There is no shortage of useful Android applications. Android users enjoy easy access to a lot of useful applications via the primary application repository of the Google Play Store. But some best unknown Android apps aren’t available on the store despite offering a great feature set. Even if they are available, they do not appear in most recommendation categories.
Google Play Store is the one-stop-shop for the best Android apps but due to its cumbersome approval process and stern policy, many great apps get sidelined and remain unknown to Android users. I have searched for these best unknown Android apps, and have compiled a list of useful apps that deserve the spotlight.
Remove Object is a powerful and intuitive photo object remover app that lives up to its promise. With a wide array of features, it effortlessly removes unwanted elements from your pictures, making it a handy tool for touch-retouch, pimple remover, watermark remover, and much more. Its AI-driven technology ensures quick and efficient object removal, simplifying the photo editing process for users of all levels.
The app offers excellent tools to refine your photo editing experience. The AI-powered photo eraser smoothly removes unwanted objects, while the lasso tool allows users to outline and remove specific elements precisely.
The wirelike object removal with the line tool is a nifty addition, ensuring the clean removal of even the trickiest objects. The customizable brush and magnifying glass further facilitate precise edits, and the AI detection feature aids in automating the object removal process, making it even more effortless.
It is undoubtedly a robust and capable photo object remover app that lives up to its claims. Featuring a user-friendly interface and leveraging powerful AI technology, this tool empowers users to eliminate undesirable elements from their images effortlessly. From watermarks to blemishes and beyond, the process becomes seamless and hassle-free.
Folder in Folder
Folder in Folder is a simple yet highly effective app that brings much-needed organization to your device’s home screen. Suppose you are overwhelmed by a cluttered home screen filled with app icons. This app offers a practical solution by allowing you to create subfolders within folders, creating a more structured and easily navigable layout.
The app’s main features revolve around the creation of folders that can contain apps or other folders. This versatility allows users to create a hierarchy of folders to suit their preferences and needs. Organizing apps within subfolders is especially beneficial for those with extensive app collections, making it easier to find and access specific applications without scrolling through multiple screens.
Including an auto folder, though not editable, is a thoughtful addition. It automatically sorts apps into predefined categories, helping users get started with their organization process right away.
It boasts a user-friendly interface that is easy to understand and navigate. For anyone seeking to declutter and organize their device’s home screen, “Folder in Folder” provides a convenient and straightforward solution.
WallMan
WallMan is an absolute gem of an app that brings stunning dynamic and static wallpapers from Google Pixel devices to any Android phone, delighting users with a wide range of customizable options and the ability to enjoy these beautiful live wallpapers for free.
The app’s primary appeal lies in its ability to provide access to Google Pixel’s exclusive live wallpapers, which were previously limited to those devices. One of the standout features is the customization it offers for some of the live wallpapers. Users can personalize the wallpapers by altering the shapes and their placements, providing an extra layer of creativity and uniqueness to their home screens.
The app’s collection of wallpapers is extensive, ranging from abstract designs to moving flowers and feathers. It even includes classic live wallpapers like the “OG Life Universe” and “Gradient Walls,” taking users on a nostalgic journey through the evolution of Google Pixel wallpapers. Moreover, it updates its collection, ensuring users can access the latest and greatest wallpapers from Google Pixel devices.
The only minor caveat is that some dynamic wallpapers require Android 11 or later, limiting full functionality on older devices. However, even on older versions, the app still provides a vast selection of static wallpapers, making it suitable for a broader range of Android users.
If you’re searching for a modern and feature-rich app store, look no further than Neo Store. This app delivers an exceptional experience, catering to every user with its sleek material design. The UX is intelligently crafted, giving users a sense of control and freedom while navigating the app.
Exploring new apps is a breeze with its user-friendly interface, allowing easy browsing and discovery. Finding that hidden gem has always been challenging with the app’s minimalist approach. Neo Store doesn’t just present apps; it offers comprehensive details, the latest apps, and a wide range of built-in repositories. This wealth of information ensures that you stay informed and ahead of the curve in the app world.
