Re: How to delete Google Discover from both your user & work profile

On Fri, 21 Mar 2025 04:50:31 -0000 (UTC), Marion wrote :

If you've been following, this is a core feature of Android I'm hitting.
a. The system partition contains the APK
b. So that's why I could re-install it into the user 0 data partition
c. But Android won't let me re-install it into the user 11 data partition

Given you can uninstall and re-install system packages on any non-rooted
Android, but you can only do so for user 0 and not for the work profile user 11, there's a trick to re-install this non-debuggable system package for the work profile user 11 which takes advantage of how Android works.
For most (all?) system packages, Android never actually deleted them!
 C:\> adb shell pm path com.google.android.googlequicksearchbox
      package:/product/priv-app/Velvet/Velvet.apk
Huh? Velvet? It turns out "Velvet" is a Google internal codename.
Now copy that system APK to the computer:
 C:\> adb pull /product/priv-app/Velvet/Velvet.apk .\velvet.apk
      /product/priv-app/Velvet/Vel... (276644880 bytes in 8.645s)
Now install that APK from the system partition to the work profile.
 C:\> adb install --user 11 .\velvet.apk
      Performing Streamed Install
      Success
Now check if it's really installed for the work profile user 11.
 C:\> adb shell pm list packages --user 11 | findstr googlequicksearchbox
      (it's there!)
In summary, this shows empirically how Android handles system packages.
1. Any non-root user can still remove (most) system packages
2. But, they are not deleted. They're just removed for the user
3. They stay in the system partition (since they're system packages)
So...
A. You can easily re-install these deleted system packages for the user
B. But, you have to extract them first, to re-install for the work profile
Who knew? Not me. Now I do!
Of course, I deleted it since I don't ever want to see Google Discover!
 C:> adb shell pm uninstall --user 0 com.google.android.googlequicksearchbox
     Success
 C:\> adb shell pm uninstall --user 11 com.google.android.googlequicksearchbox
     Success
Double checking, they're gone.
 C:\> adb shell pm list packages --user 0 com.google.android.googlequicksearchbox
      (nothing is reported)
 C:\> adb shell pm list packages --user 11 com.google.android.googlequicksearchbox
      (nothing is reported)