Windows 10 Tip: Remove the Built-in Apps

Windows 10 Tip: Remove the Built-in Apps

Windows 10 prevents you from easily uninstalling some of its core built-in apps. But you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to get them off your PC. Here’s the easiest way to do so.

As you may know, you can easily uninstall some of the apps that come with Windows 10 (or, worse, bundled with your PC from the hardware maker). Just right-click them in the Start menu and choose Uninstall from the pop-up menu that appears. Seriously, who on earth needs or wants 3D Builder?

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uninstall-menu

The problem, of course, is that many built-in Windows 10 apps cannot be uninstall this way. If you right-click Mail, Photos, Groove, and many other built-in apps, the Uninstall option does not appear.

nope

Fortunately, you can in fact remove any of the built-in Windows 10 apps. You just need to know the trick.

And no, it’s not by using PowerShell. I’ve seen plenty of tips out there for removing the built-in Windows 10 apps with this power-user/developer feature, but come on. That’s like using a sledgehammer to kill a fly. Instead, you can remove these apps much more easily: By using the free CCleaner utility.

To do so, just navigate to Tools, Uninstall in CCleaner and choose the app(s) you wish to uninstall.

ccleaner

The nice thing about this process is that (with the one exception noted below), you can always reinstall any uninstalled app from the Windows Store. So this tip is useful for those who are experiencing an app issue and simply want to reinstall the app as well.

Just one word of warning: Do NOT uninstall the Store app. If you do, the only easy way to get it back is to reinstall Windows 10 over itself. Or, yes, you could use … sigh … PowerShell. :

 

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