A little over a dozen universal apps (also known as Metro or Modern apps) are bundled with Windows 10. Calculator, Calendar, Mail, Camera, Cortana, Contact Support, Movies & TV, Get Help, Groove Music, Maps, News, OneNote, People, Photos, Connect, and Your Phone are some of the apps that ship with Windows 10.
While it’s true that most of these apps were part of the previous version of Windows as well and were not impressive, all these apps have been updated with better UI and features. Some of these apps like Mail, Calendar, Calculator, and Voice Recorder are really helpful, but not all users are going to use these default apps.
That said, uninstalling these default apps is not a good idea, especially if you hope to free up some disk space. Some of these apps are under 1 MB, in fact, uninstalling all these apps will probably free up around 100 MB of disk space.
Moreover, the Control Panel or the Settings app doesn’t allow you to uninstall many of these apps. You will have to execute a command at the PowerShell window to uninstall an app or use a third-party uninstaller like CCleaner to remove the default apps with ease.
As with the case of traditional Windows programs like Paint and Notepad, with default settings, Windows 10 doesn’t allow you to uninstall or remove these default apps. The Apps and features section of the Settings app doesn’t show the Uninstall option when you click on a default app.
Method 1 of 3
Uninstall default apps via Settings in Windows 10
Apps like 3D Viewer, Calculator, Feedback Hub, Groove Music, Mail & Calendar, Mobile Plans, Movies & TV, Office, OneNote, Print 3D, Skype, Snip & Sketch, Sticky Notes, Voice Recorder, Weather, Xbox Console Companion, and Xbox Live can be uninstalled from the Settings app itself. Here is how to do that. To uninstall remaining apps, refer to the directions in Method 2 or Method 3 of this guide (scroll down to see.
Step 1: Go go Settings > Apps > Apps & features.
Step 2: Click on the app’s entry (supported apps mentioned above) and then click the Uninstall button.
Method 2 of 3
Uninstall or remove default apps using PowerShell
If you find the PowerShell method difficult, refer to directions in Method 2 to uninstall default apps using CCleaner free version.
To uninstall a default or pre-installed app in Windows 10, you need to execute a simple command. Here is how to uninstall a default or pre-installed app in Windows 10:
NOTE: Some of the apps like Cortana and Store can’t be uninstalled as they are system apps and essential for the smooth operation of Windows 10.
Step 1: The first step is to open Windows PowerShell as an administrator. To do so, type PowerShell in the Start menu or taskbar search box to see PowerShell in the search results, right-click on it and then click Run as administrator.
Alternatively, type PowerShell in the search box and then simultaneously press Ctrl + Shift + Enter keys to run it as administrator.
Step 2: In the PowerShell window, type the following command and then press Enter key to get a list of all default apps and universal apps installed from the Store.
Get-AppxPackage -AllUsers
Step 3: Scroll down to see the app that you want to uninstall. And if you’re going to uninstall all apps at once, please skip to Step 6.
Copy the package name of the application as we can’t uninstall an app by just entering its name. The package name appears right next to PackageFullName.
For instance, in this guide, we are uninstalling the Maps app. To do so, we need to first copy the full package name of the app. To copy the full package name, select the full package name as shown in the above picture, and then use Ctrl + C hotkey to copy the name.
Step 4: To uninstall the app, type the following command:
Remove-AppxPackage PackageFullName
In the above command, replace PackageFullName with the full package name of the app. In this guide, we are removing the Maps app. So we have put the full package name of the Maps app.
Step 5: To remove all default apps from all user accounts, use the following command.
Get-AppxPackage -AllUsers | Remove-AppxPackage
Step 6: To remove all default apps as well as apps installed from the Store for the current user account, use this command:
Get-AppxPackage -User | Remove-AppxPackage
In the above command, replace the User with your user name.
Good luck!
Method 3 of 3
Uninstall default apps using CCleaner
Step 1: Download CCleaner for Windows 10. Install and run the same on your PC.
Step 2: Go to Tools > Uninstall to see all apps. Right-click on an app that you want to remove from your PC and then click the Uninstall option.
Click the OK button when you get the confirmation dialog.
winblogpress says
Use this code to uninstall groove music
Get-AppxPackage *zunemusic* | Remove-AppxPackage
Use this code to remove for all users and users you will create in the future and to avoid them from re-installing themselves.
Get-AppXProvisionedPackage -online | Remove-AppxProvisionedPackage –online
Use this code to re-install all of them at once
Get-AppxPackage -AllUsers| Foreach {Add-AppxPackage -DisableDevelopmentMode -Register “$($_.InstallLocation)\AppXManifest.xml”}
David Morley says
I think Microsoft have wised to the uninstall trick and disabled the ‘get’ command.
Enough is enough do I go Linux or Apple?
admin says
Hayden
Try if Windows 10 App Remover tool mentioned here:
intowindows.com/remove-preinstalled-windows-10-apps-using-windows-10-app-remover/
hayden says
I cant find groove music in the windows powershell I want to get rid of it or tell me how to make windows media player the defult music player
Ed Davis says
I used both the power shell and that program ( btw the 1.2 shows a virus when I tried to down load it 1.0 was ok ) to remove some of the apps. but when I go to the power shell it still shows everything but they are gone from start menu. So does this just remove them from the start menu only????
Kaveh says
i’ve uninstalled Windows Store using Powershell command and there is not Store available any more ,how can i reinstall the default store again
Kaveh says
i’ve removed the windows store by powershell ,how can i reinstall it ???? help me pls
admin says
William,
Could you post the error here?
Anthony says
Ever since I upgraded to Windows 10, both my Calendar and Mail apps were crashing every time I tried opening them. This tutorial helped me manually uninstall these programs. After reinstalling both from the Microsoft Store, they are working perfectly! Thanks!
William says
This did not work for me as well. I even elevated ExecutionPolicy to unrestricted, but to no avail. I get the confirmation dialog box, which I respond Y, but no error message and the package remains. Any insight would be appreciated.
KSRover says
Get-AppxPackage -AllUsers | Remove-AppxPackage
This will work for the current logged-in user, but not for any other user that may log in to the device.
sbeacock says
make it go away please
foca says
Windows reistall the app itself later on
MikeFromMarkham says
I previously tried to uninstall the weather app from Build 10240 using Powershell, but it failed. Could be that Microsoft has locked down their core preinstalled apps (none of which I use, by the way), or it could be that there are still apps and features broken in this latest install on my test computer. I’m doing a reset of it right now, and will once again attempt to use Powershell to uninstall these unneeded apps. I hope it works better next time around.