DroiDNut

    How To Set And Clear Default Apps In Android

    AdminBy
    Have you ever taken account of the apps you have on your phone? On average we all have more number of apps than we possibly use daily. And, most of us who are phone savvy, will have around a hundred apps lying around in our smartphones. Now, many of these we do not even use and are eating into our data as well as storage. So this is your chance to pay attention and get ready to get rid of stuff you no longer use. We know that you have downloaded many apps that do the exact same work, have almost similar functions and utility. But given the creatures of habit we are, we download these apps and let them rot in our storage spaces.

    This article is about reminding you the beauty of Android and to encourage you to use the apps you have not tried out in a long time. The reason might be anything – you could have not been finding any use to put this app to, or you might have some other app set as your default, which makes this other app pretty useless given that the default app will be launched every time anything needs done. Now, we all know that one app we like to use for a particular function out of pure habit – it can be your gallery, your habit of opening youtube links in Chrome or any other such thing, where you out of naivety set a default app when you first got your Android, and never got back to change it.

    Well, we say, change it, change it now. There are so many apps available, some of which you might even have downloaded, but not put to use yet, that deserve you trying them out once. And who knows you might find an experience better than your current favorite? And if that does not happen, you would at least know the app is of no use to you, and would get rid of it instead of letting it drain your battery and clog your storage.

    To help you do that, we are going to discuss how you may set up new default apps on your phone or delete the old ones. Please go through it and let us know if there is something else we can help you with in the comments below.

    Clearing Default Apps

    Changing or clearing default is easy and fast. It may seem a bit complicated and lagging if your operating system is getting old, but usually it is a pretty quick process. In smartphones working on Marshmallow or Nougat like Samsung Galaxy S6, default applications have a whole section dedicated to them in settings, Therefore one simply goes to settings, chooses apps and clicks on the option of default apps. All the applications that are set as your default apps will be listed down here and you may clear the ones you want to or all, if you feel like.

    You may even choose your home screen preferences here. If you are using a Samsung phone, then you can choose between the TouchWiz Home or TouchWiz Easy Home. You can also choose to use the default Android home application instead of the TouchWiz default. Every smartphone company has their own ways to configure the home screen and the options available would be different for different companies. You may also choose your own default messaging app in this menu option. You could let’s say choose from Google Hangouts and your standard messaging app and Whatsapp. It totally depends on you then which one of these you want to opt for as your default app.

    For smartphones having Android Lollipop or earlier versions, finding and clearing the default applications is a bit tedious. You would have to first go to Settings as always, then choose Apps/Applications (whichever header your manufacturer put there) and click on the applications to check their default settings. So basically you won’t find a list of your default apps but a list of applications present in your phone. You would have to explore these apps individually to check if or not any of them are set as your defaults. It makes the process tedious and a bit longer.

    But then you can just go to the application you do want to change and get done with it. Remember that Motorola X Pure Edition and Nexus or Pixel devices usually have this process only still. So, if you are not aware which applications you have in your phone that serve as the default ones, you would have to go through a lot of work in these devices. It surely calls for a change soon enough to have the default apps added under a different category or section to the Settings in all Android smartphones.

    Please note that as you open App Settings, an “Open By Default” option would be present on the screen which would have either one of the following –
    No Defaults Set
    Some Defaults Set

    Click on it and details would appear. Please note that Stock and Non Stock Android phones behave a little differently. While the Stock ones offer you the option to view and change settings by prompts like “open in this app, ask every time or do not open in this app”, however Non Stock ones do not offer any options like that. In both of them however you can clear the defaults and set them up again.
    Setting Defaults Up

    Setting Defaults is easy and similar in almost all the smartphones. Click on a file or a link and you would be presented two or more options (if available) to carry the task out. Whatever app you select, you would have the option to make it your default forever or to use it just for that one time. You may go ahead and select as per your preferences.

    We hope that this will help you trying out newer apps and clearing your Android better by setting new Default apps and clearing out the older ones.