Many of us have numerous apps installed on our smartphones, and a significant portion of them go unused.
For me, the reason behind this accumulation of apps is that whenever I come across an interesting one on platforms like Reddit or YouTube, I tend to install it immediately, holding onto the hope that I may use it in the future. The consequence of this habit is that my phone becomes cluttered with a graveyard of forgotten apps, occupying valuable storage space, consuming bandwidth, and draining battery life.
One potential solution that has crossed my mind is the concept of “app bookmarking” or virtual installations. Play store can add a button for this type of installation. Bookmarked apps would be distinguishable in the app drawer, with their icons present while the app itself is not actually installed. They would remain dormant until needed, at which point they would be automatically downloaded and launched.
Please note that this idea differs from instant apps in its approach. Basically you would only install the icon of the app and place it wherever you want (on home screen, in folders, etc.) but it’s not there until you actually decide to open it.
What do you think?
Then break the habit.
The problem with forgotten apps is that they don’t forget you: a lot of those apps are actively gathering data on you behind your back. Also, even if they’re legit, there’s always the risk that an update will pull in malware some day - either because the app was compromised, or the app maker went to the dark side.
What I do is this: I keep untrustworthy apps in my work profile (untrustworthy being any Google app, Reddit, Whatsapp and any other well-known data collecting trojans). My work profile is managed by Shelter which keeps them all frozen.
Every once in a while, I go around the apps in my main profile that I’ve installed “in case they might be useful some day” and if I haven’t used them for some time, I stick them in my work profile to be frozen and kept out of my data should they start doing something sketchy some day.
And every once in a while, I go around the apps in my work profile and purge the apps that I haven’t unfrozen for a long time.
In short, I use my work profile as a stage-out area for uncommonly used apps: they spend some time there to prove their worth until they prove worthless and I remove them entirely. But as long as they’re in there, they don’t consume resources and they’re not a liability.