The app sorting and filtering system is a true standout feature, rivaling even the Google Play Store. You can effortlessly sort apps from different repositories and categories, a unique capability that sets it apart.
Keeping your apps up to date is crucial for security and functionality, and Neo Store also delivers on this front. With its auto-update feature, you can rest assured that your installed apps remain current and optimized.
PhotoTune is an amazing app that uses Artificial Intelligence to make your old, pixelated, blurry, or damaged pictures look fresh and beautiful again. With just one tap, this all-in-one AI photo enhancer can work wonders, turning your ordinary images into high-definition masterpieces.
The app’s standout feature is its state-of-the-art AI technology, which works like magic to unblur, restore, and enhance any image you throw at it. Whether you want to clear photo quality, restore old memories, or repair damaged pictures, “PhotoTune” delivers incredible results easily.
The app’s portrait and selfie enhancement capabilities are nothing short of impressive. Not only does it excel in restoring old and vintage photos, but it also offers the unique advantage of increasing the number of pixels in low-quality images. Overall, it is a must-have app for anyone seeking to revitalize their photo collection with the magic of AI.
Standby iOS
Standby iOS is a feature-packed app that brings a taste of the latest iOS 17 standby feature to your Android device. With its landscape mode clock display and many customizable options, this app elevates the user experience, offering a touch of sophistication to your device.
The standout feature of this app is undoubtedly the landscape mode clock, which automatically activates when your device is in a landscape orientation or while charging. The app’s flexibility shines through its ability to choose between an analog or digital clock display.
Customization options in “Standby iOS” are abundant, enabling users to personalize their standby clock to suit their unique style. From selecting clock faces to choosing color themes and fonts, the app offers an impressive range of choices to create a look that complements your device and aligns with your personality.
While the app delivers a polished clock experience, expanding its features beyond the clock display could further enhance its appeal. Integrating additional iOS-like widgets or interactive elements would provide a more comprehensive iOS simulation, enriching the overall experience.
Lunar Launcher
Lunar Launcher is a refreshing addition to the world of Android launchers, offering a clean and minimalistic interface with impressive features. Its low memory footprint and fully open-source nature make it an excellent choice for users seeking a lightweight and privacy-friendly launcher without intrusive ads or trackers.
One of the key strengths of this launcher is its adherence to Material Design 3, providing a modern and aesthetically pleasing user experience. The interface is simple and easy to use, making it a breeze for users to personalize their home screens.
The day/night theme mode is a wonderful feature, letting users switch effortlessly between light and dark themes to match their preferences or the time of day. This contributes to a more comfortable user experience, especially during low-light conditions.
The launcher’s gesture-based interactions enhance usability significantly. Double tapping to lock the device and swiping down to expand the notification panel are intuitive and efficient ways to interact with the device, making daily tasks smoother and quicker.
It also excels in its quick app search and launch feature, ensuring users can easily find and access their favorite apps with minimal effort.
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Launcher iPhone
Launcher iPhone is a perfect choice for customization lovers dying to experience the iOS UI on their Android phones. Unlike many phony skins and launchers that barely suffice to provide the iOS UI experience, the Launcher iPhone looks and works exactly like an iOS device. You will not notice any kind of creaks in development, that remind you that it is barely a launcher and not the real thing. The icons and fonts used by this launcher exactly replicate the ones used by iOS, and even the fluid animations seem pretty convincing to the eye.
Launcher iPhone packs all the features of iOS including Home Screen, Notification Center, Control Center, Lock Screen, Assistive Touch, and a few more. You can directly search an app by using the swiping-down gesture and can set up personalized gestures for quick access. Launcher iPhone supports app grouping which is handy if you have a cluttered home screen. The assistive touch feature works well and is tweakable as per your accessibility requirements.
This best launcher app is free to use but displays a lot of ads while using the launcher which can be irritating at times. A small bug is the inability to toggle mobile data from the control center which needs to be fixed by the dev. Overall, Launcher iPhone is a laud-worthy attempt of acquainting Android users with the iOS experience.
