Windows 10 by default ships with a number of apps, including Mail and Calendar, Groove Music, Weather, and some others that always were part of the operating system, but now they’ve been updated, such as Calculator, Alarm & Clock, and Voice Recorder.
While these are useful apps, most of them are not essential. For example, not everyone needs the Xbox app, or if you use Office 365, you probably use Outlook, and you may not need Mail and Calendar.
If you open Settings, and go to Apps & features, you can uninstall many apps, but until now, there was not an easy way to remove most of the built-in apps, as you’ll notice the uninstall button is grayed out (not active). Though, if you had technical skills, you could use PowerShell to remove most of these apps.
Now it seems that Microsoft is making changes so users can (at least) uninstall those less essential apps that come preinstall with Windows 10.
If you’re running the latest Windows 10 Creators Update, when you go to Settings > System > Apps & features, you’ll noticing that selecting certain built-in apps now have the uninstall button active.
Additional Windows 10 apps you can remove
Some of the apps you can now uninstall, which you weren’t able before, include:
- Calculator
- Groove Music
- Mail and calendar
- Maps
- Movies & TV
- OneNote
- Voice Recorder
- Weather
- Xbox
If the uninstall option is not available to you is because you’re not running the latest test Creators Update on your computer.
In addition, Microsoft made other changes, so when you uninstall built-in apps from Windows 10, they won’t be reinstalled once a new feature update releases. This also means that if you want to get these apps again on your device, you’ll need to download them again from the Windows Store.
What do you think about the ability to remove more built-in apps from Windows 10? Tell us in the comments below.
