DetoxDroid
com.flx_apps.digitaldetox
Zapstore _@zapstore.dev Grayscale, doomscrolling breaker, app blocker: a boring phone by default
Republished from GitHub / F-Droid by the Zapstore main account.
Most digital detox apps want you to sign a contract with yourself: no phone for the next X minutes, no more than Z minutes in app Y. A few of them take your money when you break it. DetoxDroid works the other way round. It strips the attention-grabbing tricks out of the phone, so that a calm phone is what you get when you do nothing at all. Nothing to start, no session to survive. The protection is simply on, and you pause it on purpose when you actually need something. Use your phone. Don't let your phone use you. FEATURES * Make Apps Boring (grayscale, dimmed, blurred). The color drains out of the apps on your list, and on Android 12 and newer they go soft and blurry too: a feed turns into shapes, still navigable and no longer worth scrolling. This runs from the minute you install DetoxDroid. No computer, no root, nothing to grant. True grayscale it is not. An overlay can only ever paint on top of the screen, so it drags color and contrast towards a flat gray instead of taking the color out. A red notification dot stays recognisably red. The screen just looks dead, which is the entire point. For the real thing, see SETUP. * Break Doom Scrolling. Notices when you are stuck in an endless feed (Shorts, Reels and friends) and interrupts you. After the break, that feed stays locked for a cooldown. * Disable Apps. A distracting app can make you wait a few seconds before it opens, sit behind a blocking screen, or be deactivated outright, launcher icon and notifications included. Give it a daily budget and every open costs the wait until the budget is gone. After that, the app locks itself until tomorrow. * Automatic Do Not Disturb. On for as long as DetoxDroid runs. Notifications wait for you. * Pause Button. From Quick Settings, from your assistant, or by holding a hardware button for two seconds. DetoxDroid resumes by itself afterwards, and a minimum gap between pauses keeps "just one more" in check. * Commitment Password. Locks the settings behind a password. Keep it yourself, or hand it to someone who won't give it back the second you ask. SETUP (optional, and worth it) The system color filter is a secure setting: Android hands it only to apps holding WRITE_SECURE_SETTINGS, and there is no dialog to tap. Grant it once and the wash turns into real grayscale, with Extra Dim on top, which pushes the screen below the minimum brightness Android normally allows. Three routes: from a computer over adb, on the phone itself through Shizuku (the app walks you through it, roughly five minutes), or in one tap if you are rooted. It survives reboots. Grayscale, Extra Dim and the screen filter are separate switches. Run one, run all three. The blur needs Android 12 or newer, and Android drops it while battery saver is on. Nothing I can do about that one. KEEPING IT RUNNING Some phones are ruthless with background apps, and a stopped DetoxDroid does nothing at all without telling you. There is a setting to keep it alive, and a notification for when your phone stops it anyway. FREE AND OPEN SOURCE No ads, no tracking, no account. Every feature is there for everyone. The extras (right now that is the longer usage history) sit behind a lock that opens when you donate, or when you tap "unlock without donating". The lock is a nudge. Nobody checks. If DetoxDroid earns its place on your phone, LiberaPay and Ko-fi keep me working on it. Bugs and ideas: https://github.com/flxapps/DetoxDroid
First release: Sep 10, 2025, 17 total releases.
Most recent release: Oct 22, 2026.
Appears in 0 app stacks.
0 sats / 0 zaps received in the past year.
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Underlying data available via MCP: app_zaps, app_releases.
Zap Count
Underlying data available via MCP: app_zaps, app_releases.
Releases
- Oct 22, 2026 3.0.1### Release v3.0.1 🐛 Bug Fixes - Suspend as the lock mode now sets up Shizuku, not the grayscale permission - while Shizuku is not running, a suspend lock shows the block screen instead
- Oct 22, 2026 3.0.0### Release v3.0.0 ✨ New Features - your rules are groups now: apps and websites, when they count, how much time they get, and what happens then; existing rules were carried over - websites, in Chrome, Firefox and most browsers built on them, with ready-made lists for porn, gambling, dating, shopping, social media and video - time budgets per day or per clock hour, counted from when a group's window opens - Reels, Shorts and TikTok get their scroll break on time and pace - a screen time widget, and today's screen time in the notification - templates for new groups, from social feeds to nights off - time on websites in the usage statistics
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🐛 Bug Fixes - the service comes back after a force stop, or says why it is off - today's screen time no longer includes the day before - a setting changed twice in a row could revert after a restart - opening a system settings page works on phones that lack the usual one - Oct 13, 2026 2.9.1### Release v2.9.1 🐛 Bug Fixes - describe the accessibility service on its settings page
- Oct 10, 2026 2.9.0### Release v2.9.0 ✨ New Features - pull an emergency brake that runs every feature at its strictest for a set time - suspend listed apps through Shizuku, between blocking and deactivating - save your settings to a file and read them back, here or on another phone - count screen time without usage access, where Android won't grant it - pull the brake from a tile, a home screen icon or the break screen, or let it pull itself - leave chosen apps and categories out of the numbers - choose a light or dark theme, or follow the system
