‘Useless Apps Remover’ for Android Works as Advertised

So many free Android apps, so little time. That probably doesn’t stop you from downloading more and more apps, playing with them once or twice (or not at all), and then moving on to the next sparkly ball, though. Before you know it, you’ll have filled up a lot of your Android’s storage space with apps you never use.

Useless Apps Remover, which is available as a free and $1 Android app, does exactly what its name implies—and a bit more. (The $1 app removes advertising.)

The new app, which has a clean, streamlined interface, provides a list of all the software installed on your Android. It monitors your app usage so, over time, it can tell you when you last used an app—or if you’ve never used one at all. You can also click to deselect apps from Useless Apps Remover’s “watch’ list,” so it monitors only the apps you’re unsure of.

(Screen shot: Synergy MAD)

Once you’ve given the app some time to do its job, you can scroll through the list of installed apps and click Useless Apps Remover’s “Delete” button to boot those unused or little-used apps off your Android. There’s a drop-down menu that lets you view “All apps,” “Old apps,” and “Never used apps,” too.

You can also customize some of the app’s settings. You can specify how much time should elapse before an app is marked “unused” (the default is 30 days); how frequently the app should monitor your app usage (five minutes is the default choice); enable notifications to receive updates on your app usage; and more.

In my limited tests the app worked as advertised, but some reviewers on the Google Play Store had different experiences. As of this writing, the free app had an average rating of 3.2 out of 5 stars based on 33 reviews. One reviewer, who gave the app only one star, wrote: “According to this app, I have never used any of the apps on my phone.”

Useless Apps Remover is a nice companion to Onavo Count, a free utility for both Android and iOS that monitors your cellular data usage app by app. Together, these two apps help you save device storage and reduce data plan consumption. Unfortunately, neither one will prevent you from downloading useless or data-gobbling apps in the future.