The vast majority of people use mobile phones, and an ever-increasing fraction of those are smartphones. Smartphones have become a vital part of who we are. They are our connection to the outside world. We go to them for the entertainment we need to get through the day, the education that helps keep us sharp, and the connection with our loved ones that keeps us happy and sane.
They are also the place where much of our work gets done, which is arguably what they were created for in the first place. In fact, research shows that 88% of people use their phone at work at least once a day. And what do we do when we’re on our phones at work? According to a survey by Zogby Analytics, we’re using apps—specifically for productivity (55%) and communication (45%).
Table of Contents
Best Apps For Free
1Weather
Price: Free / $1.99
1Weather is about as complete of a weather app as you can find. It comes with all kinds of stuff including current conditions, forecasts, radar, predictions, fun facts about meteorology, graphs, and even a sun and moon tracker. The design is gorgeous as well and the app includes fairly decent and somewhat configurable widgets.
There is a single $1.99 in-app purchase to remove advertising. However, all the features are available in the free version and the ads are inoffensive so it’s largely to buy it. You can also check out our list of the best weather apps if you want an alternative. We also quite like AccuWeather, especially since AccuWeather’s redesign in mid-2020.
Bitwarden Password Manager
Price: Free
Bitwarden Password Manager is one of a few decent free password manager apps. It works like most password managers. You get a vault with all of your usernames and passwords. You can store as many as you want without worry and retrieve them as needed. In addition, the app has 256-bit AES encryption and it is entirely open source.
It hits all of the checkboxes for a good, free password manager. The app saw a spike in popularity after LastPass reduced the features on its free tier. KeePassDroid is another excellent option in this space, but we like Bitwarden’s UI just a little bit more. You can also check out our best password manager apps list for more options.
Blue Mail
Price: Free
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Blue Mail screenshot 2021
Blue Mail is one of the best free Android apps for email. It features a simple design that helps you keep your emails in line. Additionally, it comes with support for a ton of email providers, color coding for organization, app theming, Android Wear support, and widgets. There are also a variety of smart features such as blocking notifications during certain times (per account) to help customize your experience.
Really, there aren’t many email apps more customizable than this one. It does a lot of things right and very few things wrong. This is about as good as it gets without a price tag. There are some questions about its privacy policy and we recommend reading it if those things concern you. Here’s a list of more excellent email app options as well.
Cookmate
Price: Free / $20 per year
Cookmate is arguably the best individual cookbook app on mobile. A lot of people have a lot of dietary wants and needs so the use of a personal cookbook app benefits a lot of people. This one is particularly nice to use. You can create custom recipes from scratch, complete with instructions and an ingredients list. Additionally, you can import recipes from virtually any website.
The UI is clean and easy to use plus there is cloud backup, even in the free version. The premium version is a yearly subscription, but all it really does is increase the number of recipes you can sync or you can just use the Dropbox option. Of course, there are many other excellent recipe and cooking apps here if you want to see more.
Credit Karma
Price: Free
Credit Karma screenshot 2022
Credit Karma is a fun little financial app. What it does is let you check your credit score for free. On top of that, the app will notify you when there are major changes to your credit score. The app offers some other things too, such as potential credit cards that you may qualify for based on your credit score. You don’t have to accept those if you don’t want to.
It’s a simple, easy way to check out your credit and start fixing things if needed. It’s one of the more underrated free Android apps. Credit Karma is not 100% accurate, but it gives you a good idea of what’s going on. The notifications also let you know if a new account was opened in your name. NerdWallet is a great alternative to this. Additionally, Intuit (owner of Turbo Tax) purchased Credit Karma for $7.1 billion in early 2020 so there may be some changes to the app moving forward. Check out some budget apps for Android for some other money stuff too.
Want to see more apps? Try these:
15 best Android apps, ever
10 best NEW Android apps (updated monthly)
Gboard
Price: Free
Gboard screenshot 2020
Gboard is Google’s official keyboard app. It’s a simple keyboard that doesn’t have too many frills. It does have gesture typing (swiping), light theming, voice typing, emoji search, GIF support, and more. Its most unique feature is the built-in Google search that lets you search the web without leaving the keyboard or app that you’re in.
It can also sync between devices so your saved words go with you. It’s effective, simple, and 100% free. You’ll want to try this one out if your phone keyboard is giving you fits. It’s one of the best free Android apps for sure. SwiftKey is also great in a different sort of way and there are other great Android keyboards here as well.
Google Drive
Price: Free / $1.99-$299.99 per month
Google Drive screenshot 2020
The Google Drive suite are a group of applications that are all directly integrated into Google Drive. The apps include Google Docs, Google Slides, Google Sheets, Google Photos, and Google Keep along with the actual Google Drive app itself.