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- ask before carrying a selection over to the other list type - caption the store screenshots in French, Spanish, Portuguese and Italian 🐛 Bug Fixes - stop DetoxDroid when asked to, instead of leaving it running - put grayscale back when Android's own setting switched it off - keep the passphrase when the keystore is busy right after boot - keep the wait before opening when animations are off in the system settings - open a settings page the ROM has instead of crashing on a missing one - recognise Shizuku when it is installed under another package name - lock the keep-alive switch and the usage stats quick actions with the other settings - count only installed apps in the selection summaries - Sep 22, 2026 2.8.2### Release v2.8.2 🐛 Bug Fixes - don't crash when the keystore cannot read its own store
- Sep 20, 2026 2.8.1### Release v2.8.1 ✨ New Features - explain Android's restricted settings when a grant fails - log why an app was grayscaled, for bug reports 🐛 Bug Fixes - turn DetoxDroid off without the adb permission - stop the screen staying gray after a reboot - stop the filter flickering in recents and sharing
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- report the time an app is really on screen - end Do Not Disturb when its schedule ends - keep system backups working while device owner - stop the setup wizard replacing locked settings - Sep 17, 2026 2.8.0### Release v2.8.0 ✨ New Features - add a short wait before distracting apps open, before or instead of locking them - see each schedule as a week and set its times on a 24-hour dial - set up the screen filter in one place, with a strength slider - group settings in blocks, with rarely changed ones under Advanced - add the Quick Settings pause tile from the Pause Button screen - show the passphrase while typing it, in calmer dialogs - keep an optional debug log to search and share for bug reports
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🐛 Bug Fixes - stop a keyboard, TalkBack or a date set forward from getting past the passphrase - stop counting time in a listed app while Disable Apps is paused - stop typing in a text field from counting as doom scrolling - lock option chips like the operation mode with the other settings - let drags that start on a locked setting scroll the screen again - open the system page for Extra Dim's strength on a long press - keep the break screen clear of the status bar - Sep 8, 2026 2.7.0### Release v2.7.0 ✨ New Features - make distracting apps dull and blurry with a screen filter, no computer or root needed - choose whether the screen filter shades, blurs, or both - switch grayscale, extra dim and the screen filter on and off separately - warn when the phone stops DetoxDroid in the background, with an optional keepalive - exempt DetoxDroid from battery optimization from the home screen - turn the about screen into about & settings
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🐛 Bug Fixes - hand the system display filters back when DetoxDroid stops, instead of leaving the screen gray and dimmed - start a feature when its schedule opens, not only stop it when the schedule ends - stop losing the foreground app between window events, which left effects stuck on or off - Jul 27, 2026 2.6.1### Release v2.6.1 ✨ New Features - target SDK 35 for future compatibiltiy - add German translation - enhance doom scrolling detection with probation thresholds and grace handling 🐛 Bug Fixes - enhance foreground package tracking in accessibility service
- Jul 22, 2026 2.6.0### Release v2.6.0 ✨ New Features - implement new onboarding flow
- Jul 19, 2026 2.5.1### Release v2.5.1 🐛 Bug Fixes - crash when reading the extra dim state on ROMs that restrict hidden settings
- Jul 17, 2026 2.5.0### Release v2.5.0 ✨ New Features - add daily and weekly usage stats with charts and per-app breakdowns - add optional supporter mode to unlock extra features on an honor basis - allow limiting pause to specific features instead of disabling everything - show expiration time on the pause notification - add sensitivity settings and better explanatory text to break screens - improve app picker to float selected apps to the top and allow copying selections between features
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🐛 Bug Fixes - restore previous interruption filter instead of defaulting to all when finished - ensure pauses auto resume and respect the minimum time interval - enforce screen time limits consistently within single apps - continue tracking usage stats during a pause - fix timing issues with schedule rules and prevent duplicate info cards - fix crashes on Android 12+ and resolve window leaks or double dismissals - improve handling when permissions are revoked and switch root grant to shell - prevent stale taps on the donut chart and reduce redundant stats queries - optimize password checks and cleanup nodes when the scan cap is hit - fix number picker behavior and ensure hardware keys stop capturing after dismissal - re-enable color immediately when the allowance is back - move heavy tasks like password hashing and root checks off the main thread to stop screen freezing - improve background process safety and fix broken settings links - fix layout issues with chips and make them readable on cards - Jun 2, 2026 2.4.0### Release v2.4.0 ✨ New Features - implement Commitment Password feature with tamper detection and recovery notifications - add Minimal Launcher widget with app selection and configuration - enhance App Exceptions screen with clearer UI - add About screen with project information and support links - add dark theme support
- Jun 2, 2026 2.3.1### Release v2.3.1 🐛 Bug Fixes - prevent stuck grayscale in allowlisted apps after service restart - Grayscale feature would not disable when grayscale mode was already on when starting the service.
- ### Release v2.3.0 ✨ New Features - add pause from notification support and debug logging - add battery optimization handling to improve app stability 🐛 Bug Fixes - update changelog generation to use dynamic git range instead of hardcoded version
- ### Release v2.3.0 ✨ New Features - add pause from notification support and debug logging - add battery optimization handling to improve app stability 🐛 Bug Fixes - update changelog generation to use dynamic git range instead of hardcoded version
- ### Release v2.2.0 ✨ New Features - add Shizuku support for elevated permissions and enhance permissions UI 🐛 Bug Fixes - enhance grayscale toggle functionality to preserve daltonizer state