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

On Fri, 21 Mar 2025 04:06:54 -0000 (UTC), Marion wrote :

So for the work profile, the Discover functionality exists, but not for the
main profile of mine. (I don't have any "accounts" set up on my phone.)

The first thing I have to do is figure out how many "users" exist.
 C:\> adb shell pm list users
      Users:
        UserInfo{0:Owner:c13} running
        UserInfo{11: Island :10b0}
List if the package is installed for each of those userids, 0 & 11.
 C:\> adb shell pm list packages --user 0 com.google.android.googlequicksearchbox
       (the package does NOT show up, which means it's not installed)
 C:\> adb shell pm list packages --user 11 com.google.android.googlequicksearchbox
       (the package does show up, which means it is installed)
To remove it for user 11.
 C:\> adb shell pm uninstall --user 11 com.google.android.googlequicksearchbox
      Success
To check that it's gone for user 11.
 C:\> adb shell pm list packages --user 11 com.google.android.googlequicksearchbox
       (the package does NOT show up, which means it's not installed)
As a test, I tried re-installing it (from the system partition).
 C:\> adb shell cmd package install-existing com.google.android.googlequicksearchbox
      Package com.google.android.googlequicksearchbox installed for user: 0
Notice it worked to re-install the app for user 0 but not for user 11!
To install it back for user 11 is not simple, it turns out.
First, check that it's not there:
 C:\> adb shell pm list packages --user 11 | findstr googlequicksearchbox
      (nothing was reported)
The re-install for user 11 fails as the system package isn't debuggable.
 C:\> adb shell "run-as com.google.android.googlequicksearchbox cmd package install-existing com.google.android.googlequicksearchbox"
      run-as: package not debuggable: com.google.android.googlequicksearchbox
Isn't that interesting!
This system package isn't set to debuggable in its manifest.
That's a security measure.
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
Android's security model enforces strict isolation between user profiles.
This prevents apps in one profile from accessing or modifying data in another profile.
But there's a trick!
I'll write up the trick next, as it's a fundamental way Android works.