These apps focus primarily on office use for documents, spreadsheets, and slideshows but also work for note-taking, backing up your photos, and storing whatever file you can think of. The best part is that they’re all free unless you need more than 15GB of storage on Google Drive. Most people don’t. These are all great free Android apps. You can also find more office apps options here if you need more choice.
best free apps for android phones
Niagara Launcher
Niagara Launcher
(Image credit: Niagara Launcher)
If you’re looking for a fresh new way to experience your Android phone’s home screen, then look no further than Niagara Launcher. It shirks the traditional app drawer paradigm, instead opting for a minimalist group of favorites with an alphabetical list as the app drawer replacement. The end result is clean look with intuitive gestures for navigation.
Of course, you can pay a small fee to unlock the full experience, but the core part of Niagara is free. It’s my go-to launcher now and it won our Best Android App award for this year. It’s definitely worth checking out.
Download Niagara Launcher
Moon+ Reader
best free android apps: moon plus reader
(Image credit: Moon+)
Outside of the Amazon Kindle and Barnes & Noble Nook apps, the absolute best ebook reader on Android is Moon+ Reader. It is a fantastic app and I can’t say that enough. As someone who runs a Calibre ebook server at home with hundreds of ebooks (obtained mostly through Humble Bundle), Moon+ Reader is my choice for reading any one of those books on my phone.
Simply put, Moon+ Reader can handle any format, like EPUB and MOBI. There are a ton of ways to customize it to your liking, like line spacing, font scale, themes, and much, much more. It has a great and easy-to-use bookshelf and you can connect a lot of online libraries. Like I said, if you’re running Calibre in your home, this is the app for you.
While you may be locked to Kindle or Nook for your ebooks, Moon+ Reader gives you the option for your DRM-free books.
Download: Moon+ Reader
Notion
best free android apps: Notion
(Image credit: Notion Labs)
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Notion aims to be your personal and team productivity hub, allowing users to create custom private or shared workspaces. From there, you add versatile “blocks” that can act like text snippets, bookmarks, images, toggle links, files, code snippets, discussion sections, and more.
This approach means you easily customize your workspace, and you can still drag and drop individual blocks of content to where you need them without disrupting an entire document. Whether you’re taking notes, crunching spreadsheets, or building a Kanban board, Notion’s powerful building blocks make things a snap to set up.
The free version of Notion allows you to save and sync up to 1,000 blocks of content, while premium subscription plans remove that content limit and add admin tools, permission settings, and other features.
Download: Notion
Recorder
best free Android apps: Recorder
(Image credit: Tom’s Guide)
When the Pixel 4 debuted in 2019, one of the best things to come with it was Google’s Recorder app. Recorder not only filled one of the big missing gaps on Pixel phones — which previously didn’t feature a built-in voice recorder — but did it in style. Recorder could transcribe your recordings in real-time, even as you were speaking. And all that transcription work was done locally, without sharing your recordings to the cloud.
Recorder was so good, Google hasn’t restricted it to just the Pixel 4 and Pixel 4 XL. The app is available to all Pixel phones, and updates have added editing features introduced with the Pixel 5. Even if you carry around a different Android phone in your pocket, there’s a workaround to install Recorder on your Android device. You’ll need to be running either Android 9 or Android 10, and some features may not be supported on all phones, but it’s still a great way to experience one of the best free Android apps we’ve ever seen.
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Download: Recorder for Pixel
Canva
Best free Android Apps: Canva
(Image credit: Canva)
A past Google Play Awards winner, Canva is a quick, user-friendly photo editing app that’s designed with social media use in mind.
The app comes with a variety of ready to use templates, filters, fonts, and other tools that you can apply to images in your device’s gallery or in Canva’s selection of free and premium images, which you can then easily share to your favorite social network or media platform. You can use Canva to quickly set up a cover photo or account avatar for Facebook or create crisp and clean Instagram stories, Twitter banners or the perfect Youtube thumbnails.
There’s a wealth of free material and templates you can work with, as well as a selection of premium templates, images, and more that you can access with in-app purchases.
Download: Canva
PicsArt Photo Editor
best free Android apps: PicsArt Photo Editor
(Image credit: PicsArt)
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If you want one of the best free Android apps that’s better geared toward proper photo editing, consider PicsArt Photo Editor, another past Google Play Awards winner (from when the app was known as PicsArt Photo Studio.)
PicsArt puts a ton of editing tools straight to the palm of your hand, from standard editing tools that stretch, distort, and crop images, to filters, beautifying tools, cutout tools, collage makers, double-exposure mixing tools, masking selections, drawing tools, and more. In short, it’s a collection of tools that’s useful for everything from cleaning up quick snapshots to making a share-worthy social media piece.
