You may have noticed a new app called “FireTV Player” appear recently under the Manage Installed Applications list on your Amazon Fire TV device. I’ve received several emails and read comments from people wondering what the app was for, how the app suddenly appeared, and even if it’s malware or a virus. Rest assured, the app is perfectly safe and actually not a new app at all.
After seeing concern over the “FireTV Player” app, I reached out to Amazon who cleared things up. The app is actually not new, but rather, it’s a system app that was just renamed recently. The app used to be called “Video” and used a Prime Video logo as its icon. This is because the app is the Fire TV’s default video player that Prime Video uses to play movies and TV shows. A recent update to the app renamed it from “Video” to “FireTV Player” and swapped the Prime Video icon for the generic Play icon you see above.
The reason for the name change is because Prime Video recently launched a dedicated stand-alone app on Fire TV devices, instead of just relying on the Fire TV’s Home/Launcher interface, like it has for many years. The addition of the new stand-alone Prime Video app resulted in 2 system apps having the Prime Video logo, so the original “Video” app was renamed and the icon was changed.
The “FireTV Player” app is still used as the default video player for the new stand-alone Prime Video app. It’s also used by other aspects of the Fire TV, such as when you play a trailer, Prime Video Channel content, or even an IMDB TV video. Since the app has expanded beyond simply serving as Prime Video’s default player, it makes sense that it was given a more generic icon and a new name.
@AFTVnews
AFTVnews
Elias,
Thx. I noticed that it can’t be uninstalled so I figured it is a system app of some type. Thx for clearing this up.
It sure would be nice if Amazon would let us remove all of the garbage applications THEY INSTALL that we are NOT using and will NEVER use. to free up space for other valuable real applications.
You can’t uninstall Amazon system apps but I’ve Frozen almost 40 in my eyes useless apps from my 4k afs and also expanded my storage from 5gb to 64gb with over150 apps it is possible…
Amazon adds these apps on your fire stick and they take up a lot of space, is there a way to permanently remove these apps that take up all your space?
How?
Wow, that’s great! I would love to know which apps and how you expanded your memory.
Go to troypoint.com or the troypoint channel on YouTube. He has a great tutorial on how to expand your storage space and other helpful tips.
Thanks, I’ll Check it out
Thanks
How did you expand the storage?
please show me how to freeze useless apps and add 64gb memory to my fire 4k tv stick!!!
Daneo is right. I froze all system apps that i didnt use. It frees up RAM.
I put the USB on mine with I think maybe 32gb. It keeps saying I need a micro SD card. Yet I keep seeing people online say the did with the regular one. How did you do yours???
How in the world did you do that? I’m at so frustrated with space issues!!
How did you freeze them and more importantly how did you expand your storage??!!
Posso capire che amazon ti vede anche il suo ecosistema su un suo prodotto.. ma almeno dia la possibilità di disattivare tali servizi non indispensabili per il sistema sarebbe cosa gradita visto lo spazio risicato di firestick…
Un’altro problema che ho riscontrato, che non tutte le app di terze parti vengono visualizzate nel launcher.
Un’altro è quella sezione “recenti” mi da i nervi.
Amen, takes up too much memory
go to e.s go to apps can be removed there
Look for an apk called “Root Uninstaller”. It takes up about 10mb on your FireTV, but it’s worth every kilobyte. You can uninstall anything, but be REALLY careful because you can literally uninstall ANYTHING. It’s probably a good idea to Google what you’re about to uninstall to make sure it’s not something you need, or you can break your device. But it’s been a lifesaver in uninstalling apks like “Freetime”, or others that mysteriously show up on my device that I don’t want, can’t use, and eat up googobs of space I need for other things. It also has an apk manager that has some useful apps you can install, like a dns changer. You will have to give it permission to access your files, so do this under “Settings > Manage Installed Applications > Root Uninstaller > Permissions”. Just change “Deny” to “Allow” and you’re good to go.
You can find it on the Google Play store, or really anywhere you can download apks. And if your phone or tablet is Android, it works on those devices too.
