14 June, 2020

by Updated on 14 June, 2020 2 comments

Must Have Free Apps For Android [Update 2020]

Google Play Store is now crowded with apps. You get a new app and update to the installed app every day. Still then, there is the limited list of apps every smart android user must have on their phone.
Here is the list of apps that you must install for productive use of the mobile. 

I have not included the obvious apps like Gmail or social media apps like Twitter and Facebook. Also Google App and similar apps are excluded from the list to keep the list tidy. 
Still at first part, there are some apps that are not so common as Gmail so jump to the next section if you already have them.
Pin it: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/161074124161341396/

Best Free Android Apps Every Phone Must Have

Before we start:

  • I have made a list of only FREE applications.
  • Some apps may offer in-app purchase.
  • The feature, memory usage, frequency of updates and active development are considered to shortlist the apps.
  • The reputation of the developer is also considered to be sure about privacy problems.
  • Every application listed here is tested at least for a month.

Obvious Apps Everyone Should Install (Non Google)

1. Nova Launcher
Clean, simple and consistent. Doesn't matter, how frequently you change your phone. You can carry your home-screen, app drawer, themes and everything with Nova Launcher. Support dark mode, folders, widgets and everything you name it. It should be the first app on your new phone.

Stock AOSP does not have gallery application. Very simple without any fancy additions and completely free. No ads and data sharing. Even if your phone already has any other gallery app, you must give it a try.

You can use it as a streaming media player to listen to online radio stations, even watch YouTube videos. BTW, you can also play any type of video and audio files.

Ads are good for app developers, but they should have limits. Most of the apps harvest personal data and other than showing your ads. Blockada is the best, open-source and completely free solution to block all types of advertising shown on your Android mobile.

The best Google Play Store alternative with Privacy focused apps. Try it. There are many apps that are not available on the Google Play Store due to restrictions of Google policy are available on F-Droid.

The Best, completely free and most customizable e-book reader.

7. Pocket
Save and read web articles on packet offline. Just throw any web page to Packet and it will convert it to a clean and readable format that can be accessed without a data connection.

8. Evernote
Its personal, forever notebook available on all platforms including iOS and Windows. Put all your notes, articles, research, voice notes, images, PDF and everything else.
It is a great way to organize your daily life.

9. FeedMe
The Best RSS feed reader app. Support Feedly, InoReader,  The old reader, feedbin and other RSS services. An offline reading feature, custom looks, and themes make it great.

10. Microsoft Office Lens
A camera document scanner app. Superb edge detection and cropping. Converts any image to clean and flat document. Ditch that Chinese data thief cam scanner.


Tools

If your music player, FM radio or any other application do not have a sleep timer, this will automatically close the app, you tell after a specified time.

12. Link2SD
If you have a rooted phone, it's a must. If you don't, still its best application manager. Also, have a built-in cache cleaner.

Searching anything in phone or web that is not generally possible with other search apps.

Automatic backup of apps, SMS, call log at a specified interval. Works perfectly in the background. Bug-free.

Sync any local folder on Android mobile memory to the cloud service like Dropbox or Google Drive. You can easily backup data of important apps to the cloud. Even if any of your favorite app do not support database backup or cloud sync, FolderSync help you to back up your precious data to cloud.

Download


16. ADM
Best download manager on Android.

17. Flud
The Best torrent downloader and seeding client.


Google 

Apart from Google Drive, Calendar, Chrome, Maps here are few apps that are not commonly used but you must use them.

Control any adnroid device remotely. You can control screen time, apps installations, monitor data usage and everything on the client device. There are two apps. Google Family link for parents and other is for kids. You can control every activity on kids andorid phone. If your family members have android device, this is a must.

The best way to back up all photos and other images to the cloud. Unlimited backup without worrying about storage limits. Uploading is smooth and you can manage to back up selective folders and backup only on Wi-Fi and only while charging.
Simple way to track your daily health activity and sync with Google account. Also, record your location with Google map.

21. Google GBoard keyboard
Best Android keyboard. Handwriting support and voice to text input support. Powered by Google AI, it is most accurate and easy to use keyboard app for every android mobile.
Two-step verification is essential and most of the popular web services offer it. Google Authenticator is widely adopted. It works with every website, even with Microsoft account.

Can be used as dictionary to get the meaning of words or whole sentence. Can identify text from images and translate it.

24. Color dictionary
Apart from many other dictionary applications, it allows you to use on other apps. Just select the word in any other app and Color dictionary offer you a floating window with meaning.

25. Keep
Everything that is not fit for sending to Evernote, comes here. A little reminder, sticky note, to-do list, task manager, buying list and so. It syncs to your Google account and available on desktop.



Social Media

Send WhatsApp messages without saving the new number in your phone book or contacts.

Removes all EXIF data and reduce size by compressing it before sharing images on social media. Privacy for your images. It can convert 10mb images to 500kb size with no visible quality loss, so you can send them over e-mail and social media.

Auto RDM read and backup all the messages as they are received on your phone from the status bar. So, even if the sender deletes the message, you have a backed up copy. Works with all chat messaging apps and can handle text, images and videos.

Read deleted or removed Reddit comments.

28. QKSMS
Beautiful SMS app. Support "scheduled messages" function. Pre-write an SMS and set day and time it's going to send it automatically. (free on F-droid, Paid on Google Play)


Money Manager

Open source Expense Manager. Feature packed and free. The F-Droid version is completely free and Play Store version has in app purchases. You can export your database in CSV, Excel and PDF format. Superb app.

30. Abcba
Excellent Group expenses manager. Useful if group of friends want to manager their group expenses and find out who owes to whom in real time. Sync on everyone's phone.

Completely free and feature-rich money management application. Also, available on Windows OS and Linux. No feature lock or limited period trial. It's totally free.


Notification and Status Bar Enhancement

A persistent locked notification. You can use it as a permanent reminder about anything. 🚀 Quickly add & edit tasks / to-dos / notes from notifications themselves. Customize to different themes and colors. 

Shows download progress in status bar for ongoing notifications.

Easily change the brightness without bringing down quick settings. Also support volume control swipe gestures.

File Transfer

Free and open source app that enables can send files between two devices over Wi-Fi. You can use two android devices or a PC. Available on Google Play Store and GitHub

Other

36. ACCA
App requires root access. Configurable tool to control how your device charges. You can limit charging at a certain percentage. Shutdown the device when battery is too low (ex 5%), Control battery temperatures and other similar features.

37. Shootey
No more different camera modes from different cameras. Many apps allow you to snap a photo for sharing, but they do not use the system camera app. They snap a bad quality photos. Shootey forces to use only system camera app always on all apps.

Decode almost every format of the barcode on any product. Open source and free.

39. BaldPhone 
Launcher, platform, which makes it easy for elderly, disabled to use a smartphone. A new accessible interface for your smartphone, suitable for seniors.

Paid

[Paid] Find the definition of a word without leaving the app. Select any word to find its meaning. Works like a floating dictionary.

[Paid] Save every text that you type in any app on your phone. You never know when it can be really useful. Typesave works completely offline. Everything you type is stored within your devices storage. Typesave does not store any text input from Android's native password field. Anything apart from it, will be stored.

[Paid] Actions based on notifications. Reads all your notification and do what you have automated. Ex: If you get notification from Messages app that contains 'Dad' then remind me every 10 minutes. You can set like this for any app and any task.

Do you like the least? What are your favorite applications? Please reply.
About The Author
Passionate Technology Blogger. Not a profession. Find only real life useful and simplified Tech articles, How-To's on TopTrix.

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