Can you remove apps from the "Share" list?

[vertigoelectric]

Can you remove apps from the "Share" list? [UNSOLVED]

You know when you want to share a file, such as a picture, and you choose "Share", and a list of apps you can share to/through comes up? Is there any way to remove items from that list? Mine is quite long and most of the items I never, ever use. I just counted 10 items on that list I have no reason to use. I usually have to scroll around to find what I want.

I know it's only a minor inconvenience, but I'd still like to know if I can get rid of these items somehow. Please note that simply uninstalling the related app isn't an option. For example, one of the items is "Bluetooth". Well, that's not exactly an app to begin with. Another item is "Email", which I never use because I use Gmail (which has its own entry on the list), and when I've tried freezing the stock "Email", some important functions of the phone failed to work. No, I don't wish to remove or disable these apps. I only wish to remove them from the "Share" list.

Thanks in advance.

 

[vertigoelectric]

Normally I don't bump posts, but it's either that or I just make a new post with the same question. It's been 4 days and it's already on the 3rd page, so I want to make sure people have a chance to see it.

It's a perfectly legitimate question, and I'm actually surprised nobody has responded. I can only assume that means nobody has an answer. Perhaps we can try to figure it out.

 

[Sydman]

I imagine if you have an app on your phone that has the ability to do what it is you are trying to do it will show up on that list. Now there may be some way to get into your phone maybe through an ADB shell and work some commands but I would not recommend it. Same for me with my computer I went into the registry to remove things from the right click menu cause it was getting so big. So it would seem since these phones are Linux based it "should" be possible but I think the risk out weighs the reward.

 

[vertigoelectric]

I've always been one to go poking around in system files and stuff like that. I'm certainly no amateur when it comes to critical data. I'm not worried about looking through the phone's system data. I can back up everything first if I think there's a risk. If only I knew what to look for, though...

 

[Sydman]

Are you rooted? I am testing something right now that may/may not work if you are rooted.

 

[vertigoelectric]

Are you rooted? I am testing something right now that may/may not work if you are rooted.

Oh yeah. My phone is rooted. Y'know today I even set up the Android SDK to try to build a simple app that would reboot the phone... but I can't even get an app to work. I mean, I did at first, but now all I get are strange errors... so I gave up on that for the time being.

 

[Sydman]

Well what I was trying didn't work. I was trying to remove Picasa from the list but both things I tried didn't work. Tried renaming the blur.Picasa.apk and also freezing the Picasa authenticator with TiBu neither worked it still showed up on the list.

 

[vertigoelectric]

I just want to show how big the send list is compared to how big it ought to be:

This is the list right now when sending from a file manager:
View attachment 45816


This is what it would look like if I removed all the entries I would never use (and I might not even need the Skype entry):
View attachment 45815

 

[vertigoelectric]

I know it's not good to double post, but I may have found a possible solution and I wanted to make sure topic subscribers were notified of it!

It's a bit iffy, and only tested once on a single app, but I was able to remove the "Bluetooth" entry from the list!

First I did some research. When Android apps are developed, they are given "intents". These intents tell the Android system what kinds of activities the app can perform or be involved in. Whether or not an app shows up in the "Send/Share" list is specified by intents as well. This intent is "broadcasted" to the rest of the system (probably at installation and then at each boot), so that the system knows that content can be shared to that app, and it shows up on the list. This makes it extra tricky to find a solution to this thread's main question because the phone doesn't seem to keep a running list of "Send to / Share to" apps that we can simply find and edit.

So here's what I did (short version):

I used Notepad++ to edit the Bluetooth.odex file on my PC. I found these two strings in the file:

android.intent.action.SEND
android.intent.action.SEND_MULTIPLE

I wasn't sure how things would react if I simply deleted these strings completely, so I renamed them:

android.intent.action.NULL
android.intent.action.NULL

I saved the file and put it back onto my phone (created a backup of the original of course).

After a reboot, the Bluetooth entry no longer showed up on the "Send" list.

The Bluetooth.odex file was in the system/apps folder on my phone, along with many other built in apps. Not all apps will be there, so you may have to do some searching to find the file that contains the android.intent.action stuff. Always back up!

If you need the long version of what I did, let me know. I don't currently have the time. I have to get ready to go somewhere.

 

[Sydman]

Nice job way to figure it out.

 

[vertigoelectric]

Nice job way to figure it out.

I didn't realize there was a reply here.

It seems that there might be different methods for removing different items from the list. I got sidetracked with other things so I haven't continued to pursue removing all of the ones I want to remove. At any rate, it seems that an applications appearance on the share list is determined by the app and not the system.