[Captivate Themes and Apps] lactardjosh:
Have you been sucked in by Amazon's free app of the day promotion, downloaded an app, played with it for a couple hours and then decided to uninstall it?

Have you noticed how that uninstalled app will forever appear under My Apps in the App Store?

I wanted Amazon to stop passively reminding me about my fleeting affair with a past free app every time I go to their app store to try out the next free app of the day. The app store doesn't offer any way of removing the uninstalled and I like my lists to be cleaned up.

The solution I found is not perfect, but it works for me. I tried a variety of ways and this is the only thing I could find that avoided having the uninstalled apps re-appear after the app store syncs itself with my account. It requires root, Root Explorer and SQLite Editor. There are probably other ways to do this, but this worked for me.

In Root Explorer, go to the data/data/com.amazon.venezia/databases folder and open the file called "locker". With SQLite Editor installed, Root Explorer will automatically open the file with write permissions. There will be a list of 8 tables:

Applications - this is the table you want to edit

Blacklist - seems to be a table containing apps that are removed from Amazon

BlacklistCursor - somehow related to Blacklist

ContentTokens - the tokens for the apps you've downloaded. Syncs with your Amazon account every time you open the App Store. Deleting records here does nothing, as far as I could tell.

Downloads - lists any downloaded but not yet installed apps. When you download an app from the Amazon App Store, it downloads to a folder on your SD Card located at sdcard/Android/data/com.amazon.venezia/cache. Amazon names the apk oddly. Deleting records here does nothing, as far as I could tell.

Wishlist - I assume this syncs with your Amazon wishlist for apps. I don't use it, so I don't know for sure.

android_metadata - One record that identifies the locale as en_US.

sqlite_sequence - identifies the next sequence number that can be used (right? I'm not that familiar with it)

Select Applications

The first field is the ASIN identifier that Amazon uses. You can search Amazon for this and find the app that way, just in case you wanted to know.

Now, it would be great if deleting the record you don't want worked, but Amazon will just resync and add the record again. Boo.

The more interesting fields are off to the right, so scroll down that way.

Right after the SoldBy field are true/false flags. I'm listing them here, because I'm not entirely sure what they all do and maybe someone can fill in the blanks. If you edit most of these fields, Amazon will just reset them when it syncs, too. We want IsHiddenFromActionableItems.

IsPurchased - 1 if purchased

IsNew - 1 if there is a new version (to download or already downloaded but not installed, it seems)

IsUpdateAvailable - 1 if there is an update available (installed, with update available)

IsFlagged - not sure

IsNewNotified - 1 if notified of the new version.

IsUpdateAvailableNotified - 1 if notified of an update available. Interestingly, for the apps I uninstall the IsNew flag is true and IsUpdateAvailable is false, but the IsNewNotified is false and IsUpdateAvailableNotified is true. Seems backwards.

IsFlaggedNotified - notified of flagging?

IsHiddenFromActionableItems - this is the one you want.

IsDownloaded - 1 if downloaded and the file is still in its download location.

IsInstalled - 1 if downloaded and installed.

Full step by step:

***You need root***

1. In Root Explorer, go to the data/data/com.amazon.venezia/databases folder and open the file called "locker".

2. Select Applications

3. Highlight the record you want to edit by tapping it

4. Long press on the value in IsHiddenFromActionableItems.

5. Select Edit Field

6. Change the value from 0 to 1 (or the opposite if you want it back in the list)

7. Click Save

8. Repeat 4 - 7 for any other records you want.

9. Hit back to return to the table list and back again to go back to the folder.

That's it. When you run the Amazon App Store again, the apps you've changed the IsHiddenFromActionableItems value to 1 for will no longer appear under New (and presumably Update Available). Unfortunately, the apps will still show up under the All menu, unless you filter by Installed apps only.

Sorry for the long post, but I thought maybe someone else with more background than me would be able to figure out some other workaround.

I'm not responsible if this somehow screws up your phone.