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How to Downgrade a System/User App on Android [Video]

In this guide, we will show you the steps to downgrade the system and user apps on your Android device. The developers roll out updates to their apps at regular intervals. These are mostly aimed at enhancing the app’s security, improving its performance, adding a few new features, and ironing out the underlying bugs. However, sometimes things might not go according to the plan.

There’s always a minute risk of the developer rolling out a buggy update. When that happens, then it’s usually not only the concerned app that is the sufferer. In some instances, other apps and OS components might also face the repercussions and could result in frequent crashes or not work along the expected lines.

While the developers are generally quick to roll out the subsequent patch, it could still take anywhere between 3 days to a week or even more. Until then, one approach is to uninstall the concerned app from your device. However, there are two issues with that. First off, that app could be of paramount importance for some users and hence it might be a difficult task in removing it from their device.

Next up, OEMs treat some apps as system apps and hence you wouldn’t be able to uninstall them the normal way. So what else could be done? Well, you could roll back the app to the earlier stable build and continue using that version until the issue gets rectified in the newer build. And in this guide, we will help you with just that. Given here are the detailed steps to downgrade the system and user apps on your Android device.

The Prerequisite: Disable Auto Updates

Before starting off, you will have to checkmark an important prerequisite off the list- disable auto-updates of the app that you are about to downgrade. If you don’t do so, then the Play Store will automatically update the app back to the latest version as soon as you perform the downgrade. So refer to the below steps to prevent that from happening:

  1. To begin with, head over to the Settings menu on your device.
  2. Then go to Apps > See All Apps and select the desired app from the list.
  3. Now scroll to the end and tap on App Details. You will now be taken to that app’s Play Store page.
  4. So tap on the overflow icon situated at the top right and uncheck Enable Auto-updates.

That’s it. Auto-update for the concerned app is now disabled. You may now proceed ahead with the steps to downgrade that user/system app on your Android device.

How to Downgrade a User App (Third-Party App) on Android

  1. To begin with, head over to the Settings menu on your device.
  2. Then go to Apps > See All Apps and select the desired app from the list.
  3. Now scroll to the end and note out its version number somewhere (take a screenshot?).
    downgrade app on android
  4. After that, tap on Uninstall followed by OK in the confirmation dialog box.
  5. Once done, head over to a trusted third-party site and download an older version of that app (re-verify it from step 3 above).
  6. Now just install that APK file (enable Installation from Unknown Sources, if asked). That’s it.
    downgrade app on android

So these were the steps to downgrade a user app on Android. Let’s now turn our attention towards the system apps.

How to Downgrade a System (Pre-Installed) App on Android

Before starting with the steps, we would like to clarify one thing- by system apps, we mean the third-party apps that come preinstalled on your device. In the Android community, they are known as bloatware (as they unnecessarily bloat the OS). You could count the Chrome browser installed on your device as an example. We wouldn’t be touching the actual system apps that are responsible for the proper functioning of the OS.

Moreover, there exist three different methods through which you could downgrade a system app on Android. Go through them once and then try out the one that is in sync with your requirements. [UPDATE: Method 3 is the latest and recommended method]. For reference, we will be performing this downgrade on YouTube. We have already covered the downgrade articles on Google Chrome and the Google App, so this time let’s go with YouTube.

Method 1: Via Uninstall Updates Option

downgrade app on android

The benefit of this method is that it is quite easy to execute and doesn’t require the need for a PC or the technical know-how of ADB Commands. On the other hand, the drawback is you don’t have any flexibility in choosing the desired old version to which you wish to downgrade.

  1. To begin with, head over to the Settings menu on your device.
  2. Then go to Apps > See All App and select YouTube from the list.
  3. After that, tap on the overflow icon situated at the top right.
    downgrade app on android
  4. Then select Uninstall Updates > OK in the confirmation dialog box.
  5. That’s it. YouTube has now been downgraded to an earlier version on your Android device.

Method 2: Via ADB Commands

UPDATE 1: Beginning with Android 12, this tweak might no longer work and you might get greeted with the “app package name appears to be invalid” error message when trying to install the downgraded app. So it is recommended that you try out Method 3 instead. The second method is still preserved below for reference though.


The advantage of this method is that you have the complete liberty to choose the version to which you wish to downgrade the app. On the flip side though, you will need to execute a couple of ADB Commands using your PC.

