstall` treats any such banner as a failure even when a `Success` line appears beside it, because a run that printed both is not a run to report success for.

What it changes, and the way back

`pm uninstall --user 0 <pkg>` removes the app for that user. With `-k` its data is kept and `cmd package install-existing --user 0 <pkg>` puts the app back; without `-k` the data is gone and only a reinstall from an APK restores the app. Removing a system component this way can leave the phone unable to boot past setup, and a factory reset is then the only cure — so decide per package, never in bulk.

Version and vendor notes

After a `-k` removal the package appears in `pm list packages -u` but not in the default list. That difference is the only reliable way to find what can be restored.
An OEM that reworded the success line makes a correct removal look failed. Re-reading the package list is what settles it.

We have a UI for this

Android Debloat Tool runs this command over USB and parses what comes back — a Chromium browser, no SDK, nothing uploaded.

Open Android Debloat Tool

Related commands

Commands that turn up in the same session as pm uninstall.

Command	What it does
pm list packages	Lists installed packages, optionally with the APK path, uid, version code and installer.
pm disable-user	Switches a package off for one Android user without removing it — the reversible alternative to uninstalling.
pm clear	Wipes an app's data — or, on Android 13 and later, only its cache.
dumpsys package	Everything the package manager knows about one app: version, paths, flags, install source and per-user state.

More Packages (pm) commands

Command	What it does
pm path	Prints the absolute paths of the APK files that make up an installed package.
pm trim-caches	Asks the system to drop cached files until the given amount of free space exists.
pm install	Installs one APK that is already on the device, which is what `adb install` does under the hood.
pm install-create	Opens an install session so several APKs — a base plus its splits — are installed as one atomic unit.

Checked against AOSP, toybox and kernel sources while writing the parsers behind our Web ADB tools. Where a behaviour genuinely varies by Android version or manufacturer, this page says so instead of giving a number that would be wrong on half the phones out there.