A new smart TV arrives with a home screen that sells something. A sponsored row sits above your apps, a recommendation shelf opens uninvited, and a service you never touched waits in the middle of the first row. CleanYourTV takes that home screen apart over Wi-Fi and puts a quiet one back.
What CleanYourTV actually does
CleanYourTV is an open source toolkit that connects to an Android TV or Google TV set over the local network and turns off the parts of the system that serve ads and preload content. The project states the outcome in one sentence, your TV minus the ads. The scripts, the launcher and the per-model debloat lists sit in a single GitHub repository under the MIT license.
You run it from a computer on the same Wi-Fi. On the TV you enable developer options by pressing the build number seven times, then switch on USB debugging and, where the menu offers it, network debugging. The scripts handle the rest, and the project puts a full session at around fifteen minutes.
Two limits are worth stating early, because they shape every other answer on this page. CleanYourTV never roots a TV and never flashes firmware. It does not uninstall a package either. Apps are disabled inside the user profile with pm disable-user, so everything stays on the device and any single package can be turned back on from the TV's own settings.
Why TV home screens got so crowded
A stock launcher is written by the manufacturer, and the project is blunt about what that produces. Sponsored rows, Discover prompts and analytics that phone home survive every firmware update and come back after each one. The amount differs by brand, which is why the repository keeps a separate debloat list per model instead of one universal file.
The apps themselves are usually fine. Netflix and Prime Video behave as they always did. The problem sits in the layer above them, in the launcher, the telemetry service and the content feeds that pull rows nobody asked for. Those live in the system image, so a launcher from the app store cannot remove them from underneath.
That is the part CleanYourTV addresses. Disabling a package at the system level removes the surface while the app stays installed, so the set keeps working and the promotional rails stop loading.
How the cleanup works
The procedure runs in three stages, and the order matters more than the individual commands.
| Stage | What it does |
|---|---|
| Back up | Reads the installed package list and the settings it is about to change, so there is a state to return to. |
| Disable | Runs pm disable-user across telemetry, ad services, content rows and preloaded apps. |
| Install | Builds the native launcher, installs it, and points the Home button at it. |
The disable list is a plain text file with one package name per line, and the repository stores it per model under examples/, one folder for each television. TCL sets fill the largest share of that folder tree. Sony and Xiaomi follow, then Philips and Hisense, with smaller groups for Fire TV, Panasonic, Skyworth, NVIDIA Shield and a run of projectors.
A typical list targets the ad services, the telemetry endpoints, the content rows behind the stock launcher and the preloaded apps that nobody opens. The project wraps that in several safety checks. The setup wizard is left alone while your saved Wi-Fi belongs to it. The HDMI and AV input packages stay in place. Home is never handed to the vendor fallback component. Environment variables can override each of those decisions when you know what you are doing.
What the new launcher replaces
The launcher is the other half of the project, and it is deliberately small. About 429 KB of plain Java, built for sets with 1 GB of memory, needing Android 8.0 or newer. It asks for no network permission and runs no background service, so it cannot phone home even if someone wanted it to.
The home screen it draws takes its cues from Apple TV. A pitch-black background with a dock of four apps in a rounded band. A top shelf that names whichever app has focus and tints the room with the colours of its artwork. The full grid slides up when you press down. One floating glass highlight springs from tile to tile, so focus stays a single moving object and never a rectangle that blinks in five places at once.
Three frosted buttons sit in the top right. Inputs hold the HDMI ports under the names you gave them in the TV settings, plus AV and Live TV. The next one shows Wi-Fi or Ethernet with the network name. The last one opens settings. If this layer is where your own product lives, our settings UI design guide covers the states these panels usually miss.
Small details carry the rest. A greeting, a thin clock and the date set in Outfit. A clock screensaver that drifts across the panel to spare the panel from burn-in. An optional system line that reports CPU load, free memory and free storage, off unless you enable it, and refreshing only while Home is on screen.
Themes live in a config.json pushed over Wi-Fi, and that file changes the background, the wallpaper, the dock and the number of tiles per row. Five themes ship in the themes/ folder, and tools/theme.sh pushes any of them to the set without a rebuild. The same file holds the language setting, which reaches twenty four languages with a mirrored right-to-left layout for Hebrew. Third-party apps can add a tile of their own through module cards, with your approval.
