Detect if an app was uninstalled

Question

Is there a way to get a system notification when an app has been uninstalled?

I would like to maintain a table of all clients\' info currently using my app. However

Answer 1

From Android document, the app uninstalled by user can't not get

Intent.ACTION_PACKAGE_REMOVE

But we can use other method to implement this feature. We all know that there is a directory named with your package name under the /data/data directory after your app installed by user. If your app is uninstalled by user, the root directory of your app(/data/data/com.example.yourappname) will be removed by system. The remove action happen immediately when user click "uninstall", and the directory will be removed by framework package manager system.

So, we can monitor the existence of your app data directory(which usually /data/data/com.example.yourappname) to detect if your app uninstalled by user.

In order to monitor this directory, we have to fork a detached process from JNI. In this new fork process, we can use Linux system api inotify(7) or access(3) to determine the existence of app's data directory.

Here is a workable implementation. But it got the permission problem when try to send an intent to start system browser on high version Android device. I have no idea how to bypass this. However the example above is enough for your question.

Hope it will be helpful!