DetoxDroid: Digital Detox by Default
Grayscale, doomscrolling breaker, app blocker: a boring phone by default
Version: 2.8.1
Added: 01-01-2021
Updated: 22-09-2026
Added: 01-01-2021
Updated: 22-09-2026
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
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