How to Remove Bloatware on Nox and LDPlayer Emulator

Bloatware apps are one of the main problems of most android emulator today. Looking for an alternative emulator that has less bloatware is difficult to find, if you happen to find one – you suffer from low performance in terms of games because these emulators are built for applications only. Popular android emulators that are built for gaming like Nox Player and LDPlayer gives faster performance but due to its bloatware, it makes laggy for some PC owners specially to those who have low specs.

We tried to find ways to remove it and luckily, we found a way to do it and we’ll share it here in this guide. This is by uninstalling those apps using Google’s SDK Android Debug Bridge or adb.

Table of Content

1. Enable Developer Options
2. Enable USB Debugging
3. Install a Basic Launcher
4. Step for NOX Player Emulator
5. Step for LD Player 3.0 Emulator
6. Step for LD Player 4.0 Emulator
7. Final Touch
8. Troubleshoot
9. Appendix

The steps are easy and readily available in your emulator packages, so our step-by-step process is a no brainer for everyone.

Enable Developer Options

To start, we need to enable the Developer Options from your emulator. This will allow us to access the Android Debug Bridge (adb).

To do that, Go to Settings > About Tablet. Then scroll down to the bottom of the page and look for the Build number. Tap it 7 times to enable the Developer Options.

Once activated, it will show an message saying “You are now a developer!”.

Enable USB Debugging

Our next step is to enable the USB debugging, you can do this by going to Settings > Developer Options.

Look for USB debugging option from the list and enable it.

If you’re using LDPlayer, you also need to change the option for Root access to Apps and ADB.

For the latest version of LDPlayer, you can enable ADB by going to Settings > Other Settings. Then find the ADB debugging, set it to Open local connection.

Install a Basic Launcher

Most of the bloatware that comes from the emulator are from its stock launcher. Replacing it with a much faster but basic launcher will do the trick.

There are lot of good launcher available on the internet. One of them is Google Now Launcher, Lean Launcher or the Rootless Launcher.

What we recommend using is Rootless Launcher because it is open source, easy to setup and available in Google Play. If you know programming, you can also make your own version of launcher at github.com/amirzaidi/Launcher3.

Download and install Rootless Launcher on Google Play.

• https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=amirz.rootless.nexuslauncher

Once installed, you need to choose the default launcher of your emulator to Rootless Launcher. You can do that by going to Settings > Home.

Select Rootless Launcher as the default. Don’t mind the old launcher, that will be removed on the other step.

To set Home for LDPlayer 4.0, just click the Home tabs on the emulator and it will prompt you to set the default Home launcher.

Since we are done now with the settings and the launcher, we can now proceed to access the ADB from our emulator. We separate the guide for each emulator, please pick the one you’re using:

• Nox Player
• LD Player 3.0
• LD Player 4.0

Step for Nox Player Emulator

Look for the installation directory of your Nox Player, you can find it by right clicking the Nox shortcut icon then Open file location.

In our case its D:\program files\Nox\bin, we will use this to access the directory from the command prompt, so make sure to remember or copy it.

Run a command prompt by going to cortana, and search cmd. Then choose Command Prompt or hit enter.

Then type the following, don’t forget to change the directory with your own installation directory. Paste here if you copy the full path of installation directory earlier. In our case its D:\program files\Nox\bin.

cd /d D:\program files\Nox\bin

Once inside, we can now call the built-in adb from our emulator.

Let’s call the devices command to list all of the available emulators that are connected to our PC. It will also enable us to connect automatically to the emulator.

adb devices

Then, we need to remount our emulator partition drive so that it will become writable. This will allow us to make modifications to the emulator’s file system.

adb remount

After that, we can now enter to the shell command of our emulator.

adb shell

If you get an error message saying “error: more than one device/emulator”, please check troubleshoot.

Once you’re inside the emulator’s shell, we can now remove the apps that are unnecessary such as Facebook Lite, Sound Recorder, Live Wallpaper, default Launcher and many more. Just enter the command below one by one.

cd system/app
ls -la
rm -r LiveWallpapersPicker
rm -r FacebookLite
rm -r SoundRecorder
rm -r PhaseBeam
rm -r Launcher
rm -r PackageInstaller
rm -r gpLogin
rm -r AppStore
rm -r Helper
rm -r BasicDreams
pm list packages
pm uninstall --user 0 com.facebook.lite
pm uninstall --user 0 com.android.packageinstaller
pm uninstall --user 0 com.android.soundrecorder
pm uninstall --user 0 com.android.wallpaper.livepicker
exit

You’re then now exited from the emulator shell command. Lastly, we can now reboot our emulator. Type the following command to reboot.

adb reboot

Once done, your Nox emulator is now free from bloatware. The only thing you need to do now is to arrange the icons for your new launcher and play. Enjoy!

If you’re using the Nox’s MulDrive, you need to copy the instance and repeat this step.

You can also watch the step by step here:

Step for LDPlayer 3.0 Emulator

The step are similar with NOX emulator, look for the installation directory of the LDPlayer by going to its shortcut icon from your desktop and right click then Open file location.

This will open the directory, copy the full path of the installation folder.

Once done, open up a CMD. Go to Cortana and search for CMD. Select Command Prompt from the result or hit Enter.

