Android devices: managing "disabled" apps

Molehusband

I'm using Android 11 & 12 on a number of mobile devices. One of my daily tasks is updating installed apps. However, it seems that some apps I haven't used for a while have been set to "disabled" and therefore are not being updated. I only find out about this when I actually go to one of those apps and it confronts me with "disabled" when I have to enable it before it can be updated.

My question is: is there some way I can locate all my "disabled" apps together and update all of them at once?

molerat

My question is: is there some way I can locate all my "disabled" apps together and update all of them at once?

You can locate them in one place but not update them as often when disabled they may revert to a totally un-updated version, they don't need to be current if disabled.

To find your disabled apps :

Settings - Apps & notifications - see all xxx apps - then select disabled apps from the selection bar.

Molehusband

molerat said:

My question is: is there some way I can locate all my "disabled" apps together and update all of them at once?

You can locate them in one place but not update them as often when disabled they may revert to a totally un-updated version, they don't need to be current if disabled.

To find your disabled apps :

Settings - Apps & notifications - see all xxx apps - then select disabled apps from the selection bar.

Thanks. I certainly visit "Manage apps and device" regularly but I can't find anything explicitly showing a list of disabled apps.  The headings I see are (from left to right):

1 Installed which has a drop-down option of Not installed

2 Updates available

3 Games

4 A drop-down set of selections headed "Sort by"

- Name

- Most used

- Least used

- Recently updated

- Size

but nowhere is the word "disabled" shown. As it happens, within the "Sort by" "Least used" apps some apps when selected display an "enable" option. But I have no idea how long I have to not use an app for it to become "disabled".

Am I looking in the wrong place/ missing something, or maybe you have a different Android version which will explicitly list all "disabled" apps?

molerat

You are looking in the Play Store ?

Look in the phone settings

Molehusband

molerat said:

You are looking in the Play Store ?

Look in the phone settings

I've now looked there and with some mixed results. Out of my 5 Android devices two are Samsung and the settings there are exactly as you described, so many thanks for that. Two other devices, while their "settings" certainly includes Apps, there's no option to view "disabled" ones.
The final device is a little confusing as it shows just one disabled App called CustCoreApp which seems specific to the device manufacturer (Oppo) and not part of Play Store at all. I have no idea what that App does. Let me know if you or anyone else can enlighten me on the mystery App CustCoreApp.

Thanks for your useful comments.

flaneurs_lobster

Seems to be phone call related functionality (anti-spam?) that has now been included with the main Call app as part of the last OS update. Thus no longer used so disabled.

Andy_L

Molehusband said:

I'm using Android 11 & 12 on a number of mobile devices. One of my daily tasks is updating installed apps. However, it seems that some apps I haven't used for a while have been set to "disabled" and therefore are not being updated. I only find out about this when I actually go to one of those apps and it confronts me with "disabled" when I have to enable it before it can be updated.

My question is: is there some way I can locate all my "disabled" apps together and update all of them at once?

What's the problem with using auto-update & letting the device sort itself out?

Molehusband

Andy_L said:

Molehusband said:

I'm using Android 11 & 12 on a number of mobile devices. One of my daily tasks is updating installed apps. However, it seems that some apps I haven't used for a while have been set to "disabled" and therefore are not being updated. I only find out about this when I actually go to one of those apps and it confronts me with "disabled" when I have to enable it before it can be updated.

My question is: is there some way I can locate all my "disabled" apps together and update all of them at once?

What's the problem with using auto-update & letting the device sort itself out?

Although I have auto-update set this sometimes takes a long time to happen which puzzles me. Therefore I manually update my Apps daily using Manage apps and devices. Sometimes it will tell me that more than 30 Apps need to be updated causing me to question if auto-update works properly. Occasionally strange things occur such as being told that a particular App can't be updated. This is especially curious when it updates fine on several, but not all, of my devices. All my devices are up to date on the latest version of the operating system.
The other strange things is to be told from time to time that a particular App is "disabled". I'm curious why it is necessary to disable Apps at all.

bat999

Molehusband said:

... I'm curious why it is necessary to disable Apps at all.

That's OK if you prefer to use alternative apps instead of the ones that were included with the device.

eg Firefox browser app instead of Google Chrome browser app.

When they are "disabled" their icons don't show up as screen shortcuts or in a Launcher. 

It's not "necessary", but sometimes useful.

Molehusband

bat999 said:

Molehusband said:

... I'm curious why it is necessary to disable Apps at all.

That's OK if you prefer to use alternative apps instead of the ones that were included with the device.

eg Firefox browser app instead of Google Chrome browser app.

When they are "disabled" their icons don't show up as screen shortcuts or in a Launcher. 

It's not "necessary", but sometimes useful.

One of the things that I learned in the past from old Android devices that there were serious internal storage problems limiting the number of Apps I could install. Now all my current devices have at least 256GB internal storage so the number of Apps I can install is pretty much unlimited. I certainly have many more Browsers than just Chrome. I have my Apps entered into different boxes on the screen each of which contains similar apps. So for example I have one I name "Internet" which contains all related Apps, another called "Finance" containing all my finance related apps etc.
Are you saying that "disabled" Apps will disappear from those boxes as I find that quite worrying?

bat999

Molehusband said:

So for example I have one I name "Internet" which contains all related Apps, another called "Finance" containing all my finance related apps etc.
Are you saying that "disabled" Apps will disappear from those boxes as I find that quite worrying?

I'm using Android 8 with a Xiaomi phone.

When I have disabled apps their icons have vanished from the screen and Launcher.

I don't know about those boxes of yours.