ABSOLUTELY!! I’M CONSTANTLY DELETING SO MUCH CACHE AND DATA FROM THEM,SCREEN SAVER SUCKS UP SOO MUCH WITHOUT ME EVEN USING IT. I FORCE STOPPED A FEW AND SCREEN SAVER (THE RIGHT WAY)
how do you uninstall it and all the other rubbish amazon is pooting on the stick they dont even ask i have a 4k and its nearly full but therse nowhere it said to uninstall amazon ha them STUCK ON thare filling up space why PLEASE CAN YOU TAKE THEM OFF DONT NEED THEM DONT USE THEM THANKYOU
These are system apps that is why you cannot uninstall them. The amazon hardwares such as fire tv sticks are made exclusivly for their ecosystem and the 8gb is more than enough for that. When we use the stick for other purpos we should not forget this. We all know fire sticks are more value than what we actually pay for
Look for Root Uninstaller on the Google Play Store, or wherever you get your apks.
Elias, thanks as always for the support. The player is a space hog, 62MB and (for me) 104 MB of data. What is the app saving there, and is it safe to “clear data”?
Hold on, Is AFTVNews back up and running? if so when did this happen. I only came because I got a notification on Twitter and thought it must be an old post where someone just added a comment.
Joe, AFTV was sold to Troypoint.com when Elias went to work with Amazon I believe it was. That relationship has ran it’s course, and Troypoint.com graciously sold it back to Elias. At least that’s how I kind of understand it from Troypoint.com’s announcement on their website when this went down somewhat recently. Hope that helps.
AFTVnews was never sold to Troypoint. Only may apps (Downloader, Bookmarker, Informer…) were sold to Troypoint. When I returned to AFTVnews, I purchased my apps back from Troypoint.
The firestick comes with minimal storage as is it seems as though storage should be expanded some as well
Amazon adds these apps on your fire stick and they take up a lot of space, is there a way to permanently remove these apps that take up all your space?
I’ve googled several X on how to permanently remove these useless apps. I even recently purchased a brand new generation 2 stick, with the wifi booster AND STILL POPS UP TO REMOVE APPS because of storage.??? WTF!! Forget about putting anymore apps on, you get frequent screen that comes you remove apps/ not now. Very disappointing and HUGE WASTE OF MONEY! HOPEFULLY GETS FIXED SOON!
Elias,
How about an article on how to clean up memory on fire tv’s, sticks,
and how to make the process a “macro” of some sort do this easily with a single click on a regular basis.
This is definitely high on my list of things to do. Just trying to figure out how techy I should get, because there are simple things anyone can do and then there are deep cuts that involve ADB commands and rooting, plus a bunch of stuff in between. I’ve been testing sideloadable apps to make the deeper stuff easier for non-techy people.
Thanks for your reply and your intentions to do this.
Please do it.
Maybe two versions:
One is simple but does not clean up the max possible,
like, clear all cache.
Another is more in depth and cleans up more with options to choose etc.
Believe me, any gained space is much needed.
Every time I watch a movie or use the browser I finish up by
going to “manage apps” and clearing cache on what I used
and periodically carefully clearing data on things like Fire TV Player.
But it’s a little tedious, a one click for at least clearing all cache would be nice.
Also a “Restart” seems to help.
It makes a difference on buffering it seems.
I have also moved many apps to SD card on fire gen 2.
Maybe I have too many apps!!
Also, maybe a way to automatically(enable/disable option), upon awakening or upon exiting Screensaver, to clear data and cache on SCREENSAVER app.
This one takes about 217m cache and 880k data on my fire tv Gen2
every time the screensaver has started, I manually clear both.
If you go into settings under display in sound click on screensaver and then scroll all the way down to the bottom where it says start time and click never. This. Screensaver from accumulating megabytes of your space
It’s not hard folks it’s for the new live TV service that they are starting up, it’s a good thing!
What new live tv?
A rumor surfaced last year that Amazon was in talks with several major networks to bring live tv to the Fire TV ecosystem. There would be a payed version (think YouTube TV) but as a recall there would also be a “free version” included for Amazon Prime members. Details were vague at best but it makes sense as FTV already has special live events like Football & Golf so easy enough to do. I would anticipate adding live tv would coincide with the next price increase to Prime, all just conjecture for now but I mean you have to justify the cost increases with something.
My fire stick keeps running low on storage, besides uninstalling my apps what can I do?
