How to Uninstall an application assigned to All Devices in phased approach on Intune for Android

[Faizan1995]

Hi, 

We currently have a 4000+ device estate on Intune, mainly consisting of Samsung Android Devices. When we migrated our phones to Intune, we deployed Samsung Calendar as a "System App" to "All devices" from inside Intune as Samsung Knox has been set to hide all System Apps. 

We've now come to a point where we want to remove Samsung Calendar from all phones as the preferred option is to use Calendar from inside the Outlook app. However, we want to remove Samsung Calendar in a phased approach. 

The first part of this is pretty easy, we've created a removal group and assigned it to exclude devices from "Required" and include it under "Uninstall" - This ensures the devices we put inside the removal group will have Samsung Calendar removed and won't be included as part of "All devices"

However, This won't stop new devices enrolling into Intune downloading Samsung Calendar as we've still got the "All devices" option under Required and we don't want to keep putting new devices into the removal group. 

I'm worried that if I remove "All devices" from the Required section, that it will uninstall Calendar from all existing devices (including the one's we've not put in the removal group yet), which makes our phased approach null and void - is this correct? I can't exactly risk trying it because by the time I find out, it will be too late. Any help and Advice would be great. Thank you. 

[#2]

Hi @Faizan1995,

To gradually uninstall Samsung Calendar from a large number of Android devices managed by Microsoft Intune, ensuring minimal disruption and control over the uninstallation process you can try to use these steps:

1. Create a Target Device Group:

   • Within Intune, create a new device group specifically for the phased uninstallation of Samsung Calendar.
   • Define this group using specific criteria, such as device properties or tags, to identify the devices where you want to remove Samsung Calendar.

2. Assign App Removal to the New Group:

   • Assign an app removal policy to the newly created device group.
   • Specify Samsung Calendar as the app to be uninstalled.
   • Set the policy's deployment state to "Available" or "Uninstall" depending on your phased approach.

3. Monitor Progress:

   • Allow sufficient time for the policy to take effect on devices in the new group.
   • Monitor the progress to confirm that Samsung Calendar is being successfully uninstalled from these devices.

4. Gradual Expansion:

   • Once you're confident that the app removal is working as intended, gradually expand the scope of this device group by modifying the group membership criteria.
   • Include more devices in this group as you proceed with the phased uninstallation plan.

5. Remove "All Devices" from Required:

   • After Samsung Calendar has been successfully uninstalled from the targeted devices, you can safely remove the "All devices" assignment from the Required section.
   • This will prevent new enrollments from installing Samsung Calendar while preserving the phased removal process for existing devices.

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