I'm sure there are countless apps out there that are incredibly cool, interesting, or useful, but just haven't hit the mainstream yet. Maybe it's a productivity tool that's boosted your efficiency, a unique game that's kept you entertained for hours, or a niche app that's catered perfectly to one of your hobbies or interests.
What are some Android hidden gem apps that you've used a bunch or think it's really cool/interesting/useful?
Please share your recommendations, and if possible, a brief description of what the app does and why you find it so valuable.
Looking forward to uncovering some hidden treasures in the Android app world. Thanks in advance for your suggestions!
Pano Scrobbler - a FOSS app for Last.fm, Libre.fm and Listenbrainz. (I recommend Obtanium to download it from GitHub.)
Murglar for downloading Music in full quality from Deezer.
Molly - a better Signal client. (You can use Obtanium to download it from GitHub, you can add their F-Droid repo or download it using Accressent, a new experimental app store that seeks to replace F-Droid.)
Gallery - a simple gallery app that looks good and respects your Material You theme.
Element X is a much better Matrix client than the standard Element app. (I recommend downloading it from GitHub using Obtanium.)
LinkSheet - a small app that restores the old Android URL link chooser. It has many great features like the ability to remove tracking parameters from URLs or using FastForward to annoying bypass URL shorteners.
UntrackMe - a tool that can redirect YouTube, Twitter, Reddit, etc. links to privacy-friendly alternative frontends like Invidious or Piped for YouTube, Nitter for Twitter and LibReddit or Teddit for Reddit
Most of the apps I mentioned are free and open source and many of them are available on F-Droid. They don't collect or sell any of your data.
The last one is not an app, but an entire OS that can replace the spyware-infested ROM that's preinstalled by your phones' manufacturer. I'm talking about GrapheneOS. No ads, no tracking, no proprietary Google services. Just free and open source software with maximum privacy and security. It's so great!
You can already download YT videos in LibreTube and NewPipe, speaking about NewPipe, I would suggest using NewPipeSponsosblock for blocking in video sponsors from creators.
Aves Libre is a better advanced Gallery alternative with EXIF editing.
Aimp is a good alternative to Retro.
Spotiflyer is an alternative Murglar.
Schildi Chat is a better alternative to Element X, its based on Element but is a lot faster and has a lot more options.
Ps:
I've been seeing a lot of posts and comments by you in the communities that I follow, just want to tell you thx for contrubuting to them xD.
Thanks for participating in the discussion. I have to disagree on some of your point though.
You can already download YT videos in LibreTube and NewPipe, speaking about NewPipe, I would suggest using NewPipeSponsosblock for blocking in video sponsors from creators.
I have found the download features in both LibreTube and NewPipe to be pretty unreliable. Seal always works. NewPipe x SponsorBlock is great, I use LibreTube which also has SponsorBlock built in, I just included NewPipe in the list because LibreTube breaks sometimes. But yes, NewPipe x SponsorBlock is better than standard NewPipe. BraveNewPipe is even better.
Aves Libre is a better advanced Gallery alternative with EXIF editing
Aves is a good option, it's also available on Accrescent. Personally though, I dislike the design of the app and prefer Gallery in combination with Image Toolbox for image editing.
Aimp is a good alternative to Retro.
It's not open-source and thus not available on F-Droid.
Spotiflyer is an alternative Murglar.
In my experience Spotiflyer has been pretty unreliable. It either pulls low quality shit from YouTube or it tries to download from Spotify and fails. So far, Murglar has worked like a dream. Just like deemix on desktop btw. You can use Deezer Premium ARLs from this guide to log in and download genuine 320kbps MP3s or even FLACs. Never had any issues.
Schildi Chat is a better alternative to Element X, its based on Element but is a lot faster and has a lot more options.
I tried it out, personally, I didn't really like it. Element has been pretty slow for me, but I never had these issues with Element X.
I try to get most of my apps from F-Droid (through Droid-ify) or Accrescent, but if they are not available, I turn to Obtanium to either download an APK from a website or from GitHub. It also has the ability to update your apps from your custom sources.
I have Android 13 and when I tap on a link it asks me what app to open, also you can set this within the settings app per app basis.
On many occasions, Android nowadays uses "Verified links" to figure out what app to open instead of prompting the user
LinkSheet also provides other cool features that I already described in my previous comment:
It has many great features like the ability to remove tracking parameters from URLs or using FastForward to annoying bypass URL shorteners
It's in a very early stage of development, it currently only offers 11 apps. I really hope it succeeds though, it has better security than F-Droid so I would love to switch to it once it supports more apps.
