It has happened to most of us: knowingly or unknowingly we set default app for a particular file type, and anytime we want to open the file type, the default app automatically opens the file, without giving us the chance to select a preferred app.
This is not really a bad thing; however, it becomes a very bad thing when you want to change or remove the default app from your Android phone.
Once an app is set as default, on Android, displacing the app from being a default is a Herculean task — never an easy job. If it were to be on a computer, the way to change default apps is far easier.
But worry not, I will show you how to easily change and remove default apps from Android, in this post.
To start with, it will be a good idea to know what default apps are and understand how they work.
What is A Default App?
A default app is an app which has been pre-set as the most preferred app to open, or run, a particular file type or file extension on an Operating System, whenever the user tries to open any file with the extension.
For example if you have VLC Media Player and MX Player on your phone and want to play a video file in MP4 extension, the player set as default will be the one to open the video when you tap to play.
This means if VLC has been set as the default app for MP4 videos, the app will automatically play the video, while the MX Player stands there watching VLC doing the job.
For a file extension that doesn’t have default app associated with it, you will see a pop up asking you to select the app you want to use in opening the file. But when default app is set for the file extension, you wouldn’t see that option again as the file will be opened automatically by the default app.
One more thing to understand about default app is that: what does launch by default mean? Launch by default simply means you are opening a particular file extension with the pre-set default app.
How to Change And Remove Default Apps From Android
Before you can change default app on your Android phones, you must first remove default apps from the Android phone; or better still clear the default apps. Again, let me answer the question: what does clear defaults mean, in Android apps?
Clear defaults means resetting the files on your phone to a state whereby they don’t have a particular application pre-set to open them by default – so to remove default apps from Android phone means the same thing.
And for you to change default apps on your Android phone, you must first do the clear defaults procedure.
Proceed with the following steps to clear the default (i.e. remove default apps) and then change the default app.
- Go to Settings, on your phone, and tap on Apps.
- On the list of Apps page, tap on the three dots aligning vertically.
- Then tap on Reset app preferences.
- Then tap on RESET APPS: this will clear the default apps.
- After that, tap on the Gear icon, beside the three dots: this will open Configure apps Settings.
- Under Advanced, in the Configure apps page, tap on Default Apps: on the Default Apps page, you will see the list of default apps you can change. However, the only useful default app you can change here is the default browser, which opens HTML file extension.
- Tap on Browser app, to change your default browser.
To change default app for the other file extensions, you will need to go to the particular file and tap on it; and the option to select the preferred default app, to open the file, will pop up. This option pops up because we have cleared the default app, using the steps above.
Default App Example With An Image JPG Extension
With what I have done, all images with the file extension JPG will from now on use ES Image Browser as their default app. The way to remove and change default apps on Android phone is as simple as that — the procedure applies to all file extensions.
If you have any issue in changing yours, drop it in the comment.
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