There are basically two types of apps in Android devices
1. Pre-Installed apps or systems apps.
2. User apps (apps installed by you).
Generally when you install apps from Play Store, the apps will be installed in a different partition from the system apps. System apps are in the system partition of your device, while user apps are in data partition of your device. There are several different ways of changing user apps to system apps and vice versa.
This guide shows you how to manually do it without using any apps.
Disclaimer:
– We shall not be held responsible for anything that might go wrong with your device during this process, so do it on your own risk! This is a tutorial for advanced users who are already super high on Android!
Requirements:
1. Your device must be rooted.
2. Backup your apps, contacts, SMS, pictures, videos using the following guides:
How To Backup and Restore Contacts on Android!
[Guide] How To Backup and Restore SMS on Android [No Root Required]
[Guide] How to Backup & Restore Android Apps (No Root Required)
[GUIDE] How to Backup & Restore Android Apps + Data (Root Required)
STEPS:
1. Download ES File Explorer File Manager app (Link).
2. This is the main screen of the app:
3. Tap on the top left button and enable “Root Explorer” option.
4. Go back to the app’s main screen and tap on “/” to go to “Device”.
5. Navigate to data\app where the user apps are located.
6. As you can see this is where the user apps are located. Each app is inside a folder along with essential lib files. (You can change the View of folder to better see the folder names as I did in the screenshots below.)
7. Now as you can see in the below screenshot, I have the option of uninstalling the app, which means it’s a user app.
8. Select the folder of the app that you want to make as system app and then “cut”.
9. Navigate back to “Device” and then choose “system” then “app” (device\system\app) and paste the app there.
10. Once you tap on “Paste” button, the app will ask for root permissions. Grant it, then the app will be “moved” successfully.
11. Now comes the final touches, you need to change the permissions for both the folder and the APK file.
A. Highlight the folder then tap on “More” then choose Properties > Permissions > Change.
Change the permissions as shown below and then press “OK”.
B. Tap on the app folder and this time highlight the APK file (Properties > Permissions > Change) and change its permissions.
C. repeat the above steps for any other user apps you want to change to system apps.
12. Reboot your Android device. Once your device boots, you should see a message similar to this one here:
“Optimizing app 1 of 1, Android is upgrading.”
13. Now if you press and hold the app icon and want to uninstall it, you’ll notice the “Uninstall” option is not available for the app, meaning that you have successfully converted the user app to system app.
Converting System apps to user apps:
The process is the opposite of the above steps except for changing the permissions, you want to make sure to change the permission here as well exactly as explained in STEP 11.
Why would I ever need this?
There are times when user apps may need to be converted to system apps to have administrator access.