  1. First off, download an earlier version of the app (that you are about to downgrade) from any trusted third-party site. Once downloaded, transfer the APK file to your device.
  2. Then download Android SDK Platform Tool and extract it to any convenient location on your PC. Doing so shall give you the platform-tools folder, which we will be used subsequently.
    install-adb-platform-tools-windows-remove-bloatware
  3. Then enable USB Debugging on your device. For that, go to Settings > About Phone > Tap on Build Number 7 times > Go back to Settings > System > Advanced > Developer Options > Enable USB Debugging.
    downgrade app on android
  4. Now connect your device to the PC via USB cable. Then head over to the platform-tools folder, type in CMD in its address bar, and hit Enter.command-prompt-inside-adb
  5. It will launch the Command Prompt window. So execute the below command and hit Enter:
    adb devices

    downgrade app on android

  6. You should get the device ID signifying the connection is successful. If that is not the case, then check your device, you would have got a Debugging Prompt, tap Allow.
    downgrade app on android
  7. Now execute the below command to open the shell environment. You will now get your device codename (such as sunfish for my Pixel 4A)
    adb shell

    downgrade app on android

  8. Now get hold of the package name for the system app that you are about to downgrade. For that, you may refer to our guide on How to Get App Package Name on Android [3 Methods].
    downgrade app on android
  9. After that, execute the below command to uninstall the said app (make sure to replace the PackageName keyword accordingly).
    pm uninstall --user 0 PackageName
  10. In our case, we will be uninstalling YouTube, so the above command transforms to:
    pm uninstall --user 0 com.google.android.youtube

    downgrade app on android

  11. Once the app is uninstalled, you will get the Success message. You may now install the older version of that app using the APK file that you downloaded earlier.

Method 3: Using ADB Commands and -d Parameter [NEW]

Beginning with Android 12, the second method above might no longer work on most devices [unless they are rooted]. With that said, we did manage to find out another nifty method that will help you get this job done. So without further ado, let’s check it out.

  1. First off, download Android SDK Platform Tool and extract it to any convenient location on your PC. Doing so shall give you the platform tools folder, which we will be using subsequently.
    install-adb-platform-tools-windows-remove-bloatware
  2. Now download an earlier version of the app (that you are about to downgrade) from any trusted third-party site. Once downloaded, transfer it to the platform-tools folder.
  3. Then enable USB Debugging on your device. For that, go to Settings > About Phone > Tap on Build Number 7 times > Go back to Settings > System > Advanced > Developer Options > Enable USB Debugging.
    downgrade app on android
  4. Now connect your device to the PC via a USB cable. Then head over to the platform-tools folder, type in CMD in its address bar, and hit Enter.command-prompt-inside-adb
  5. It will launch the Command Prompt window. So execute the below command and hit Enter:
    adb devices

    downgrade app on android

  6. You should get the device ID signifying the connection is successful. If that is not the case, then check your device, you would have got a Debugging Prompt, tap Allow.
    downgrade app on android
  7. Now execute the below command to open the shell environment. You will now get your device codename (such as sunfish for my Pixel 4A)
    adb shell

    downgrade app on android

  8. Now get hold of the package name for the system app that you are about to downgrade. For that, you may refer to our guide on How to Get App Package Name on Android [3 Methods].
    downgrade app on android
  9. After that, execute the below two commands to uninstall the said app for the current user as well as from the system altogether (make sure to replace the PackageName accordingly).
    adb shell pm uninstall --user 0 PackageName
    adb shell pm uninstall PackageName
  10. In our case, we will be uninstalling YouTube, so the above command transforms to:
    adb shell pm uninstall --user 0 com.google.android.youtube
    adb shell pm uninstall com.google.android.youtube

    downgrade app on android

  11. Once the app is uninstalled, you will get the Success message.
  12. You will now have to install the older version using ADB Commands [do not install it from your device as it will give out an error]. So type in the below command [replace PackageName]:
    adb install -d PackageName.apk
  13. For example, in my case, the name of the app is youtubeold.apk, so the above command transforms to:
    adb install -d youtubeold.apk

    downgrade system app android

  14. That’s it. The downgrade is now complete. [TIP: the -d parameter in the above command stands for downgrade]

So with this, we round off the guide on how you could downgrade the system and user apps on your Android device. Do note that the method of uninstalling system apps via ADB could also be used to uninstall user-installed apps. However, we haven’t listed it under the user-installed apps section because these apps could easily be uninstalled from the Settings menu itself. So there’s no need to opt for the lengthier ADB method. On that note, we conclude this guide. All your queries are welcomed in the comments section below.


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  • Rahmat Aditya

    really useful, thanks

  • I cannot install youtube’s older version. I removed youtube via adb with your path. But all the apk’s which are older than my preinstalled youtube doesn’t work. It says ” the new package has an older version code than the currently installed package” but i uninstalled the youtube with adb. Damn theres no youtube on my phone how version code can be older than currently installed app?