[Guide] How to Uninstall and Remove All Built-in Apps in Windows 10
UPDATE: Tutorial updated to include instructions for removing some new apps such as App Connector, App Installer, Microsoft Wi-Fi, Paint 3D, Sticky Notes, etc.
In previous tutorial, we told you about different ways to uninstall modern apps in Windows 10 operating system:
[Tip] How to Uninstall Modern Apps in Windows 10
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The methods given in above mentioned tutorial can’t uninstall all built-in apps. There are many built-in apps such as Photos, Music, OneNote, Xbox, People, Camera, etc which come preinstalled with Windows 10 and you can’t uninstall them.
But there is an advanced method which can be used to get rid of all or specific built-in apps in Windows 10. You can remove any desired bundled app in Windows 10 with the help of this method.
The method we are talking about, includes use of PowerShell program present in Windows 10. You can use some commands in PowerShell to remove all or some modern apps which came bundled with Windows 10.
We have divided this tutorial in following parts for your convenience:
- PART 1: Remove a specific built-in app in Windows 10
- PART 2: Remove all built-in apps in Windows 10
- PART 3: Reinstall/restore all or a specific built-in app in Windows 10
Now lets start the tutorial:
STEP 1:
First of all we need to open PowerShell as Administrator to execute the required commands.
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Open Start Menu and type powershell. It’ll automatically start searching for the program and will show PowerShell in search results. Now press Ctrl+Shift+Enter keys together to launch PowerShell as Administrator. Alternatively, you can right-click on PowerShell and select “Run as Administrator” option.
PS: If you have replaced Command Prompt with PowerShell in WIN+X menu, you can directly launch it from there. [See this]
STEP 2:
Now you’ll need to execute commands in PowerShell as mentioned in following steps:
Table of Contents
PART 1: Remove a Specific Built-in App in Windows 10
You can take help of Get-AppxPackage and Remove-AppxPackage commands to uninstall/remove built-in apps in Windows 10.
Get-AppxPackage command can be used to get a list of all installed modern apps in your computer. Remove-AppxPackage command is used to remove an app from Windows 10 computer.
If you want to remove an app, these commands will require an essential information about that app i.e. PackageFullName (the full package name of the modern app).
So first we’ll need to get the PackageFullName of our desired modern app which we want to remove from our computer.
1. Just run following command in PowerShell to get a list of all installed apps:
Get-AppxPackage
This command will output a long list of all installed apps containing lots of information about each app. But we only need the PackageFullName information of our desired app, so run following filtered command:
Get-AppxPackage | Select Name, PackageFullName
This command will show only the name of the app and its PackageFullName information. Now the output will be easy to read and understand.
2. Now select the PackageFullName information of your desired app and press Enter key to copy it to clipboard.
3. Now to remove the app from your computer, you’ll need to run following command:
Get-AppxPackage PackageFullName | Remove-AppxPackage
In above mentioned command, replace PackageFullName with the copied information from step 2. You can also take help of wildcards (such as *) to make the PackageFullName parameter easy to type.
For example, if you want to remove 3DBuilder app, the command to remove it will be as following:
Get-AppxPackage *3dbuilder* | Remove-AppxPackage
OR
Get-AppxPackage *3d* | Remove-AppxPackage
It’ll take a few moments in uninstalling the app. If you see any error after completion of the command, ignore it. You may need to restart the computer.
NOTE:
The above mentioned command “Get-AppxPackage PackageFullName | Remove-AppxPackage” uninstalls the app from your current user account only. If you want to uninstall the app from all user accounts, you can use following command format:
Get-AppxPackage -allusers PackageFullName | Remove-AppxPackage
And if you want to remove the app from any particular user account, use following command:
Get-AppxPackage -user username PackageFullName | Remove-AppxPackage
Replace username term in above mentioned command with the correct user account name.