Which TVs are covered
Android TV and Google TV get the full treatment, debloat plus launcher. Fire TV gets the debloat half only, because Fire OS will not hand over its Home screen. One older Fire TV Box on Fire OS 5 refuses every package command, and the README says so plainly.
Samsung Tizen and LG webOS are different operating systems with different tooling. The repository points to a community webOS port listed in SHOWCASE.md and to a Tizen note under docs/devices/. A few China-market TCL sets refuse to install any launcher at all, and their lists say so in the header.
The tested set is unusually well documented. One hundred and seventy four TV models across fifty three brands, each with its own folder of package lists, and the project has been written up by TechCrunch, TechRadar, XDA and dozens of smaller outlets.
Restoring your TV
Before the disable script changes anything, it writes a record to ~/.cleanyourtv/. That record holds the state of every package it touched, which component owned the Home button, and the three animation scales it altered. A second run of the same list keeps the first record and does not overwrite it with the cleaned-up state.
Restoring replays that record. Point tools/restore.sh at a TV host and the list you applied, and Home returns to the component that owned it before. Packages you disabled yourself stay disabled, because the record only knows about its own changes. The new launcher stays installed until you remove it.
A computer is not required to undo the work. The TV settings screen lists every app, and a disabled package can be enabled again from there.
Firmware updates undo the work, which the project treats as a maintenance task rather than a bug. The update installs over the cleaned system, listed packages return, and Home drifts back to the stock launcher. One command compares the live TV against the stored list, prints what drifted, and exits with a failure code, so a weekly cron entry is enough to notice. The same script with a fix flag reapplies the list and reads the TV back to confirm.
Turning the ADB door shut afterwards
The connection that makes all of this possible is also the one to close when you finish. Network ADB speaks plaintext on port 5555, and on firmware built with ro.adb.secure=0 any device on the same network can open a shell on your television.
The project documents the exit. Turn off USB debugging and network debugging, revoke the authorisations, reboot, then confirm with tools/adb-closed.py pointed at the TV's address. Only a refused connection counts as closed. No route to host means check again, because macOS privacy can fake that answer while the port stays open.
macOS owners hit one specific wall. Local Network privacy blocks adb connect and reports no route to host, which reads like a broken TV while the real cause is a blocked permission. The bundled helper script avoids the binary for exactly this reason.
Frequently asked questions
Can this brick the TV?
Nothing is flashed, rooted or deleted. Packages are disabled in the user profile, and the recoverable path stays open through the TV's own settings. The real risk is disabling something the set depends on, which is why the project recommends small batches and hands you a restore script before you start.
Will my streaming apps stop working?
They keep working and they keep updating through the Play Store, which the lists leave alone. The launcher finds installed apps by intent, an interface that has been stable for a decade.
Does it block ads inside apps?
Partly. On Android 9 and newer you can point Private DNS at AdGuard DNS, which filters system-wide and survives reboots. That does not touch YouTube ads, and the trade-off is that the resolver sees every lookup from the TV.
Where do I download the APK?
There is no prebuilt binary. The repository ships a one-line script that compiles the launcher and installs it, which keeps the build tied to the source you can read.
What license does it use?
MIT. The Outfit typeface ships separately under the SIL Open Font License.
Why it belongs in your toolkit
A television is the one screen in the house that nobody redesigns. You buy it, you live with its home screen until you replace the set, and the usual answers are a streaming stick or a new panel. CleanYourTV treats the interface as something you can still change, using tools that ship with the platform and a door the manufacturer left open for developers.
The wider lesson travels further than the TV. Disabling services at the system level and drawing your own surface on top is the same move a design system makes, and the same argument our design system guide for business makes in a different register. If you want the interface layer for the product around it, our free UI resources and design and code kits are built for people who would rather own the markup.
Start with the README, run the prompt inside a coding assistant with shell access, and do one TV at a time. The CleanYourTV site collects the press coverage and the community projects built on top of the toolkit.
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