I accidentally deinstalled the Google app—now my phone doesn’t boot anymore Memory on my phone was low, so I went to the apps and deinstalled some. Among these apps was “Google—A handy search for underway”, and since I also have Firefox, I decided that I don’t need the Google search, so I deinstalled it. And it worked, the app got deinstalled. But it was not only a search app, it was the whole home screen app, so my home screen didn’t show up anymore, and I could only switch the phone off.

I booted it again, and now it shows the “Android is starting”, subtitle “Apps are starting”. This takes about 30 minutes now.

I did not root my phone or do anything else, and still I could deinstall the Google app.

How can I get my phone working again?
The actual solution was quite easy:


Power down the phone by long pressing the Off button
Boot the phone into fastboot mode by pressing On and Volume-Down
Select “Factory Defaults”
See Android booting again, having preserved all of the installed apps; only the Home screen had been emptied—oh, sure, I had deinstalled the Home screen app. That’s how the whole story began.