PS:
For your convenience, we are providing ready-made commands to remove built-in apps in Windows 10. Just copy the desired command and paste it in PowerShell window using Ctrl+V hotkey and press Enter:
To uninstall 3D Builder:
get-appxpackage *3dbuilder* | remove-appxpackage
To uninstall Alarms & Clock:
get-appxpackage *alarms* | remove-appxpackage
To uninstall App Connector:
get-appxpackage *appconnector* | remove-appxpackage
To uninstall App Installer:
get-appxpackage *appinstaller* | remove-appxpackage
To uninstall Calendar and Mail apps together:
get-appxpackage *communicationsapps* | remove-appxpackage
To uninstall Calculator:
get-appxpackage *calculator* | remove-appxpackage
To uninstall Camera:
get-appxpackage *camera* | remove-appxpackage
To uninstall Feedback Hub:
get-appxpackage *feedback* | remove-appxpackage
To uninstall Get Office:
get-appxpackage *officehub* | remove-appxpackage
To uninstall Get Started or Tips:
get-appxpackage *getstarted* | remove-appxpackage
To uninstall Get Skype:
get-appxpackage *skypeapp* | remove-appxpackage
To uninstall Groove Music:
get-appxpackage *zunemusic* | remove-appxpackage
To uninstall Groove Music and Movies & TV apps together:
get-appxpackage *zune* | remove-appxpackage
To uninstall Maps:
get-appxpackage *maps* | remove-appxpackage
To uninstall Messaging and Skype Video apps together:
get-appxpackage *messaging* | remove-appxpackage
To uninstall Microsoft Solitaire Collection:
get-appxpackage *solitaire* | remove-appxpackage
To uninstall Microsoft Wallet:
get-appxpackage *wallet* | remove-appxpackage
To uninstall Microsoft Wi-Fi:
get-appxpackage *connectivitystore* | remove-appxpackage
To uninstall Money:
get-appxpackage *bingfinance* | remove-appxpackage
To uninstall Money, News, Sports and Weather apps together:
get-appxpackage *bing* | remove-appxpackage
To uninstall Movies & TV:
get-appxpackage *zunevideo* | remove-appxpackage
To uninstall News:
get-appxpackage *bingnews* | remove-appxpackage
To uninstall OneNote:
get-appxpackage *onenote* | remove-appxpackage
To uninstall Paid Wi-Fi & Cellular:
get-appxpackage *oneconnect* | remove-appxpackage
To uninstall Paint 3D:
get-appxpackage *mspaint* | remove-appxpackage
To uninstall People:
get-appxpackage *people* | remove-appxpackage
To uninstall Phone:
get-appxpackage *commsphone* | remove-appxpackage
To uninstall Phone Companion:
get-appxpackage *windowsphone* | remove-appxpackage
To uninstall Phone and Phone Companion apps together:
get-appxpackage *phone* | remove-appxpackage
To uninstall Photos:
get-appxpackage *photos* | remove-appxpackage
To uninstall Sports:
get-appxpackage *bingsports* | remove-appxpackage
To uninstall Sticky Notes:
get-appxpackage *sticky* | remove-appxpackage
To uninstall Sway:
get-appxpackage *sway* | remove-appxpackage
To uninstall View 3D:
get-appxpackage *3d* | remove-appxpackage
To uninstall Voice Recorder:
get-appxpackage *soundrecorder* | remove-appxpackage
To uninstall Weather:
get-appxpackage *bingweather* | remove-appxpackage
To uninstall Windows Holographic:
get-appxpackage *holographic* | remove-appxpackage
To uninstall Windows Store: (Be very careful!)
get-appxpackage *windowsstore* | remove-appxpackage
To uninstall Xbox:
get-appxpackage *xbox* | remove-appxpackage
As you may have noticed, in Windows 10 you can uninstall Windows Store as well, so be very careful while uninstalling Windows Store app. We advise you to not remove Windows Store app to stay on safe side.