I’ve uninstalled every app that I can and it still says I only have 325 MB left available. WTF?? I have extended the memory on it because I have the 4k and all my apps are on that not on the firestick. When I take the flashdrive out, all the apps are gone from the apps list but still no memory!!? WHY!!???
Your fire stick have some up dates that needs to be installed. You need to take it back to factory and reinstall your apps.
I never had a problem with storage filling up on my 2nd generation firesticks but now that I have a 4K firestick, with less apps on it, I am having problems with low storage. I really wish that there was a way to remove Amazon’s apps that I do not use.
A fellow that goes by the handle “TechDoctorUK” posts regular updates for a Fire Stick “Debloat Tool” on his website (I do not believe he created it) but he does have the APK available for download.
I looked into it and I personally decided it was not worth the risk using but others may find it helpful. If you are a novice I would use with caution as required system apps could be accidently disabled.
V3 for FireTVStick4K came out from TechDoctorUK a week or so ago.
I have had it long enough to realize it is fairly useful for a FireTVStick4K, where I had earlier incarnations running as well, but not for a device attached to a FireTV Recast. In my case, Recast feeds into a Cube 2nd gen.
In near Fully debloated state FreeRAM approaches 400MB with launcher, IPVanish and several ‘essential’ associated utilties running and everything else force closed. I left just one process in the new list enabled.
The latest one labels several processes with their function to assist you to decide if they should be left alone.
E.g., labels show which processes to leave alone if you require Prime Video to function.
Looking over the comments in the debloat development scripts from 2017 on the internet, it seems that hobbyist programmers infer by trial & error what the exposed parts of the FireOS black box do. So “caveat emptor” (buyer beware) should be the motto. In other words, if you believe you need this, be prepared to experiment.
After 3 days, I have fully undebloated my Cube while investigating what will get Recast, recent channels & TV Guide functioning properly again. I hadn’t noticed they were disabled while using a custom launcher, since there was no shortcut to the Recast remaining on the stock launcher.
Thank you. I was wondering what that was?
There is one more new system up that recently popped up in the list:
IMDb TV Version 1.0.3015.0, Size 118 MB (kinda hungry!)
Any news about that Elias? Is Amazon planning launching new streaming channel / service using their IMDb website / brand?
IMDb TV used to just use the default Fire TV interface, like a Prime Video Channel uses. They now have switched to a dedicated stand-alone app. That’s what that new IMDb app is.
Does anyone know what happens when you Clear Data on FireTv Player? The data on mine has reached 427MB and I would like to clear it but I don’t know if it deletes my watchlist or where I left off on TV shows. I know it gets larger the more I use it.
Any help would be appreciated!
Clear it!
Well this new app takes a whole Lotta space on my fire stick!!! Another app I probably won’t use that I can’t get rid of
As poster ROXIE above states… This FIRE TV PLAYER is a TOTAL memory hog. While it installs at about 85 MB, it accumulates HUNDREDS of MB which virtually choke off the limited memory already available.
Contrary to what Elias is saying about this not being “new,” we have never seen a memory hog like this one.
The Fire devices with 8 GB of storage really cannot handle all the extra apps that Amazon forces upon each user.
Simply absurd.
What happens if you delete FIRE TV PLAYER
I’m not brave enough to do this but, until you check updates again, it would likely stop the things working that Elias mentioned it’s for.
If you succeeded to ‘delete’ it, I would expect the base player would remain with a smaller footprint. This is an extrapolation of my experience of trying to delete IMDb, which revealed I was merely undoing recent updates back to some unknown level. I found a later system update restored the deleted updates and the footprint increased.
If you want to try, and your device is not rooted (like mine), an old version of ES Explorer is available from FileLinked stores for doing this. Also, latest Total Commander was able to temporarily ‘delete’ Amazon Music a few months ago; tried as an experiment
I just cleared the data, hope I didn’t break it.
Thank you for explaining the purpose of this app
Since I use an external drive loaded with favorite movies to watch I see no option to use this player to search and play movies from that drive which I think is total BS because now I have to download a new player (mx player) which by the way would be number three because there’s also one for Alexa… And they don’t give us enough space to begin with.
Why is it steaming ten times more data since 1/30/23
Thanks for this info!
The FireTV Player App stores a lot of data. It’s usually the largest app I have installed and it stores more data than my other apps combined. I’m pretty sure the old app didn’t do this so I’m wondering why it does this.