Your Phone app can’t be uninstalled from Windows 10

May 27, 2019 07:21 GMT  ·  By

The Your Phone app which allows users to sync their mobile devices with Windows 10 PCs can’t be uninstalled from the desktop operating system.

Your Phone makes it possible for Android users to access text messages and even chat with contacts right from their desktops. Furthermore, the latest updates to the app introduced new functionality, such as support for the photo gallery and screen mirroring, technically letting Windows 10 adopters use apps on their smartphones with a mouse and keyboard.

While this is welcome functionality for Windows 10 users, not everyone wants to use the Your Phone app, so there’s no point in having it on their devices.

And yet, Microsoft has made the odd decision to bundle Your Phone with Windows 10, making it impossible for users to remove it.

You just can’t remove the app

In a support document published on May 24, Microsoft notes the following:

“The Your Phone app is deeply integrated into Windows to light up multiple cross-device experiences now and in the future. In order to build more of these experiences between phones, PCs, and other devices, the app can't be uninstalled.”

In other words, the reason you can’t remove Your Phone is that its components are tied to those of Windows 10, so removing it could cause other issues on the device.

Needless to say, why a straightforward way to remove the Your Phone app does not exist, there are other methods to do it. And while Microsoft does not recommend these methods, which include third-party apps capable for removing pretty much any unwanted Windows 10 app or module, it’s important to note that doing this could indeed cause stability problems should any critical files be deleted.

We have reached out to Microsoft for information on what the removal of Your Phone could cause on a Windows 10 device and will update the article when and if an answer is offered.