PS: If you want to remove Mixed Reality Portal, Windows Defender Security Center, Cortana Search, Microsoft Edge, Contact Support and Windows Feedback apps, following tutorials will help you:
[Tip] Disable or Remove “Mixed Reality Portal” App in Windows 10
[Tip] Disable or Remove “Windows Defender Security Center” App in Windows 10
[Windows 10 Tip] Remove Cortana, Microsoft Edge, Contact Support and Feedback Apps
PART 2: Remove All Built-in Apps in Windows 10
If you want, you can uninstall all built-in modern apps in a single step using following command:
Get-AppxPackage | Remove-AppxPackage
The above mentioned command will uninstall the apps from your current user account only.
Command to uninstall all built-in apps for all user accounts:
Get-AppxPackage -allusers | Remove-AppxPackage
Command to uninstall all built-in apps for a particular user account:
Get-AppxPackage -user username | Remove-AppxPackage
NOTE: If you want to remove all apps but want to keep a few apps such as Windows Store, etc, you can use following command:
Get-AppxPackage | where-object {$_.name –notlike “*store*”} | Remove-AppxPackage
If you want to keep more than one apps, you can use following syntax:
Get-AppxPackage | where-object {$_.name –notlike “*store*”} | where-object {$_.name –notlike “*communicationsapps*”} | where-object {$_.name –notlike “*people*”} | Remove-AppxPackage
So you just need to use where-object {$_.name –notlike “*package_name*”} parameter in the command to keep a particular app.
Also Check:
[Fix] Start Menu and Taskbar Icons Not Working in Windows 10 After Removing All Apps
PART 3: Reinstall/Restore All or a Specific Built-in App in Windows 10
If you decide to reinstall some or all built-in apps in future, you can do this by following the methods given in following tutorial:
[Guide] How to Reinstall All Default Built-in Apps in Windows 10
BONUS TIP:
You can access all built-in modern apps as well as all installed Desktop programs in one single place in Windows 10 using a very simple command shell:appsfolder as mentioned in Point 6 of following exclusive article:
Hidden Secret Features and Useful Hotkeys in Windows 8 and Later
Also Check:
This helped me. It is really annoying that every time I uninstall those apps, they get installed again after restart. Now that I deleted the Windows Store, hopefully, they won’t go back.
Actually this way apps will not be deleted from WindowsApps folder, so they will still take some of your space on hdd.
how do i prevent apps from reappearing after sysprep?
OMG!!! I love you!!! This is the most wonderful panacea there is in the world, seeing all that garbage just being sent out one by one onto the limbo…
Thanks for the easy-to-understand tutorial!
will these apps “come back” when you install the latest build. i read somewhere after 14936 it wont install apps if removed. btw an easier way to uninstall these is using ccleaners uninstall.
^^ Yes. Check following:
https://www.askvg.com/windows-10-will-not-reinstall-uninstalled-apps-when-upgrading-to-newer-builds/
The info on this webpage is partially wrong.
The command “Get-AppxPackage -AllUsers” does shows apps of all users.
But Remove-AppxPackage always only removes it from the current user.
THANK YOU for publishing all of the tips!
Microsoft decided to run push a software update the re-installed of the CR*P APPS that I had deleted.
Your page provided a very clean, detailed set of instructions that helped me take back my computer!
BTW — I also used the anti-beacon tool by Spybot to shut off all telemetry going to Microsoft. Spybot also shuts down Microsoft’s ability to turn your computer into a zombie machine/P2P device to push their crap to other computers.
Many thanks again!
Couldn’t the Power Shell script be placed in the run once in the registry?
just use ccleaner. go to uninstall. and pick the c**p you dont want. easy.
Hi VG
How to remove Connect, Get Help, & Mixed Reality Portal
I cant find the keyword to uninstall these
Ups in newly Creators Update
^^ Some system apps can’t be removed using the command. That’s what the error message is telling.
oh ok thank you VG
yo, just telling that removing all apps with one command line did broke my start menu (searching ability). but that happened only after creators update, all worked fine without windows apps before that update. fixed by restoring all apps with this command that i found somewhere by searching how to fix start menu..