At the command prompt. We need to enter the installation directory, to do that type cd \d followed by the installation directory. Paste the path here.

cd \d E:\LDPlayer

Once inside, we can now access the built-in Android Debug Bridge (ADB). To check what is android OS connected to the PC, call this command.

adb devices

Next is, we need to remount the partition drive of our emulator. To do that, just call:

adb remount

Now, we can proceed on entering the emulator’s shell.

adb shell

If you get an error message “error: more than one device/emulator”, please check troubleshoot.

From here, we can now delete the unnecessary app installed in the LDPlayer emulator like LDAppStore, Launcher and the PackageInstaller. (However, LD Appstore is quite useful for installing APK’s that are not downloadable from Google Play – you can re-install it later by going to LDPlayer official website, the step here is important to make sure it will not load on the boot and to make it as non-system app.)

cd system/app
ls -la
rm -r LDAppStore
rm -r Launcher3
rm -r PackageInstaller
exit

Everything is now removed, we can now reboot our emulator.

adb reboot

For LDPlayer, after rebooting from ADB, the emulator screen will just show a black screen. To fix that, just close the emulator and click Restart.

It will show the home screen and you’re done with removing all of the bloatware in your LDPlayer emulator. You can now arrange the icon and install your favorite games. Enjoy!

If you missed some parts of the step, you can also check the video guide below.

Step for LD Player 4.0 Emulator

First, we have to find the installation path of our LD Player 4 emulator. You can get it by right clicking the desktop shortcut icon and click Open File Location.

Then it will open the directory in a new window. Copy the installation path.

Open up a command prompt by going to Cortana and search for “CMD”.

Then type the following command. Change the I:\XuanZhi\LDPlayer with your own installation directory.

cd /d I:\XuanZhi\LDPlayer

Then to show all of the available devices connected in your pc. Type the following.

adb devices

Then we need to remount our emulator to be able to modify the system file.

adb remount

Then open the shell terminal of our emulator.

adb shell

After entering the command, it will show some gibberish text, just press Enter on your keyboard twice.

Now, we can remove the stock launcher and LDAppStore. For players that wants to use LD Appstore for installing app that cannot be downloaded from Google Play, you can reinstall later by going to LD Player official website. The step here will make sure that the app will not load on the boot and make it as non-system app.

cd /system/app
rm -r /system/app/Launcher3
rm -r /system/app/LDAppStore
pm list packages
pm uninstall --user 0 com.ldmnq.launcher3
exit

This will show an error on the emulator that saying .com.android.ld.appstore.app.MyApplication has stopped. Now, we can reboot our emulator.

adb reboot

The emulator will show a Black Screen, wait for 5 to 10 seconds and just Restart the emulator to fix it.

After that, your emulator is now free from bloatware.

You can also watch our step-by-step video guide below.

Final Touch

If you’re done and satisfied with your improve emulator, don’t forget to return back the values of USB Debugging and Root Access.

Here are the default values:

• USB Debugging – Off
• Root Access – Apps

You may also experiment and delete some of the system apps that you think unnecessary.

For those who wants to re-install LD Appstore, just open up a browser in the emulator and open www.ldplayer.net. Then click the Download LDPlayer.

It will download the APK and allow you to install the app. The only difference is that it is now a non-system app.

Other System Bloatware

In case you want to do more and remove unnecessary apps like apps for mobile phone (SMS, contacts, etc). You can also remove the following apps that is not useful for an emulator:

pm uninstall --user 0 com.google.android.tts
pm uninstall --user 0 com.google.android.play.games
pm uninstall --user 0 com.google.android.syncadapters.contacts
pm uninstall --user 0 com.google.android.syncadapters.calendar
pm uninstall --user 0 com.google.android.feedback
pm uninstall --user 0 com.android.printspooler
pm uninstall --user 0 com.android.basicsmsreceiver
pm uninstall --user 0 com.android.mms.service
pm uninstall --user 0 com.android.contacts
pm uninstall --user 0 com.android.phone
pm uninstall --user 0 com.android.managedprovisioning
pm uninstall --user 0 com.android.wallpaperbackup
pm uninstall --user 0 com.android.bookmarkprovider
pm uninstall --user 0 com.android.providers.calendar
pm uninstall --user 0 com.android.providers.userdictionary
pm uninstall --user 0 com.android.providers.telephony
pm uninstall --user 0 com.android.providers.blockednumber
pm uninstall --user 0 com.android.providers.contacts
pm uninstall --user 0 com.android.server.telecom
pm uninstall --user 0 com.android.carrierconfig

Troubleshoot

If you have multiple device connected. An error message will show once you entered the command above, saying “error: more than one device/emulator”. To connect to the specific device, use the following command instead.

adb -s YOUR_DEVICE_NAME remount
adb -s YOUR_DEVICE_NAME shell

The YOUR_DEVICE_NAME is the name you found once you type the command adb devices. Example: adb -s 127.0.0.1:62001 remount

Do the same on reboot adb -s YOUR_DEVICE_NAME reboot.

Appendix

If you’re interested on exploring more with your emulator. Here are the meaning of the command used in this guide.

• ls -la – List all files and folders of a directory.
• pm list packages – List all installed apps in the emulator.
• pm uninstall [PACKAGE_NAME] – Uninstall an app in the emulator
  • — user 0 – Option to use root user to forcely remove the app
• rm -r [FOLDER_NAME] – Remove a folder in a directory
• cd [PATH] – Change directory to specific path
  • /d – Option to change current drive
• adb devices – List all available android devices or emulators
• adb remount – Remount the partition drive of the device/emulator
• adb shell – Access the shell command of a device/emulator
• adb reboot – Reboot the device/emulator