Which Samsung packages are known to affect emergency and safety features if removed?
Executive summary
A small set of Samsung system packages are repeatedly flagged by developers and users as tied to One UI’s Safety and Emergency features: the Contacts app package (com.samsung.android.app.contacts), Samsung’s Safety Assurance package (com.sec.android.app.safetyassurance), and packages labeled com.sec.android.emergency or similar SOS-related components (reported by users). Removing these packages has been documented to disable or break emergency configuration and SOS messaging on affected devices [1][2][3].
1. The obvious offenders: Contacts and Safety Assurance
Community-maintained debloat lists and issue trackers call out the Samsung Contacts package (com.samsung.android.app.contacts) as directly linked to the “Safety and emergency” settings UI — removing it “will disable the user from being able to modify the Safety and emergency” section of Settings, according to an open issue reporting on SM-F936U1 device findings [1]; similarly, the com.sec.android.app.safetyassurance package is explicitly associated with SOS messaging and has been advised as “YOU SHOULD NEVER REMOVE” because it is used by emergency features [2].
2. SOS/emergency-specific packages and power-button triggers
Beyond those two names, community posts and troubleshooting threads point to packages with the com.sec.android.emergency namespace as tied to the triple-press power-button emergency call/SOS behavior; users removing such packages via adb have reported mixed results and persistent activations, indicating the emergency call logic can be distributed across multiple components and may not be disabled cleanly by removing a single APK [3][4].
3. How removal manifests: UI loss, disabled features, and unreliable behavior
Samsung’s official documentation and third‑party explainers show the Safety and emergency section holds Emergency SOS setup, emergency contacts, medical info, and emergency number configuration — features that rely on Settings UI and backend components, so removing related packages can prevent adding or editing contacts and SOS options and can turn off emergency messaging/automatic location sharing tied to SOS [5][6]. Forum reports emphasize practical risks: removing or breaking these packages may leave a phone unable to present emergency options or could create unreliable behavior when attempting to contact emergency services, with users and community responders warning of potential life‑safety implications [4][6].
4. Conflicting reports and limits of available reporting
Some how‑to guides and blog posts describe steps to disable Emergency SOS and say turning off the feature won’t affect other emergency functions, which suggests user-accessible toggles exist independently of every system package — but those sources are not authoritative Samsung documentation and in some cases postdate or contradict community warnings, so their claims should be treated cautiously [7][8]. The public reporting available here does not present a definitive, exhaustive list of every package across all Galaxy models that will break emergency features if removed; rather, it highlights specific, repeatedly named packages and user-observed symptoms [1][2][3].
5. Practical guidance and risk assessment
The safe takeaways from Samsung support pages, One UI explainers, and community troubleshooting are consistent: treat com.samsung.android.app.contacts and com.sec.android.app.safetyassurance as essential to Safety and Emergency functionality and avoid removing SOS/emergency‑named packages unless prepared for the risk that SOS messaging, emergency contacts editing, or emergency call behavior may break; when in doubt, use official toggles in Settings or consult carrier/Samsung support rather than uninstalling system packages [1][2][5][4]. Community debloat tools and guides often label these removals as “Advanced” or “Unsafe,” and the documented user experiences back that caution [1][2][3].