ApkPure has been there for quite some time and is a popular name in the Android community. The major reason behind this popularity is that it provides the apk files of almost all apps available on the Google Play Store. You can also access thousands of apps that are removed from the play store and the apps that never make it to the Play Store due to various reasons. ApkPure app brings an evolved experience of browsing and downloading apps in apk file format.
ApkPure offers a simple UI that displays apps categorically. Most of the apps are free and there is a special section for purchasing apps at a discount. The app assures that the apps do not contain any malware, and there is no sort of piracy prevalent on the store, in the form of modded apk files. The biggest advantage to the end-user is the wide accessibility of apps that are geo-restricted in their region and are not downloadable by the Play Store app.
AT Player is a full-fledged music streaming app that is brimming with features. The default music player included with any Android phone lacks online streaming and customization features. AT Player solves this problem by providing access to a free music library of over 20 million songs. The tracks can be streamed as well as downloaded for offline playback, as long as it is for personal usage. You can import your YouTube music playlists into the player and stream them within the app.
AT Player has a floating window mode that lets you play the music, and access the controls while using other apps on the smartphone. There is a feature to identify the song playing nearby and then play or download it to your device. The music collection is pretty vast and unless you nitpick, you can find lost every song that you love in a single search. AT Player offers 50 plus themes to make your player look distinguishable from the rest. This best music streaming app adopts a tiresome ad integration which sometimes renders the app usable for minutes. You can opt for the premium version that removes the ad integration and unlocks a few nifty features.
Float Tube is a boon for users that crave using YouTube in floating window mode but cannot do so because of their outdated Android versions. Even if the Android version is upgraded, sadly the YouTube app doesn’t allow users to view the videos in PIP (Picture in Picture) mode. Float Tube offers the exact features and lets you play YouTube videos while using other apps. The implementation is quite clean and you can skip and switch to the next video, all while using the floating window.
Float Tube lets you adjust the position, size of the player, minimize, block, or close the player via the control settings. It is easy to drag and position the player as per your preference and enable or disable the auto-play when not needed. Float Tube shows in-app ads that can be skipped after a few seconds. A recent update introduced a few bugs which broke a few features and devs are working to restore the app to its full glory.
Are you tired of handing out your real e-mail address and regretting it later because of endless promotions and spam mail? Well, you are not alone. A clean, clutter-less e-mail inbox is a distant dream for many of us but Temp Mail can solve it for you. The way that temp mail works is, by acting as a temporary mailbox for handling e-mails from people with whom you don’t want to share your professional or primary e-mail Id.
The best use case is to use Temp Mail as a pre-filter system for those services that you think are spamming in nature. Using Temp Mail, you can generate a new temporary e-mail and even dispose of them after you use it. By this method, you can test out a service and still remain guarded against spam.
Like a normal e-mail service, Temp Mail lets you view, download, and instantly view incoming emails and attachments. You cannot send mail or reply to incoming mail, which makes it even better for using it for staying anonymous. Like most apps, Temp Mail runs on an ad-supported model and can be quite persistent with them sometimes. But, if you need a temporary e-mail address very frequently, the paid version is a steal deal with round-the-clock support and no ads whatsoever.
The Utorrent and BitTorrent app for Android seems like a rushed execution that could otherwise have been a very powerful app for torrent management. TorrCrow is the perfect alternative for the torrent Android app, and even better in some aspects than the original. The most prominent difference that you’ll notice is the more interactive UI and the option to change themes and toggle the dark mode.
The base features remain the same, namely adding torrents via magnet links or torrent files. TorrCrow provides a comprehensive search feature that lets you search for a specific torrent available on a torrent search engine. If you cannot find matching torrent files, you can easily swap search engines to find them. The developer even integrated an autosuggest feature that lists out the matching search terms for your query.
Apart from that, you can share the magnet link with your peers and even begin downloads by directly opening the torrent client on your phone. Thus, torrent searching, filtering, and management become very easy with TorrCrow.
The free version works fine but if you intend to support the developer and continuously receive premium features, a lifetime pro versus is up for grabs at a very modest price.
