[Huawei Mate 20 Pro Guides, News, & Discussion] QAM:
Debloating more apps, clean up status bar, & removing pesky permanent notifications

Hola

For those of us who are using the non-Chinese variant, meaning no bootloader unlock, we are forced to find other ways to accommodate the following:

1. Removing more bloatware / unneeded apps.

2. Be able to remove most system based icons from the status bar to allow other icons to show up given the limited space we have due to the notch.

3. Be able to remove permanent notifications from the notifications panel.

While using adb can accommodate all of the above, being able to control most of these items from an app is much easier to manage. Most, if not all, of the apps I mention below will cost you a few dollars but in my view are worth every penny and can be used on other devices.

Bloatware removal

App needed: App Freezer

Link: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.wakasoftware.appfreezer&hl=en

Basic setup (taken almost verbatim from Play Store info):

1. Make sure you know how to use adb clearly! <- If you don't know to use adb, Google it!

2. Go to [Settings], go [Accounts], then remove All Accounts! <- This is a critical part of the setup!

3. Enable Android Debugging mode of your phone.

4. Run command

- adb shell dpm set-device-owner com.wakasoftware.appfreezer/.receiver.DPMReceiver

5. Reboot your phone, now you can add your accounts back and enjoy this app.

(For detailed instructions: http://wakasoftware.com/app-freezer-setup)

6. For general bloatware / unneeded app removal, I have attached an export from my App Freezer installation. OBVIOUSLY there are apps that I froze that I do not need or use, so go through the list and edit as needed. It is very difficult to find proper information on those com.Huawei.* files.

Status bar icon removal

App needed: SystemUI Tuner

Link: https://play.google.com/store/apps/...ystemuituner&rdid=com.zacharee1.systemuituner

Basic setup (taken almost verbatim from Play Store info):

1. Make sure you know how to use adb clearly! <- If you don't know to use adb, Google it!

2. Enable Android Debugging mode of your phone.

3. Run commands

- adb shell pm grant com.zacharee1.systemuituner android.permission.WRITE_SECURE_SETTINGS

- adb shell pm grant com.zacharee1.systemuituner android.permission.PACKAGE_USAGE_STATS

- adb shell pm grant com.zacharee1.systemuituner android.permission.DUMP

4. Launch app and select which icon you want to remove. Note that unfortunately not all icons can be removed, like the unneeded VoLTE / HD system icon that always shows up unless you manually disable this feature.

5. RESTART your phone to make most of the selected icons removed. REMEMBER THAT SOME ICONS CANNOT BE REMOVED BY THIS APP!

Notification panel clean up

App needed: TidyPanel

Link: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.dharmapoudel.tidypanel

Basic setup:

1. Install, buy the Pro version (if you think it is worth it), assign needed permissions.

2. Select which permanent notifications you want removed.

3. Restart to ensure it continues to work after a reboot (though I think you may need the Pro version to enable this feature).

4. I found that some permanent notifications take some fine tuning to be removed by this app in terms of using a custom title or custom text. It is finicky indeed but once you get the hang of it, it works well. The app developer has a XDA thread in the main Apps sub-forum.

Yes, yes, three additional PAID applications to be installed to give us other features that we usually would be able to achieve with simple root or otherwise. Hopefully this helps someone else other there.