There are a few noteworthy ones that have significantly enhanced my digital experience. Let me share them with you:
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Musicolet: It’s a fantastic music player with a user-friendly interface. The best part is, it doesn’t bombard you with pesky ads like the default music player does.
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Cube Acr: If you ever need to record calls, this app is a game-changer. It’s the best free call recorder I’ve tried so far.
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Macrodroid: This app lets you automate almost anything you can think of. Personally, I love how it allows me to easily turn on the WiFi hotspot with just a few taps. I couldn’t find any other app on the Play Store that offered this feature without requiring root access.
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Auto redial: You know those moments when you keep calling a restaurant repeatedly until they finally answer? This app saves you from that frustration. It automatically redials the number for you, making your life much easier.
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Dynamic rotation: Auto-rotate can be a bit annoying, right? But sometimes, you do want your screen to rotate. That’s where Dynamic Rotation comes in. It prompts you to rotate the app whenever you rotate your screen, giving you more control.
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Folder sync: It’s surprising that popular cloud apps like Mega don’t offer a way to sync folders. Fortunately, Folder Sync fills that gap. You can keep selected folders always in sync without any hassle.
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Volume booster: We all come across situations where the audio is too low. This app comes to the rescue by boosting the volume, allowing you to hear even the faintest sounds clearly.
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Always on AMOLED by Tomer Rosenfeld: Recently, I dropped my phone in water, and since then, the screen has been acting up, moving randomly. However, I noticed that if I use this app for a while, it stabilizes the screen. It’s been a lifesaver for me.
These hidden gems have definitely made a significant difference for me. It’s fascinating to think about the missed opportunities had I known about them earlier. But hey, now that we know, we can make the most out of these fantastic apps, feel free to add your list below as well ❤️
KDE Connect is an app to connect your phone and computer. It works on most OS (windows, Linux, etc.), and it works extremely well (better than the solution developed by Microsoft).
I can’t count how many times I used this. It’s been a huge timesaver for me
How does it compare compared to Join by JoaoApps ?
Does it work over LAN if I lose internet?
Yes, in fact it only communicates over LAN - so if you go away from home it will stop mirroring, unless they’ve changed that in the last few months.
Does it work ok on Windows now? Last I tried it it wasn’t so great, but it was at least a year ago.
Yes. I’ve been using almost daily and it’s great! My only issue is that it sometimes (like once every one or two months), it has some trouble connecting back to my phone.
I’m using the version downloaded from the Microsoft Store and it’s a bit spotty. The experience might be a bit better with the exe installer.
In my experience, windows store server apps (like Plex) are sometimes broken if your os updates are due. It causes some interesting headaches. When in doubt exe it from the trusted site
Yeah I usually prefer directly downloading installers, I just thought I’d give the Store a try and see what the experience is like.
Yep, the shared clipboard and file sharing options are things I can’t live without now. No more sending stuff to yourself using messenger apps or stupid workarounds like that.
FairEmail: I hated reading email on my phone, till I found it. I was so happy that I already paid for it 3 times (optional!) just to give something back to the dev.
Waze: it belongs to Google now, but I like it much better because it’s like a social network for navigation and maps. You can also edit the maps by yourself. Another advantage is that it shows speed limits and warns you about police while driving.
I also really like fairemail for it’s privacy focused approach but often the formatting in emails looks weird… e. g. Paypal is especially bad :(
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Spectroid: what’s that sound? Do I hear that faint but annoying sound or just imagine it? With spectroid you can see the sound spectrum over time.
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Nova launcher: Lets you cutomize the home screen of your phone and make it just right. I like my apps a bit closer together in five columns instead of four. Nova launcher let’s me do this.
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Business calendar: it’s just so much better than the default calendar, especially if you have lots of meetings and need an information dense view.
I use Business Calendar daily. It’s very customizable, easy to use, and has been awesome for years.
I recently found out Nova was purchased by an analytics company. I don’t have any proof or solid reason to think they’re up to no good necessarily. But I have zero desire to use something as integral as a launcher that’s owned by a company like that.
I moved to Neo Launcher and it’s been 95% as good as Nova. The knock is just some fine tunings that Nova had, but I’m not having any issues with Neo.
Was not aware of this. Thank you!.. :(
Love Nova Launcher! It offers so many customisation options, particularly in terms of home screen and app drawer layout, icons and fonts.
I remember a few years back when my phone was stolen (I accidentally left it in the back of an Uber) and I was forced to buy a new one. The relief I felt when I started up the new phone, signed into Google and straightaway saw my familiar home screen, courtesy of Nova Launcher.
I guess I was surprised so much was still there given I didn’t do a formal backup / transfer between old and new phones, but that’s the beauty of the cloud! :)
Edit: Also @distantlight, agree with Cube ACR - I have been immensely grateful having an easy way to record calls. It has a button to allow you to start and stop recording in the middle of a call so for me, it was piece of mind, especially during legal scrapes! But as another commenter has said, I feel like it stopped working at some point so no longer have it installed…
I second nova launcher and business calendar. They’ve been staples on my phones for the past 5+ years
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Launcher KISS the simplest, cleanest and fastest launcher I have ever used. After few days I got so much used to it that when I get my hands on phone with another launcher I feel lost. My father and my son are also using KISS and they like it.