Creating thumbnails should be easy, but considering the heavy image editing software used to create them, it becomes a painstaking process. If you frequently struggle with thumbnail creation and need a lightweight Android app to design and publish thumbnails, the Thumbnail Maker is worth a try. It is a simple yet powerful app to create custom size thumbnails for a variety of platforms.
You can create thumbnails for YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, banners, and much more with this best thumbnail app. The free version of this thumbnail creation tool comes with the most popular elements necessary to create a click-worthy thumbnail. You can choose from default templates or create one as per your requirements.
The elements library is vast and you get hundreds of emojis, icons, stickers, backgrounds, and fonts. So, enjoy a quick thumbnail design process with the thumbnail maker and drive higher engagement to your website and social media channels. Thumbnail Maker also offers a paid tier that doesn’t have ads and opens access to an even greater elements library.
Now if you might have noticed that recently YouTube is ramping up more ads and also rolling out new guidelines and restrictions which is becoming more frustrating and reducing the user experience. What if I tell you that there is an amazing app known as “Pure Tuber” that offers features such as background playback, and Pop up windows, and you can also download your songs and video for offline playback. But wait that’s not all, the best part about this app is that all these features are free to use.
If you love to listen to music or podcasts then the background playback feature is definitely for you as it will let you play any video in the background, meaning you can easily enjoy your favorite tracks from YouTube by minimizing the app, and BTW this is a Youtube premium feature that you are getting for free with this app.
If you live in a place where the internet connection is not strong or it’s quite expensive then with Pure Tuber you can download videos of different qualities with just a single click.
Now you might have heard about an iPhone feature that lets you double or triple-tap at the back to open an app shortcut which can really save you time. But for Android users, this feature is still not available officially. But there is an Amazing App known as Taptap that will let you enable this same feature on your Android devices.
With this app you can easily double tap on the back to open a specific app, I use it to open the camera app, and you can set it to open any app shortcut like google assistant or maybe to take a quick screenshot. You can also fiddle around with the sensitivity of your tap and I will highly recommend you to try this app.
Everybody loves gifs. The usage of gifs to convey messages has increased on social media platforms. Gif Live Wallpaper is among the best unknown Android apps that allow you to set your favorite gif as a live wallpaper on your Android device. Even the conversion of the gif into a love wallpaper is very easy. You just have to select the gif inside the application and then just resize the live wallpaper as per your preference.
This application is fully open-source and doesn’t charge a penny for its services. Currently, I did not encounter any advertisements which is also a major step for a free application. You do not need to root your Android device to use this live wallpaper application. To save the battery drain, the application stops the gif playback when the device is turned off. It still needs some fine-tuning but for a free app, it is admissible.
If you need Instagram, but don’t want to use the official app, Barinsta is an unofficial Instagram client that you can use in simple mode – without logging in or as a more complete alternative, by logging in with your account.
Barinsta is touted as an Instagram alternative for those who need to keep up to date with what’s happening on Instagram but without most of the app hassles like ads, suggestions, or tabs. It is an open-source application that you can use without logging into your account.
Secure file manager is a great Android file manager app that lives up to its name, and you won’t be able to find this app on the google play store. The UI of the app is fairly minimal, you will get a stacked view of your folders. One of the best features of this file manager app is that you can hide any folder or file with just a click within the file manager.
Other features include locking apps with passwords or biometrics which adds an extra layer of security and encrypting file features that let you easily encrypt your files. Now, these security features clearly show how the developer of this app is focused on the security which lacks nowadays.
Social media are great for finding interesting web-based articles; however, it’s not always practical to go through them immediately. Sometimes it’s better to queue some articles and revisit them later. This is what you can accomplish using Lynket Browser. It loads websites in the background. It’s accessible any time you’d like by pressing the floating on-screen bubbles. It’s easy to use and yet extremely useful.
It works with your default browser, and it can accelerate browsing speed by loading automatically the AMP versions of the websites you click. Another fantastic characteristic of the Lynket Browser is reading the pages in Article mode. This is a stylish and sleek reader mode without the fillers and fluff. Although the app hasn’t been recently updated, it’s still delivered the promises it makes.