Wow thanks! I play these on desktop all the time. I tried playing them from my phone browser and it wasn't the same. Didn't know there was an app! Thank you!
Most phones today contain a powerful array of sensors, and almost all of them are locked from easy access by the user. Physics Toolbox has functions that allow you to get the raw data from almost every sensor in your phone. It's the only "tool" app that I can honestly say I've used as a tool. It has a sound intensity functions which I have used to determine if hearing protections is needed, and I've used that feature to diag a bad mic pickup due to an ambient white noise machine. It can give you the signal loss for a WiFi connection, very handy for troubleshooitng wireless access points.
Other features, magnetic field detection, tone generator, color matcher, g-force and rotation output, raw GPS view and more. All of these are available on the free version, but I actually use this app so much that I sent the 2 or 5 bucks to the dev mainly just to support them. The paid version also lets you export the sensor logs to a .csv file so you can view that data on a computer.
It really turns your phone from a glorified Lemmy portal into the cool future tool it was meant to be.
Survivor.io - even though the name screams cheap shitty ad app, it's pretty limited in ads (if any) and the game is a rogue like zombie killer. Each game plays out for about up to 15 minutes. One of my favorites.
Rebuild - a turn based strategy game about surviving the cities full of zombies.
Pawnbarian - a chess rogue like where you control a piece that has unique abilities. I believe they let you play part of the game as a demo.
Lifeline - a game you can get where you text some random dude who is lost in space. The game progresses over a few weeks and unfolds but you can only message him after he contacts you through notification.
Apps:
Nova Launcher - I have used nova launcher for probably like 10 years. I love the customizable options given and the ability to set gestures on icons.
Doctor on Demand - OK HEAR ME OUT. First, I live in America. Medical care is stupid. Also, I have children. Going to the doctors is like upwards of a hundred dollars per visit (if not more). Doctor on demand (through my insurance) is free. Even if you don't have insurance, I think it's only lope $50-$75 per visit. So.. I recommend this for American users who need to see a doctor but may not be covered effectively.
Offline Survival Manual - haven't needed to use it but good to have I'm thinking. You can print it all out through the app.
StreetComplete! You can contribute to OpenStreetMap while walking around and having fun. It's super fun and satisfying to unlock achievements while contributing to a useful project.
I have several books cases and shelves where I store books, this has helped me a lot to have a catalogue of them.
I just scan the book code, the app gets book info, and I assign it to a place where it is physically stored, like, bookcase 1 in office room, shelf 3 on main room, etc.
I have it installed from Droid-ify which is like an app to have more sources for f-Droid.
Strangely enough I find a bit of joy in doing things like that. I've got several books of paperwork I've been gradually scanning and organising in a paperless ngx setup. It's a big hassle that ultimately doesn't help me much at all (95% of the things in there are random things I could just get rid of and would never miss), but yet I do it anyway, and enjoy doing it
I feel like poweramp has a mind of its own on whether or not it wants to actually shuffle your music. Whenever I put my music on shuffle, it'll shuffle the songs, but then it'll just play an entire album in order.
There are separate options for shuffling songs and categories (albums, artists, folders, genre, etc) and you can toggle them independently of each other.
Minimalist Phone has changed my life.
For anyone looking to either spend less time on social media or get rid of the digital clutter constantly bombarding you, this app is amazing.
It Filters my notifications so I can check them on my own time, it sets time limits on all social media and game apps and kicks you out when time is up, and it has a simple black background with no app icons, only the names of the apps you choose in white letters. Perfect for my over-stimulated adhd brain.
FOSS text editor for when you just literally wanna write something down without any weird bloat and without having to deal with Google. Available on F-Droid.
Also, OpenBoard for a FOSS keyboard with swipe typing. Also available on F-Droid
You know what, I think F-Droid is actually my hidden gem app. I'm sure most Lemmy users use it, but I don't think I know anyone else IRL who does, so hidden gem might not be accurate depending on perspective.
On second thought... Seems they haven't finished their glide type function for release yet, though it's planned! Are you on a beta version or something to get the swipe function? Or were you talkin the backspace & spacebar swipe gestures? 🙂
Really? I don't think I'm using a beta release and I'm glide typing this message. I might have gotten the apk off of Github rather than F-Droid but I honestly don't remember, been using this keyboard for a few months now.
