If you own a Galaxy phone, you’re already aware of the plethora of pre-installed Samsung apps it comes with. Some of them are useful, and some not so much. Of course, some pre-installed Samsung apps cannot be uninstalled as they are system apps. In that case, your only option is to hide them away from the Home and Apps screen.
Knowing this, it can be confusing to figure out which apps you should keep and which ones you should get rid of. Don’t worry, we’ll help you decide which Samsung apps you should keep, which ones to replace with alternatives, and which ones to uninstall, disable, and hide.
Samsung Apps You Should Keep
Among the full range of Samsung apps, some of them are very useful and well worth keeping on your phone.
1. Samsung Internet
Samsung Internet is hands down one of the best mobile browsers out there. In fact, if youcompare Google Chrome and Samsung Internet, you’ll notice how the latter has far more features and is also more secure and customizable.
All Galaxy devices including phones, tablets, and even smartwatches come with Samsung Internet pre-installed, and we highly recommend that you keep it and try it out since it’s optimized specifically for Galaxy.
Samsung Internet is also available as a third-party app on the Google Play Store, so even people with phones from different manufacturers can download it and check it out. It’s one of theSamsung apps all Android users should download.
2. Samsung Members
Samsung Members is a community app for Galaxy device owners where you can ask questions, check out tips, be updated on Samsung news and events, and access exclusive benefits on Galaxy products—but that’s not why we recommend it.
What makes Samsung Members stand out is its really useful diagnostic feature that can help youfind out if your Galaxy phone is working properly. Its different tests check for errors in your touch screen, battery, camera, speaker, microphone, vibration motor, charging, and more.
3. Samsung Health
If you own a Galaxy Watch, Samsung Health should be the health and fitness app of choice for you. It has pretty much everything you’d expect from such an app: activity and sleep tracking, sleep coaching, blood oxygen monitoring, snore detection, body composition measurement, goal setting, nutrition and diet tracking, and more.
Samsung Health is easily one of the best health appson Android, and it’s definitely worth keeping assuming you own a Galaxy Watch or plan to buy one in the future. Note that Samsung Health does not work with smartwatches made by other manufacturers. If you’re not a fan of smartwatches and don’t intend to buy a Galaxy Watch, you can skip the app.
4. Smart Switch
Smart Switch is another great pre-installed Samsung app that you should keep on your Galaxy phone. It’s a data transfer tool to move your photos, videos, contacts, call logs, documents, downloaded apps, and more from your old device to a new one.
It works with Android, iOS, and Windows. It’s a simple, fast, reliable, easy-to-use, and no-fuss data transfer solution that can come in handy when youupgrade to a new phone. If you’ve never used the app before, you’re able to check out our guide onhow to use Samsung Smart Switch.
5. Samsung Music
In the era of streaming, there aren’t many people who still download songs for offline listening. But if you’re one of those who do, the built-in music player on Galaxy devices, Samsung Music, is an excellent option to store your favorite tracks.
Aside from having all the features a regular music player does, Samsung Music has a sleep timer, allows customizing the crossfade between tracks, can skip silence between tracks, and can delete and remove duplicate songs in your queue. The app also has a dedicated tab that shows recommended Spotify playlists.
Samsung Apps You Should Replace
Some Samsung apps replicate the functions that you already get with the pre-installed Google apps on your phone. In many cases, you don’t need to keep them.
1. Replace Samsung Keyboard With Gboard
We recommend Gboard over Samsung Keyboard for a couple of reasons: on average, we found Gboard to be slightly better at glide typing, auto-correction, and predictive text.
It also has more themes to choose from and allows you toadd words to your personal dictionary. In fact, you may even create shortcuts to the words you’ve added to your personal dictionary if they are long or hard to glide-type.
2. Replace Samsung Calendar With Google Calendar
Samsung Calendar is a great calendar app in its own right, but it lacks perhaps the most important feature a calendar app can have: cross-platform availability. Samsung Calendar is only available on Galaxy devices and requires a Samsung account.
In contrast, everyone has a Google account, and Google Calendar can be accessed on any smart device regardless of whether it’s from an Android manufacturer or Apple. Moreover, a lot of third-party apps and services allow syncing with Google Calendar, but such is not the case with Samsung Calendar.
3. Replace Samsung Notes With Google Keep
Similar to the last point, even though Samsung Notes is more feature-rich, has an arguably better user interface, and more tools for better note-taking, it’s the cross-platform availability of Google Keep that makes it so much more convenient. The app is available on all platforms, and you can also access it straight from the web.
Samsung Apps You Should Remove
Here are the Samsung apps that you should get rid of. Some of these apps can be uninstalled, some can be disabled but not uninstalled, and some can only be hidden and neither uninstalled nor disabled. Check out the table below.
Samsung Apps to Uninstall
Samsung Apps to Disable
Samsung Apps to Hide
Samsung Kids
Bixby Vision
Health Platform
AR Emoji Stickers
Bixby Voice
Samsung Notes Add-ons
AR Emoji Editor
Galaxy Store
Samsung Messages
Samsung Checkout
Samsung Free
Samsung Max
Samsung Pass
Samsung Shop
Samsung Visit In
Game Launcher
Note that this list is not exhaustive; different Samsung phone models come with a varying number of pre-installed apps. Also, to clarify, this list contains apps that we recommend getting rid of, not all the apps that are capable of being removed. For that, check out our guide to theSamsung apps that can be disabled or uninstalled.
Get Rid of the Samsung Apps Irrelevant to You
Deleting Samsung apps that are irrelevant to you will help free up valuable storage space. For apps that can’t be uninstalled, you may disable them instead to avoid having them automatically run in the background and hog your processing power.
Finally, for system apps that can neither be deleted nor disabled, you should at least hide them from the Home and Apps screen so that they don’t create unnecessary clutter on your phone—this will make finding your favorite apps easier.