Get-AppXPackage -AllUsers | Foreach {Add-AppxPackage -DisableDevelopmentMode -Register “$($_.InstallLocation)\AppXManifest.xml”}
anyone can figure out what exactly/which app you must not uninstall when uninstalling them all. thanks 🙂
This is a great post, as many have already commented. I follow all the powershell stuff – but when I look at the list of applications, there are some I can’t figure out whether to uninstall them or leave them. CandyCrushSaga is easy enough to understand, but I end up wondering what thinks like windows.immersivecontrolpanel is used for and whether I should keep it or blow it away. And particularly so since the last update…I mean, what is c5e2524a-ea46-4f67-841f-6a9465d9d515? They don’t name that one anything that gives even a clue.
Does anybody know of a site that lists the what the apps do to help sort out what to keep and not?
^^ Some are system apps which can’t be removed using PowerShell command as they are required by the operating system to function properly. “windows.immersivecontrolpanel” is one of them which is actually the Settings app.
Hey, I used these scripts to remove a bunch of built in apps, and it seems to have worked, ie clicking on the shortcut to edge can’t launch it, but all the shortcuts are still there in the start menu’s ‘all programs’ list, which is the main place I wanted them gone. Any advice?
Sounds like you’ve got online provision apps – these are really bloatware. A clean install of Windows should have none of those applications installed.
Try this from an elevated PowerShell. It will uninstall online provisioned apps.
Get-AppXProvisionedPackage -Online | Remove-AppxProvisionedPackage -Online
In response to chris, who was suggesting using CCleaner, I tested this and found that:
1- CCleaner doesn’t list all the apps for all users; only for the current user (and I don’t believe that is even a full list).
2 – Removing the app through CCleaner only removes it for the current user.
Just wanted to give a heads-up.
Hi VG,
Followed your instructions and it all worked well. Unfortunately MS discovered a few missing programs and reinstalled them… yeah!!!!
Is there anyway of completely stopping Cortana and it’s horrible siblings from reinfesting my PC?
When discovering the new .exe files for Cortana and co, I tried to remove the previous BAK_.exe files but couldn’t any thoughts?
Thanks
^^ After removing all apps, rename “WindowsApps” folder in “C:\Program Files\” and remove particular app folder from “%userprofile%\appdata\local\Packages”.
Thank you.
I wanted to remove the stupid “photos” program as for some reason M$ updated it so you couldn’t set up other programs as default for file extensions such as .gif
I can successfully remove apps from current user but cannot get -allusers to work. -allusers shows “greyed out” (different color than rest of command) when I have typed in the command.
I run powershell as administrator
I have tried using wild card (*xbox*) and tried using full app name
Dear Sir
Please give details how to restore calculator and photo app in windows 10 enterprise 64 bit
thanks
Birendrasinh Gohil
Thanks for sharing. Very helpful. Appreciated.
You might want to check out some programs like NT Lite and Win Reducer for a more Automatic approach but even then some detailed info on its components would be good.
Another thing I gave wanted to be able to do was access the UI Framework and also edit some operating procedures like game modding but in Windows.
I havent looked into it enough. Not as interesting as game modding.
Thanks for your patience in compiling this stuff.
removing for all users do not work like that. you are removing allways just for current user. you have to remove with -AllUsers if you get list of packages with -AllUsers.
and there is also a little problem because allusers cant be used in pipe, so the real right answer for deleting all apps (which can be deleted) by a command line is this:
Get-AppxPackage -allusers | foreach {Remove-AppxPackage -allusers -package $_}
and after that, you surely can’t add packages pack with that your add all back line because no user has those packages, so you can’t list get-packages which to add. you have to list those packages in manifest, and add them all to all users by somehow.. not sure yet how to do that..
only working solution for apps removed from all user or removed provisional package what i have found yet is that.
those apps’ manifests go to C:\Program Files\WindowsApps\DeletedAllUserPackages but i have not found a solution to restore them yet by some simpler way..