With AI allowing anyone to build apps at the speed of thought, we are seeing an influx of apps hitting Windows and other platforms. True, not all of them are useful, but there are a handful of open-source apps that I found worth installing in my day-to-day workflow that I think are worth making room for this weekend.
It’s not just these, mind; there’s a whole suite of free open-source Android apps you probably didn’t know about that deserve your attention.
FluentCleaner
An open-source CCleaner alternative that actually looks native
I never liked system cleaners and always found them to be snake oil. However, if you really want to clean up some files and free up space, FluentCleaner is a good place to start. It’s an open-source Windows cleanup tool that takes inspiration from CCleaner and uses the WinApp2.ini database to identify unnecessary files, app leftovers, and other junk that Storage Sense might miss.
The app is built on WinUI 3, so it looks native to Windows. The interface is nothing fancy, with three tabs on the left: Cleaner, Terminal, and Tools. Selecting Cleaner lets you choose what you want to scan. You can scan individual apps or your entire PC for junk. It can find Microsoft NuGet Package Cache, Chrome cache, and Nvidia update files among other app leftovers that tend to hog several gigabytes of storage.
Then there’s Terminal if you’d rather use commands to clean up your PC, and Tools lets you add features via extensions from other developers, such as Boot Access Helper, ChrisTitusApp, and Post-setup clean. It’s a solid option for people who want more control than Storage Sense offers without the bloat that CCleaner has become.
Coffee
A simple Android app that keeps your screen awake
My Android phone automatically locks the screen after 10 seconds of inactivity. It helps save battery, prevents accidental touches, and adds privacy. But it can be annoying when your phone locks while you are reading, trying to take a picture of the screen, or doing anything that needs the display to stay on.
Yes, you can change the screen timeout in settings so it stays on for a couple of minutes. Or you can use Coffee, an open-source app for Android that keeps your phone screen awake. It uses a foreground service with a wake lock and lets you set a timer from 1 to 60 minutes, or suspend the screen lock indefinitely. It works much like PowerToys Awake, but for Android. It also offers a Quick Settings tile with timer options and has no ads or trackers.
The only downside is that the app is not available on the Play Store. You can download it from GitHub, IzzyOnDroid, or through Obtainium if you already have it installed.
Gramophone
A clean local music player that can’t be matched on Android
With almost everyone turning to music streaming platforms like YouTube Music and Spotify, a local media player might make less sense than ever. However, I have had a large collection of music since 2013 that travels with my phone, and a good local media player is a must, even if I had to buy one.
Fortunately, Gramophone offers a premium music experience for free and has zero ads. It’s an open-source music app for Android with a clean and minimalist Material You design, which is something VLC has always lacked on mobile. It offers proper library management with albums, artists, playlists, folder browsing, and sorting options. For synced lyrics, it supports LRC, TTML, and SRT formats, which doesn’t do on Android. There’s also volume normalization with ReplayGain 2.0.
More importantly, Gramophone is available on the Play Store and F-Droid, so you don’t need to manually download and install APKs from GitHub.
ClearPDF
An open-source PDF editor that handles more than just PDFs
ClearPDF is an open-source PDF editor that lets you read, annotate, scan, and edit documents locally on your Android phone. It supports OCR, annotation, form filling, PDF creation from text or images, and digital signatures. What’s more, it supports viewing and editing multiple file formats, including DOCX, PPT, ODT, RTF, CSV, and text files. There’s also a basic image editor where you can crop, add filters, draw, and add watermarks. Everything runs on your device, so there are no uploads or cloud dependencies.
The app is not available on the Play Store; you’ll have to download it from GitHub or through Obtainium if you already have it installed. It runs on Android 6.0 and up.
Notally
A tiny, no-nonsense note-taking app that does its job
Notally is not new by any stretch, but it has received some updates recently, so it deserves a mention. It’s an open-source note-taking app for Android that is minimal, lightweight, and exactly what you need if you want to take notes without dealing with feature overload.
It supports rich text formatting, and you can add colors to notes, pin them, or add labels for organization. It also supports reminders and a home screen widget to quickly view and add notes. Notes can have image attachments, and you can export them in PDF, text, JSON, and HTML formats.
The highlight, though, is its incredibly small footprint, less than 2MB, despite offering everything a basic note-taking app should. Notally is available on Google Play Store, F-Droid, and IzzyOnDroid.
Less established but useful open-source apps
The Android apps here, Coffee, ClearPDF, and Notally, are the kind of tools that quietly replace the cluttered, ad-heavy alternatives that most of us are stuck with. Similarly, FluentCleaner brings the classic era of CCleaner back to Windows, but completely free and without the bloat.