A few of mine :
- AndOTP : A good app for OTP that actually let’s you backup your keys and move them easily and securely to a new phone
- Blokada : A system wide adblocker for Android. 4000000 ads blocked so far on my phone
- YouTube Vanced: Not really a “hidden” gem but a cool app nonetheless. I wish people knew you could get an ad free YouTube experience on mobile. It also includes sponsor block so you really get straight to content. Also let’s you get a YT popup player and shutdown the screen with the video still playing.
- F-Droid an Android open source app market. Often includes apps that are not allowed on Google market.
Strange, I had YouTube Vanced but I remember it outright dying maybe a year ago. Had been using NewPipe for a while before I finally decided I use YouTube so often it’s perfectly reasonable for me to just subscribe.
YouTube Vanced is still up and running?
ReVanced is.
The original YouTube vanced is dead, but the new revanced works like a charm
Interesting. I’ll have to play around with it at some point.
Revanced Extended ftw
+1 for F-Droid. I always prefer open-source alternatives from there over ad-infested bloatware which the Play Store has a lot of.
Plus, there are some really good F-Droid apps too, like Droid-ify (F-Droid client with smoother UI) and Obtainium (update apps automatically from a GitHub link).
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Oh really? I need to add my apps to Obtainium then.
AndOTP is no longer maintained. I’d suggest switching to something still supported, like Aegis for example.
Vanced is dead, check out Revanced instead. Takes a bit more effort to get going as you need to build the app yourself but it works just as well
aCalendar+ in combination with nextcloud. Sorted my life completly. Imo the best calender app for Android.
Image Toolbox the name explains all. Adfree ☝🏻
Paperless mobile adding documents has never been easier. Scanapp inclusive ☺️
Isn’t dynamic rotation built in to Android these days?
I don’t know about other brands but Samsung does have a small icon in the bottom corner prompting this when I rotate my phone yeah. Ignore it if not needed. Very useful.
TIL about this and it’s a freaking lifesaver. Thank you!
It is built into Android proper meaning most phones should be able to do it
Damn, TIL. Turning off auto rotate now.
Yes but I think many people don’t know it exists and how to use it. For those who don’t know : rotate your phone and a little rotating phone will appear next to your “go back” button. Just click it.
Think the point is it asks instead of just doing it.
On my phone at least, when I have autorotate off and tilt the screen, an icon appears next to my back button that will rotate the screen. Which sounds to me like the goal of this app.
There’s an accessibility option that can do this but it’s inconsistent at best for me.
Mixplorer - aka MiX, the only file explorer I’ve ever needed. It’s intuitive enough for basic file browsing, but it can do heavy lifting tasks. I exclusively move files on and off my phone by starting an FTP server.
Pulsar - One of the only apps I’ve ever paid for, it’s a music player that does everything I want and nothing I don’t. I’m one of those nuts who still maintains a personal library of thousands of songs rather than using spotify or whatever.
MS Swiftkey Keyboard - I went looking for this when Swype was finally discontinued. Gesture typing wasn’t common yet and I still find google’s stock keyboard absolutely insufferable. Swiftkey lets me adjust the size and layout of the keyboard with far less restriction.
I’d nominate AccuBattery, it does a good job determining my phone’s battery health. The pro version is cheap and has a lot of capabilities as well
- CPU-Z summarizes literally everything about your mobile phone. What model you have, what SoC you have, what your clock speeds and thermals are, which update you’re on, etc. Super useful and you never have to wonder anything about your specs.
- Notebloc is the best camscanner app. The ads are a lot but you can get an ad-free version for pretty cheap. The black and white scan has great clarity that makes it look legit like it’s scanned.
- PlainApp is a new open-source Airdroid alternative. Easily transfer files and images from your mobile to PC over wi-fi. It’s super useful.
Aegis: 2fa. Free, open source.
Auto Auto-rotate: per app rotation settings. Free, open source.
Missed notifications reminder: adds a repeating sound or vibration if a watched app has an active notification. Ie, you got an email when you were away from your phone so every few minutes your phone makes a beep or whatever so you don’t need to check the screen constantly. Free, open source.
MJ PDF: simple, fast PDF reader. Free, open source.
Snap drop: web based instant file transfer between devices. Free, open source.
X-Plore: the only file manager that ever clicked for me. Dual pane that’s really intuitive. Absolutely packed with features (connects with local network, cloud providers, ftp, ssh, dlna, has file sync)
What phone do you use? I recall my call recording app stopped working a couple years ago due to some Google permission thing.
Same, it’s possibly also because of his location/country. I haven’t tried the app, but if any europeans/british people get it working, please say.
I’d add Tasker to that list, even if some of the functionality requires root. It’s actually insane how powerful Tasker is.
Tasker is good too but a bit redundant with MacroDroid. Both are amazing though! Everyone needs to have one or similar!
If you enable ADB Wifi you can do practically anything in Tasker with no root
KDE Connect! https://kdeconnect.kde.org/
Any FOSS alternative to Macrodroid?
