Google Play Store could enable remote app uninstallation from all your Android devices

According to a recent report, Google is working on increasing the possibilities of managing storage on all your devices by enabling remote uninstallation of apps via Play Store.

It seems that a feature that allows you to remove apps from the storage of any of your Android devices where you have accessed with your Google credentials is partially implemented in the latest Google Play Store v38.8 update.

This feature makes a lot of sense, since currently there is already the possibility of installing apps remotely on devices connected to your Google account, either from the Play Store app or from the Play Store website. So, it was probably just a matter of time before remote uninstallation became possible as well.

The source (TheSpAndroid blog) points out that, although the feature is partially implemented, it is not easily accessible since some flags must be enabled, and it doesn’t work very well either. That says, once available, you will be able to remotely uninstall apps from all your Android-powered devices, including phones, watches, TVs, Android Auto, etc.

Curiously, the feature was planned for implementation in the Google Play Store v38.3 update, but was delayed for some unknown reason. In its current state, the screen for selecting apps to uninstall does not show all the apps, and even shows system apps which cannot be uninstalled.

That said, the process is a little more laborious than remotely installing apps, which only requires going to the app section in the Play Store and choosing which device you want to install it on. To remotely uninstall apps from the Play Store, you will have to go to the Play Store ‘Manage device & apps’ settings, then to the ‘Manage’ tab.

Once there, you must tap on the ‘✓ This device’ option, which will display a list of all your Android devices where you have signed in with your Google account.

After tapping on one of the displayed devices, you will see a list with all the apps installed.

Then, you can choose one or multiple apps at the same time, which will make a ‘delete’ icon appear. If you tap on it, you will receive a prompt about uninstalling the apps from your chosen device, and you can then confirm the action by tapping ‘uninstall’ (you can also tap ‘cancel’ to stop the process).

To make things a little easier, there are some sorting options (by name and size), but there is no search box that allows you to directly find an app, so the process can be a bit cumbersome for devices where you have hundreds of apps installed. That said, the feature is not yet fully functional, so we may see a search box there later.

It is not yet known when Google will deploy this feature, but taking into account that they have already started with the partial implementation, it is possible that we will have more developments in this regard in the coming weeks.