Blokada is one of the most useful apps, which is not available on the Google Play Store. The app is a free and open-source Ad-blocker compatible with both Android and iOS devices. The app is easy to operate, as it does not have a complex matrix. All you need to do is to open Blokada, and you are good to go. Not only the browser but the app blocks ads across all the installed apps on your phone that will save the user’s mobile data.
Navigation gestures have become the new standard for smartphones with modern screens; however, they seem restricted. They are only available in the lower part of the screen and can’t accomplish much more than the primary navigation. Full-Screen Gestures fix that. The gestures can be used anywhere across the display’s left, right, and bottom edges.
It also lets users use two options for every edge – one to allow a short swipe and another for a longer swipe. Are you, not a fan of swiping down to access notifications? Instead, swipe up! These additional options let you regulate the volume, activate Google Assistant, toggle the flashlight, and more.
Crunchyroll is among the best unknown Android apps and has been the top anime streaming app for over a decade now. It is also available on the play store and offers more than 1000 anime titles to choose from. Apart from popular anime series such as One Piece, Naruto, Boruto, and Hunter X Hunter, the latest anime titles such as Dr. Stone, and Tower of God are also available to stream
The free tier of Crunchyroll has intense ad placement that can be bothersome while watching your favorite anime titles. Content availability is not an issue on this best anime streaming app, but the ads are a bit too much. You can opt for the premium plan to remove every advertisement and get instant access to streaming the episode after it releases in Japan.
There is also a feature for offline viewing along with the ability to stream on six devices at once. Crunchyroll offers a free 14 days trial of its premium tier, so you can easily judge if the app is worth your money.
If you are annoyed with the background process running on your Android smartphone, then SuperFreezZ can effectively stop all background activities with a single click. The app automatically freezes all apps that have not been used for more than a week on YOUR Android smartphone.
It even provides the option to freeze all background activities as soon as your display is turned off. On top of that, it even has the option to freeze itself, when not in use. You can easily whitelist apps that you don’t want to freeze and adding or removing apps from the list is quite easy.
SuperFreezZ is among the best unknown Android apps that are completely open-source and free software that does not charge you for using it. Neither does it have persistent ads, that pop up every time you open the app. If you use SuperFreezZ, it will take up to 3 seconds to de-freeze the apps and get them running. Thus, you have granular control over apps and background activities and can save a lot of battery by disabling unused apps.
Midori Browser is a lightweight browser for Android devices that comes with an inbuilt ad blocker. Most mobile browsers cannot block advertisements but the Midori browser can block ads, and also the trackers placed by any website that you visit. Midori Browser can be customized as per your preference and supports changing the color scheme, moving the navigation bar, adding or removing bookmarks, and many more such features.
Midori Browser is one of the best unknown Android apps that deserve more recognition for its seamless browsing experience and rich feature set, that lets you browse the internet in peace. It is free to use and comes with private browsing features to maintain your anonymity on the internet. Midori Browser is completely open-source and if you are a developer you can contribute words to improving the app experience.
XClipper is a clipboard application that lets you view your clipboard history, especially if you need to access the previously copied text. It is among the best unknown Android apps that let you find a workaround to enable the clipboard monitoring service.
Apart from accessing your clipboard history, the app lets you sync your Android and Windows clipboard. You can also shorten links using a tiny URL and directly text a number without adding it to your contacts list. The app lets you share clipboard history and also export it to Google Drive.
If you love using credit on a frequent basis and are annoyed by the pop-ups in the official Reddit app, Stealth can help you to navigate credit in the best possible way. Unlike the official Reddit app that forces you to sign in every time you are viewing a feed, Stealth requires no sign-in at all.
The user interface is far better than the original Reddit app and features a much cleaner app layout with slightly purple color accents. You can even apply an NSFW filter and it can stop spoilers from playing automatically. It even has dark theme support but the app looks best if you use it on default theme mode.
