How to debloat an Android TV or Google TV, and what comes back

Step by step

Menus change with TV updates: if a label does not match, look for the closest entry in the same section.

What debloating really does

Developer options are hidden until you select the build number in About several times; there you turn on debugging. A computer connected over ADB, usually across the home network, can then disable a preinstalled app, or uninstall it for your user. Neither deletes it: the app stays on the system partition.

Disabling is the safer of the two: cleanyourtv calls it the same switch as Settings, Apps, Disable, and it is undone just as easily. An app uninstalled for your user is harder to bring back. All three tools below disable and never delete.

What comes back

A factory reset brings every disabled app back and removes any replacement home screen, along with your own apps and accounts. A system update installs over the cleaned-up system: in cleanyourtv’s experience the listed packages come back, Home returns to the stock launcher and new preloaded apps appear. Blocking updates to keep the clean state also blocks security fixes.

The home screen is the part you cannot clean

Google is plain about it: you cannot turn off ads on Google TV, you can only control how the advertising ID is used. Apps only mode removes the recommendations, but the home screen still shows sponsored content and teasers.

A replacement launcher such as Projectivy still takes over the Home button in 2026, through an accessibility permission and an override switch. Google’s own launcher keeps running in the background. In March 2026 an update stopped the override from working for some owners: Android Authority could not say whether by mistake or by design, and Phonandroid traced it to TCL firmware. Android ignores your choice of home screen while Google’s launcher is enabled, but disabling that launcher empties the accounts page where Apps only mode lives.

TVs with Google TV built in also offer basic TV at setup: live TV, the inputs and a limited set of preinstalled apps, with no new apps, no Assistant search and no casting. Going back to it after Google TV is set up takes a factory reset, and a TV kept offline gets no security updates.

Brand by brand

On Sony and Philips the extra layer is Samba TV, a content-recognition service that some models carry: where your model has the switch, it is in the steps above. The two Philips manuals we read have no Samba entry. On Chromecast with Google TV and the Google TV Streamer, Google says usage and diagnostics are on by default and are managed in the Google Home app, and that some device information is always collected. We could not verify Xiaomi’s own privacy labels; on Xiaomi models with Google TV, Google’s settings above apply.

Turning off usage and diagnostics does not affect what apps collect on their own, Google notes. Each app keeps its own data and its own recommendations.

What can go wrong

The tools’ own documentation lists what owners have broken:

• Generic lists break Widevine, and with it Prime Video. On MediaTek sets, com.mediatek.tv.oneworld.tvcenter looks like bloat and is the HDMI input switcher.
• Disabling the setup wizard on Google TV can make it take over Home and crash-loop the system. It also deletes the Wi-Fi network saved during setup, which left Sony BRAVIA 9 II, Philips and Xiaomi sets offline, and on Chromecast and the Streamer it breaks casting.
• Disabling the stock launcher before the new one is running sends Home to a factory test app.
• A Mi TV Stick never booted again after an agent disabled core Android packages. A factory reset from recovery brought it back.
• ADB over the network is unencrypted: turn debugging off when you are done.
• Switching off voice or casting removes features other people in the house may use.

Clean the TV or close the door

In October 2026 TechCrunch reported on owners using AI coding assistants to strip their TVs back. cleanyourtv is a prompt for an agent such as Claude Code, Codex or Gemini CLI: it backs up the TV, disables packages, installs its own launcher and keeps a restore script, and its authors list more than 170 tested models, Sony, Xiaomi, Philips, Chromecast and the Google TV Streamer among them. dumbtv is built mainly for Fire TV and points Android TV owners to cleanyourtv. tv-tweak is a plain script working from curated lists for each device.

These tools work inside the TV, on what you see. The ads and recommendations on the home screen are dealt with there, by the menus, by switching off packages and by replacing the launcher. Velmo does not remove them. Velmo works on what the TV sends out. It isolates the TV on its own network, closes encrypted DNS and blocks the telemetry, measurement and content-recognition destinations it knows, and a reset or an update does not undo it. Switching apps off inside the TV does not control what the apps you keep send, and none of it applies to systems that cannot be opened, like Samsung’s Tizen or LG’s webOS. The two do different jobs, and they can be used together.