Why do I receive a Failure when attempting to uninstall Facebook via ADB?

Question

Good evening everyone, I'll cut right to the chase, and forgive me if this has already been answered elsewhere and I just didn't find it:

I'm attempting to uninstall some of the bloatware that shipped with my S22 Ultra 512 GB phone. I never use apps like Facebook, nor do I use Google's search engine. Similarly, I will be phasing out Gmail in the coming years. Suffice to say that between Meta, Inc and Alphabet Inc, there are about 50 gigs worth of data that are being used up on my phone. I want that back. So, I installed adb tools, updated my drivers, and attempted to uninstall Facebook first. I used the following command:

`pm uninstall -k -user 0 com.facebook.katana`

I receive the following failure:

'Failure [INSTALL_FAILED_INVALID_APK: Missing existing base package]' 

It seems like it's saying that Facebook isn't installed on my device, but it definitely is. I have also confirmed that it's not a system "bloatware" issue by attempting to uninstall one of the apps that I am "allowed" to uninstall using the same command. I receive the same failure.

I want it off. Please help. Thank you for your time. ~Tom

I tried to use the commands to remove Facebook and Google. I expected them to be removed.

Answer 1

you don't need to add -k and -user not valid flag --user is. Try something like pm uninstall --user 0 package_name