Vectorify da Home is among the best unknown Android apps that are on Google Play Store but still lacks the attention it deserves. Unlike traditional wallpaper applications, Vectorify da Home presents you with the option to construct your wallpapers using vector graphics. It is simply awesome and is best suited for users that are tired of wallpaper repetitions.
The application directly presents you with a category, with a vector image. You can change the vector graphics and the background color at this stage. There are some recommendations for color combinations below that you can choose. Vectorify da Home has a lot of categories of vector graphics to choose from. I liked the nerdy and tech category but you have many other options as well. Once you are done with the vector coloring, click on the large tick button to move to the next stage.
Here, you can preview your creation, shift the vector in any direction, increase or decrease its size, and even preview it. The application provides the option to save these wallpapers to your gallery and use them. Currently, there are over 400 plus vector graphics available and the developer is working on increasing the catalog. Vectorify da Home is, therefore, one of the best unknown Android apps that is teeny tiny in size.
Photok acts as your photo vault to secure your personal photos from unauthorized access, sharing, and copying. Despite being available on the Play Store, it is one of the best unknown Android apps that needs a dedicated user base. The app itself is pretty simple. You just have to import the photos that you want to store in the application and encrypt them.
The application uses the AES-256-bit encryption standard to encrypt the images and is unbreakable. The encrypted photos are only accessible by opening the application and can be viewed inside the application itself. The application requires you to create a strong password that prevents unauthorized access by any other person using your phone. It also has the option to create and restore backups so that you can safely create a backup for your other devices as well.
Infinity for Reddit is an Android application that simplifies the clutter present in Reddit. It is a passion project by the developer to provide a clean Reddit browsing experience for the readers. Infinity for Reddit is one of the best unknown Android apps that is a refined version of Reddit that provides more control to the user.
The application supports the dark theme and presents three sections that display your subscriptions, popular posts, and all of the posts until now. You can register or even browse anonymously without ever worrying about forced sign-ups. It comes with filters to sort the posts by category that includes hit, new, rising, top, and controversial. Also, there is a lazy mode option that scrolls the feed after 2.5 seconds.
Infinity for Reddit has an NSFW and spoiler feature that ignores all the posts containing such content. You even get the option to change the post layout to simply text and gallery mode. This is one of the best unknown Android apps that come with well-thought features that actually make browsing through Reddit posts easy.
Tsacdop is a simple and elegant Android app that is unknown to most podcast lovers. The application is entirely free with zero ad placement and microtransactions. It supports accent-colored themes to make it more comfortable for your eyes. Tsacdop is surely among the best unknown Android apps that are slowly becoming popular among avid podcast lovers.
Tsacdop allows you to create a sleep timer, and manage podcast groups. It also has playlist support that has auto-syncing in the background. There is a podcast download feature that also contains auto-download and deletes podcasts from your device.
Moreover, the application lets you skip the bits that have no audio and also alters the playback speed if the narration is slow as per your standards. The latest update has reduced the memory utilization of the app so it can easily run on Android devices with minimal resources.
Google implements a lot of trackers into the Android operating system. After that, you have the custom ROMs and all other applications that slowly monitor your every activity in the background. To curb this blatant misuse of personal information, you can use Tracker Control. It is among the best unknown Android apps that can effectively stop each application from tracking you.
Tracker Control has an inbuilt directory of more than 2 million applications that implement hidden tracking into the Android device. You can let the application block tracking for you or you can set custom preferences about select apps. Tracker Control is an attempt to help raise awareness about the privacy and misuse of data by many applications. There is also a feature to request your personal data stored on their servers.
As you can see, there is no dearth of the best unknown Android apps that are equally good but not popular. My list is an attempt to cover at least a few of them that can help you make your Android experience better. Most of the applications mentioned above are absolutely free and do not contain forced advertising and subscription modules.
Momix, BootBoi, and Gif Live Wallpaper are some unique Android apps mentioned in our list of the best unknown Android apps.
Are paid applications better?
No. It depends entirely on the developer and his revenue model. Paid applications just unlock a few more features that are available to a freemium user.