Installed Apps #

A Flutter plugin to list installed apps and work with them: get app info, launch, open settings, uninstall, and more.

Android only. On other platforms the methods return their fallback values ([] or null).

Features #

• List installed apps, filtered by system/launchable status, package prefix, package names or platform type (Flutter, React Native, Xamarin, Ionic)
• Get app info: name, icon, version, install time, category and more
• Launch an app, open its settings screen, uninstall it
• Check if an app is installed or is a system app

Use cases #

• App launchers and app drawers
• VPN split tunneling and per-app network rules
• Parental control, kiosk and app blocker tools
• Security and inventory tools that audit installed apps
• Checking whether a companion app is installed before deep linking to it

Installation #

flutter pub add installed_apps

import 'package:installed_apps/installed_apps.dart';

One import gives you InstalledApps, AppInfo, AppCategory and PlatformType.

Works with Flutter 3.10 and newer, and any Android Gradle Plugin and Kotlin version your app uses. See the example app for a full demo.

Quick start #

final apps = await InstalledApps.getInstalledApps(withIcon: true);

for (final app in apps) {
  print("${app.name} (${app.packageName}) ${app.getVersionInfo()}");
}

await InstalledApps.startApp(apps.first.packageName);

API #

getInstalledApps options #

All options are optional.

// Flutter apps only, including system apps
final flutterApps = await InstalledApps.getInstalledApps(
  excludeSystemApps: false,
  platformType: PlatformType.flutter,
);

// Look up specific apps, fast
final known = await InstalledApps.getInstalledApps(
  packageNames: ["com.whatsapp", "com.google.android.gm"],
  detectPlatformType: false,
);

AppInfo #

AppInfo also has copyWith, and two apps are equal when package name and version match.

Android notes #

Permissions #

The plugin declares two permissions in its manifest:

• QUERY_ALL_PACKAGES: needed to list all apps on Android 11+
• REQUEST_DELETE_PACKAGES: needed for uninstallApp

Google Play restricts QUERY_ALL_PACKAGES and may reject apps that cannot justify it. Either declare the use in your Play Console listing, or remove it in your app manifest (you will then only see a limited set of apps):

<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.QUERY_ALL_PACKAGES" tools:node="remove" />

With multiple flavors, keep the permission for dev builds and remove it in the Play Store flavor's AndroidManifest.xml.

Good to know #

• Methods never throw. On failure, they return [] or null, and log the error with debugPrint.
• Platform detection is heuristic and can misclassify some apps.
• Upgrading from 1.x? Since 2.0.0 getInstalledApps takes named arguments.

Contributing #

See CONTRIBUTING.md.

Issues and pull requests are welcome on GitHub.

flutter pub get
flutter analyze
flutter test