Debloating Nothing Phone (3a) Series Using ADB

Amudhan_Sundararajan

Ever since Nothing started experimenting with lockscreen ads (Glimpse) and shipping more preinstalled apps on the 3a series and other budget devices, the community has been… let’s say energetic about it.

If you don’t want Lock Glimpse, you have two choices:

Stay on Nothing OS 3
Update to Nothing OS 4 and manually remove the bloat

This guide is for option #2.

If you’ve ever used Xiaomi, Realme, or other Chinese smartphones and debloated them via ADB, this will feel very familiar.

We’ll be using ADB to uninstall unwanted apps for the current user without root.

Important Disclaimer (Read This First)

This method does not require root
You are uninstalling apps only for user 0 (your user), not system-wide
Removing the wrong package can break features or soft-brick your phone
Factory reset will restore all removed apps
Proceed only if you’re comfortable following commands carefully

Step 1: Enable Developer Options

Go to Settings → System → About phone
Tap Nothing OS / Build number repeatedly
You’ll see a popup: “You are now a developer”

Now enable USB debugging:

Go to Settings → System → Developer options
Turn on USB debugging

You’re halfway there.

Step 2: Install Android Platform Tools (ADB)

You’ll need Android Platform Tools on your PC.

Windows / macOS

Search for “Android Platform Tools”
Download from the official Android developer site
Extract the folder somewhere convenient

Linux

If you’re on Linux, this is easier.

Example for Arch Linux: sudo pacman -S android-tools

(Other distros may use apt, dnf, etc.)

Step 3: Connect Phone to PC

Connect your phone to the PC using a USB cable
Allow the USB debugging authorization prompt on your phone

Verify Connection

Windows

Open the platform-tools folder
Click the address bar, type cmd, press Enter
Run: adb devices

Linux

Open terminal
Run:adb devices

You should see something like:

List of devices attached

XXXXXXXX device

If no device shows up:

Make sure USB debugging is enabled
Try a different cable or USB port
On Windows, you may need USB drivers (contact Nothing support if needed)

Step 4: List Installed Packages

To see all installed apps (packages), run: adb shell pm list packages

This will dump a long list. Use your terminal’s find/search feature to locate specific apps.

Example: Finding Lock Glimpse

Searching for glimpse didn’t return anything for me.
Searching for lock revealed: package:com.vilykke.lockscreen

This corresponds to the Lock Glimpse feature.

Step 5: Verify Before Uninstalling (Very Important)

Before removing anything:

Go to Settings → Apps
Confirm the app actually exists and matches what you want to remove
Be extra careful with packages that don’t clearly match app names
Uninstalling core system packages can break your UI, network, or boot process.

Step 6: Uninstall the Bloatware

Once you’re sure, run: adb shell pm uninstall -k --user 0 com.vilykke.lockscreen

If successful, you’ll see: Success

That’s it. The app is gone for your user.

Repeat this command for:

Unwanted Nothing apps
Unnecessary Google apps (Chrome, YouTube, etc.)

Note

Factory reset will bring everything back
OTA updates usually don’t restore removed apps, but major updates might
Keep platform-tools installed so you can re-debloat if needed
This method keeps the “Nothing experience” actually nothing-like

LockGlimpseUnEnjoyer

You’re a bit late here.

We’ve already demonstrated that removing it/disabling it causes massive battery drain as the OS tries to start the Lock Glimpse service every 3 seconds indefinitely

Amudhan_Sundararajan

LockGlimpseUnEnjoyer Oops 😅

My phone was actually in the service center since Dec 18, and they ended up replacing the whole device because they didn’t have spare parts. I just got the replacement today. First thing I did was update to NOS 4.0, debloat it, and while doing that I thought, “why not make a post about it.”
I did try searching the community for posts specifically about ADB & Lock Glimpse, but I couldn’t find anything directly related, so here we are.
That said… isn’t this kinda concerning though?
They keep saying Lock Glimpse is turned off by default, but if the OS is really trying to start the service every 3 seconds after it’s removed/disabled, that doesn’t sound very “off” to me 👀
Anyway, I literally just started using this replacement phone today, so battery health and backup should be better than my old unit. I’ll keep an eye on battery drain over the next few days and see how it behaves.

stephanstephanschmidt

A few key points that most people misunderstand as they think adb is some superuser function.

using “adb uninstall” doesn’t uninstall the code from the phone, it just makes that code unavaiable to the user (usually user 0)
simply going into System -> Apps -> Show system apps -> Force Stop (com.vilykke.lockscreen) -> Disable will have the same effect as “adb disable” and that’s all you need
you might as well do the same with AppServices

edit: if you want to go down the “add” route, just go with Shizuku and an App Manager and then you don’t need a computer and it’s crazy easy (and crazy easy to mess up your phone by debloating too aggressively).

code913

stephanstephanschmidt As far as I know AppServices can be manually disabled in settings and then doesn’t need any extra work. You can still delete it with adb if you want

Amudhan_Sundararajan

stephanstephanschmidt Yep, agreed. I never meant to imply that ADB removes anything from /system itself, I mentioned in the post too that it’s user-0 only.
The main reason I still prefer uninstall-for-user is that when you bundle it with removing multiple apps (YouTube, YT Music, Chrome, Meet, Google TV, Photos, Drive, etc.), it does add up and saves a non-trivial amount of user space compared to just disabling one or two things.
Also, even with root or custom ROMs, you’re not magically wiping the entire system partition anyway. The base OS and core system apps are always there. And since Android apps don’t run with root privileges by default, removing them for the user is already enough for most use cases without breaking OTAs or stability.
So yeah, disabling works for Glimpse specifically, but for people who want a cleaner setup overall, ADB is still a reasonable middle ground.

stephanstephanschmidt

code913 same with Lock Screen Glimpse. “adb” isn’t really needed for either as it doesn’t return any space to the user, nor actually delete the code, even when the “uninstall” switch is employed.