Here's how to remove the Samsung UI from your smartphone
Android is an open source system. That means that third-party manufacturers can pretty much do whatever they want with it. An example of this is Samsung’s customized UI layer, One UI (formerly Samsung Experience and before that TouchWiz), which often finds itself the subject of heated debates - not everyone is a fan. If you want to remove the UI from your phone, we have several different solutions to help you out, whether you're the average user or an Android expert.
Jump to:
- What is TouchWiz/Grace UX/Samsung Experience/One UI?
- How to disable Samsung apps without root
- Change the look of the Samsung UI with a new launcher
- Replace Touchwiz/Samsung Experience with a custom ROM
What is TouchWiz/Grace UX/Samsung Experience/One UI?
All Samsung smartphones come with Samsung's unique interface, whether it be TouchWiz, Samsung Experience, Grace UI, or the new One UI. Starting with the recalled Galaxy Note 7, a new interface design called Grace UX was introduced, although it has been through several name changes. With the Korean manufacturer's device update to Android Nougat, this new design was expanded. The interface has changed a bit along the way, which is what we can see on devices such as the Galaxy S8. The Galaxy Note 9, Galaxy S10, S10 Plus, S10e, on the other hand, are shipped with the latest version of Samsung's user interface - One UI.
However, not everyone likes this new user experience. If you have a Samsung smartphone but you’re just not feeling the interface, we can give you a hand with changing it.
Disable Samsung apps (non-root)
Obviously, this won’t completely erase the Samsung UI from your device, but it will get rid of those annoying updates that the pre-installed apps (bloatware) constantly ask for and which continuously eat up your internal memory. We can get rid of the notifications and the apps that Samsung pre-installs.
You can begin by getting rid of the shortcut and widget, but to actually stop the app, you'll need to go to Settings > Applications > Application manager, look for the offending app and select it.
Once you’re in the app information:
- Deselect the option Show notifications
- Erase the cache
- Erase data
- Lastly, tap on Disable.
This way, the app will stay in a kind of hibernation mode, it won’t update, and it will only take up the initial space it came with. If you want to turn it back on, all you need to do is go to the application manager again and under ‘disabled’, you’ll see all the apps you’ve turned off.
Install a different launcher so you don’t have to look at the Samsung UI
This is the most drastic change you can make without rooting your phone. If the icons or the high-contrast background of TouchWiz aren't to your liking, you can always modify the look to make your Android experience a bit more bearable.
With a customized launcher, you can change the appearance of the desktop and icons. It simply requires you going to the Google Play Store and downloading one of the many available launchers. The most popular ones are Nova, Apex, and Microsoft Launcher. You can find a selection of the best launchers here.
Head to the Google Play Store and install whichever you like most. The first time you open it, it will ask you which launcher you’d like to use. Choose the launcher you just installed and click on ‘always.' If for some reason you want to go back to TouchWiz, you can change this in Settings > Default Apps > Home screen, choose your launcher and click on the home button.
Erase TouchWiz/One UI: root and install an AOSP ROM
If you want to completely remove Samsung's UI from your device, your only option is to flash your device with a new ROM that doesn’t have a Samsung's fingerprints on it. This will void your warranty though, as the Knox counter will be set to zero. To flash your Samsung, the first thing you’ll need is Odin.
To erase Touchwiz or another Samsung UI from your phone, you’ll need a few things: first, install a custom recovery and then install the new ROM from the custom recovery. Some ROMs come pre-rooted by default, but for others it’s optional.
The most common custom recovery for Samsung is TWRP. To install it, you’ll need the exact file for your phone model. You can download it from its official page: devices supported by TWRP. To install the recovery with Odin, you’ll need the file with the .tar extension.
When the custom recovery is ready, you can start looking for a ROM without TouchWiz or any other Samsung UIs. In the XDA forum, you’ll find a lot of ROMS based on pure, stock Android (AOSP) that you can try out. The main thing to keep an eye on is how often it updates and user comments. If you’re not sure where to start, Lineage OS might be a good place.
Do you like TouchWiz/One UI? If not, what modifications did you do to make the UI more bearable? Let us know in the comments below!
OneUI duplicates much of the stock Android features; I dont want two versions of *Cloud, *Messages, etc, etc. It's bad enough with 5 or 6 places that files & photos are hidden in... If I want to store stuff in different folders I can do it myself, to hell with Samsung's categorising! It's all unwanted complication.
I read elsewhere that rooting a Samsung device is inadvisable since some sites (like banking) will not accept log on from rooted devices.
Having UIs forced on me is the reason I will never buy another Chinese phone and why I bought this Pixel 4A. What I would like ideally is my Samsung A7 tablet having exactly the same UI as Google Pixel.
This is a good point to make, perhaps the article is due for an update
Does the stuff im reading about, the uninstalling of bloatware and preinstalled apps, work on a s6 edge?
In July I had am update to my samsung galaxy phone, my phone stated freezing up on me so I restarted my phone, since then I keep getting error "One UI home keeps stopping and hasn't stopped and no one knows how to fix it..If there are any suggestions I am open to it
Touch wiz keeps saying that it has stopped working, anybody know what to do about it, please help, thanks in advance.
FYI "disable" is greyed out for me.
first Samsung phone and I like the ui on the Samsung Galaxy Note 9. looking forward to one ui
I'm glad you like it. There were some good bits of touchwiz for the s pen when I had a Note. But the rest was terrible blaot that wanted extra useless accounts and far too much personal data.
What I don't get is why but a great phone like the Sammy S series then kill it with a crap AOSP.
The question is why? There are many other choices out there.
But i still don't see anything wrong with touchwiz and the new Samsung experience ui. i even see them as great ui that gives you more feature and more power to customize your device in a way that Android doesn't want you to
Android doesn't want anything. Indeed it is deeply extensible and customizable. TouchWiz with the locked bootloader is about keeping you in Samsung's garden to try and collect data and money. If Samsung was interested in you doing things freely, the bootloader would never be locked in the first place and Knox efuses wouldn't have happened either.
One thing to note about Samsung phones and installing Custom ROMS, on top end Samsungs it degrades the quality of the camera and pictures taken. Most of the work in terms of picture quality is done by Samsungs own software so if you remove that and just rely on Androids native camera the results are worse.
That's why I only use Sammy custom roms.
Yes, there are touchwiz ROMs or sideloading the camera app.
I use a Galaxy Note 4,rooted with a custom recovery,custom kernel,and Xposed..along with Nova Launcher.I want to be able to use the S pen with all functions so the dear AOSP ROM ain't an option. BUT..the only problem I have discovered is because the ROM is 6.0.1, It's almost impossible to get Viper4Android working..apart from that..perfect device..!!
It's a shame, you pay THAT amount of money for a high end device, and, most of the time you can't set it up the way YOU want without having to root, flash custom roms etc. I prefer to buy another brand, that has an almost stock Android, put in Nova Launcher and call it good.
But your phone is featureless comparatively speaking.
Why? Just buy a different device!