Can you fully remove Google system apps from Android including the Play Store updates? Believe it or not, but I want to remove a few Google Apps which I have no use for and want to free up space, resources and mobile data usage by not having them on my phone at all.

These include:


Google Currents
Google Play Music
Google Play Movies
Google Play Newsstand
Google Keyboard
Google+


I have ‘uninstalled’ them via the Play Store, but they still appear in my ‘Installed’ items in ‘My apps’ in the Play Store and instead of ‘UPDATE' and ‘UNINSTALL’ for any other app in my ‘Installed’ list, they stubbornly remain and only have ‘OPEN’ AND ‘UPDATE’ options.

Also going in the ‘All’ list in ‘My Apps’, all these apps are also different from other ones, where unlike other locally uninstalled apps that have their payment status (‘FREE’ or ‘PURCHASED’) and a ‘X’ at the top to remove it from your Google Account entirely, these Google Apps that I don’t want on my Android and want to be completely optional for my Android experience, only have an ‘UPDATE’ and no X up the top of their listing.

I don’t mind them remaining on the Google Account if Google insists on this, but I just want listings to ‘update’ them in my Google Play updates list to be removed, given this is Google basically forcing me to reinstall them against my will.

Is there a way to do this?

I’m on stock 4.3 Gnex.
The solution is to ‘Disable’ the apps from the Android system settings and they will no longer appear in your Play Store updates list.

E.g. for Google Currents:

Settings > Apps > All > find ‘Currents’ - tap it, select ‘Disable’.

The same applies to the all other listed apps in the question (with the exception of 'Google Play Newsstand’ which I couldn’t find in the list), and when you open the Play Store updates list anew, they will finally be gone from it as desired.