Nope, just a simple app for writing text files. If you want you can save those files to the cloud but for myself, there's a lot if times where I just want to draft something quick on my phone and it's my go to
Beautifully designed open source navigation alternative. It's not perfect, because I still have to do some auxiliary searching occasionally, but I'm really enjoying using it instead of Google
-Quickweather
Another beautifully designed app. Not perfect, but just really nice to look at because of how well it was done. I still use myradar as my main driver, admittedly.
-ViMusic
Again, one of the most beautifully designed apps I've ever seen. It has a few bugs, but I really enjoy using this one. It uses YouTube music as the back end.
-Newpipe and freetube
Either of these work pretty good as a better way to watch YouTube videos. I'm glad people are fighting back against Google's bullshit...
-Eternity
This is currently my favorite Lemmy front end. I've tried many so far and this one seems to have the best functionality and customization too.
I'm really happy to share that one! The only other alternative that I've come across that looked (kind of) promising was osmand, but organicmaps puts that one to shame as far as looks go. It functions really well too, I think it's just a better app in general actually.
Merlin is similar but for birds. Also feeds all of the data you give it back to Cornell's ornithology lab, which I'd normally be against, but in this case it's for a great cause.
You can also troll various bird species by playing their calls back to them. Most will at least come in for a closer look, some will straight up strafe your ass depending on the season.
Thanks! Inaturalist looks way better and doesn't require a subscription. Got a plant right away, and I like how it gets more and more precise as you move around the plant.
I'm not so up on what's new and such, and I've really enjoyed a few games I've downloaded:
(Obligatory apology for any link or format issues. On mobile and first time posting.)
Scalak. You rotate and move blocks and pieces around to try to match up edges. Hard to explain. Kind of like the baby's "put the square in the square hole" toy except for adults. It's got really nice, calming music, so it's nice to play before bed or offline on the plane.
MultiSudoku. Off-line sudoku that has five sudoku squares (?) attached together.
Word Hero. I love word games and this has been my favourite. It's basically Boggle and after each game, it ranks the scores from everyone around the world who played the same game as you. Been playing this for years. Unfortunately online only.
Burnable Garbage Day. Earth has completely filled with rubbish, and a cleaning robot has woken up from a deep slumber to find out why the planet has become this way. Originally a Japanese game so the translations are a bit dodgy, but it's a really fun play. I think it can be played offline. It's been a while since I've played this.
Mahjong 13 Tiles. The only actual mahjong game I could find that isn't like the old Windows tile matching game. This is the gambling version where there is no money bets, but you can play against bots. It's been ages since I've played this so I can't remember if it's online or offline or if you can play against real people.
Dingbats. Guessing famous idioms from drawings. Can be played offline.
Quell Reflect. Moving a bubble around to capture all the gems. The puzzles get harder as you progress. Can be played offline.
Influence. You start with one cell (think Chinese checkers) and you keep spreading your influence to conquer the other players. Can be played off-line.
BirdNET. Identifies birds by their call. I've used this in Canada and Australia.
Plant Net. Same thing as BirdNET but photos of plants. Also can confirm it works in Canada and Australia.
Edit: Forgot one game, Slitherlink. I set it to easy and listen to podcasts in the background to wind down at the end of the night. Each hexagon (or whichever shape you choose) has a number, and each number represents the max number of sides that can be selected. Eventually the entire board is connected via one line. You'll have to read the description, it's the best description I can give, albeit not a very good one.
Edit edit: This is what happens when I haven't had my coffee yet. Kakuro is another numbers game like sudoku.
This calculator app maybe I use it for nostalgia's sake but I've had it on every android for the past 10+ years. It works great, launches instantly, and the ads were never more than a small banner at the top. I did buy the ad free version but it's $2, no subscription or any bullshit, just a straight and honest scientific calculator.
Maybe not underrated because everyone should already be using it but KDE connect is a life changing app. So much functionality packed into a lightweight package. Just having a shared clipboard between my phone and laptop has been such a time saver every single day. If you don't already have it, you should.
I use it with Frequaw as the only widget to launch the apps I use the most
I rue the day Identiconizer falls behind on API versions and I won't be able to install it on new phones anymore. Having identicons for contacts I don't have photos for is just so much nicer than the plain letters.
Living Worlds has gorgeous low-power animated wallpapers
AlmostTI stops me from needing to learn how to use a newer calculator than the TI-84
Joplin https://joplinapp.org/ It is a free an open source note taking app similar to Evernote. You can keep your data on a cloud service (such as Dropbox) to keep your notes in sync between Android, Windows, Linux and IOS or you can pay for Joplin Cloud storage.
Like its hard to find a note app that doesn't try to get me to sign up and subscribe to features. I just want to take notes like I'm a PI investigating people at my local mall
Not sure how hidden it is, but I've been using Librera FD for the PDF of the textbook I needed for one of my classes. I only really ever use it for the PDF reading function and the search for certain words function, but it works great for what I need.
I also don't know how hidden it is, but I also like Anuto TD (Another Ugly Tower Defense for Android) has been something I just got back into. It's simple and fun enough to play since it doesn't require too much thought.
I'm using it for years on 2 phones and it works well. It crashed here and ther, but I'd say it's about as stable as original one overall. I used to have problem with arcticons, butanual restart helped it. It's sad you encounter problems.
Forkyz let's you download and solve crossword puzzles.
It comes with an inbuilt list of sources for different languages but you can also manually add new ones. Many newspapers publish crosswords daily or weekly for free so there's plenty of options.
Mixplorer, a file explorer that does everything. Want to share a file between android devices on your home network over WiFi because Bluetooth will take a million years ? Start a server via mixplorer, send from mixplorer on the other device. The other day I was looking for an app to browse a simple nas storage. I searched for "nas" in F-droid and found nothing. Then I remembered good old mixplorer. Yup there it was, add smb. And I think I barely use 10% of its capacity.
Batch processing, queued actions, regex renaming... Many add ons.
Edit:free on xda
Music Folder Player - just a good music player that plays files in a folder instead of scraping all audio files from wherever as many players seem to do nowadays
I put Trek: Total Interface and Total Launcher on my phone to replace the normal Android interface and for the first time in fifteen years I like hearing my phone make noise!
They work really well on my pixel 3 and respond much faster.
I don't know how hidden it is because most people into making electronic music at all know about it, but Koala sampler is a fantastic value at $5 for an intuitive and fun way to make some silly loops.
Tidy panel 3 for hiding un-dismissable notifications from notification panel (for my Samsung phone). Icon pack studio for generating custom icon packs.
I have a Samsung and it's not a problem anymore but in the Note 4 days I would get 50+ notifications a day to give access to Samsung calendar and then when I force removed the app it held a notification there about a calendar issue.
I keep my phone on dnd 24/7 and for some reason in Samsung there will be an un-dismissable notification for that which would also show up in the top of my phone. I found this super annoying so tidy panel 3 is great for hiding this. This wasn't a problem on my old stock android phone.
The best general-use SDR program available on Android. The other apps are just very limited mobile apps, but this gives a full desktop experience. It does support less devices than on desktop, but that's fine. You can run it as server on desktop, and connect to the SDR++ server on your phone.
Here's a screenshot:
In the screenshot, it's connected to SDR++ server running on my laptop, to which I have connected RSP1. I couldn't use the RSP1 with SDR++ on Android directly, as it requires proprietary API. But I could for example use RTL-SDR, the most popular SDR. Or maybe Airspy, Airspy HF+, HackRF or Hermes. It can also connect (network) to PlutoSDR, RFspace, RTL-TCP, SDR++ and SpyServer.
But there's more awesome SDR programs available for Android:
Sadly it's not on the playstore anymore, but I've had a free Tetris clone app on my phone for years that has served as a good time killer or a distraction from awkward silence. It's called Tetra Classic. I think you can still find the APK somewhere, hopefully in reputable sources.
I've been using Seeker to get hi def flacs for my music library since I decided Spotify sucks a little while back!
Since I've flipped to offline music, it's been a dream to return to the forever glorious Poweramp music player. Gorgeous & compatible with a buncha skins from the play store, but best of all, you can setup profile based EQs that'll trigger based on song, album, Bluetooth device, genre... It's wild
For podcasts I use Feeder on my RSS feeds & AudioAnchor as my player. Straightforward & operable from my pocket, which is all I need!
Keepass2android is a great password manager that does biometric auth & slick password generation. File based tho, be sure to sync it somewhere.
Arity, the perfect calculator. I know that it is just a calculator app but it lightweight, open-source, has 2D and 3D graphing (!) and of course can do calculations.