While you already get a good selection of features for free, a PicsArt Gold premium subscription provides a wider array of tools along with more filters and fonts and video editing; the subscription also removes ads.
Download: PicsArt Photo Editor
Whisk
best free android apps whisk
(Image credit: Whisk.com)
Whisk can bring order to your kitchen and meal planning without costing you a dime. The recipe organizer lets you pull recipes from the web or other cooking apps, adjusting ingredients and serving sizes to your specification. Then, just one button converts that recipe into a shopping list that you can use for in-store or online grocery shopping.
In addition to recipe management and grocery shopping features, Whisk also boasts a community of home cooks who can share recipes that inspire you to try new meals. And a meal planning feature lets you plot out what you’ll be serving all week long. That’s a lot of features to pack into one of the best free Android apps we’ve seen.
Download: Whisk
Woebot
best free Android apps: Woebot
(Image credit: Woebot Labs)
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Woebot channels chatbot technology for good, building on proven principles and techniques of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), mindfulness, and dialectical behavior therapy to help with emotional self-care and help you process difficult emotions and life events.
Don’t confuse Woebot with a good — and human — therapist. Instead, the app aims to help you self-assess your state of mind, checking in with you regularly and helping you practice mindfulness exercises to try to help center yourself and improve your mental and emotional well-being.
Download: Woebot
Transit
best free Android apps: Transit
(Image credit: Transit App)
Because Transit is a fantastic aid to your commute, it earns a spot on any list of the best free Android apps. Transit helps you plan out the fastest public transport routes to your destination.
The app provides routes that combine numerous transportation methods — such as trains, buses, and bike sharing — while also factoring in short walks to each stop and wait times. Transit can provide real-time data on arrival times of your bus or train, compare routes, step-by-step navigation, and notifications for service line disruptions. You can even book an Uber or reserve a car2go from within the app if public transport has failed you.
Download: Transit
Google Home
best free android apps: Google Home
(Image credit: Google)
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Initially designed as a hub app for Google’s Chromecast device, Google Home has since grown into a handy smart appliance command center, offering compatibility with devices like the Google Home smart speaker, as well as smart lights, internet-connected thermostats, home security devices, smart plugs, and more. (We’ve got a complete look at the best Google Home-compatible devices.)
Rather than having to continually shuffle between dozens of device-specific apps, you can turn the Google Home app into an all-in-one command center and a true central hub for your smart home.
Download: Google Home
Adobe Acrobat Reader
Best free Android Apps: Adobe Acrobat Reader
(Image credit: Adobe)
While your Android phone probably has some support for the basics of opening and viewing PDF files, if you want anything more capable, you’ll want a dedicated PDF reader app, such as Adobe Acrobat Reader.
The mobile version of Acrobat Reader is a capable reader, with configurable view modes, support for page search, cloud storage, bookmarks and tables of contents. It also includes annotation features for your marginal notes, comments, and even digital signatures. (You can also check out our picks for the best free PDF editors if you need to make more substantive changes.) In-app purchases and subscriptions unlock professional and productivity-oriented features.
Download: Adobe Acrobat Reader
Microsoft To Do
best free Android apps: Microsoft To-Do
(Image credit: Microsoft)
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Born from Microsoft’s acquisition of Wunderlist, Microsoft To Do is a smart, no-nonsense to-do list app that presents a sleek and distraction-free interface, while intelligently suggesting tasks based on long-term patterns, upcoming deadlines, or stuff that you weren’t able to see to in the past days.
Users can keep task descriptions simple, or add detailed descriptions, color codes, categories, and more. While the app is free, cross-platform, and works perfectly fine on its own, it also plays well with the rest of Microsoft’s Office 365 suite of productivity tools.
Download: Microsoft To Do
JetAudio HD Music Player
best free android apps: JetAudio
(Image credit: Team Jet)
If you want to amp up the music player on your Android device, give JetAudio HD Music Player a try. The free version of the app features a 10-band graphics equalizer and a number of playback features including crossfading, playback control, and automatic gain control.
JetAudio supports a wide variety of formats including .wav, .mp3, .ogg, .flac, .m4a, .mpc, .tta, .wv, .ape, .mod, .spx, .opus, and .wma (though that last one depends on your device).
For even more features, including a 20-band graphic equalizer, and to ditch the ads that come in the free version, you can upgrade to JetAudio HD Music Player Plus for $3.99, though the free app offers enough features for most users. In fact, this free version isn’t just one of the best Android apps, it’s also one of the best Android music players available.
Download: JetAudio HD Music Player
Adobe Photoshop Sketch
best free Android apps: Adobe Photoshop Sketch
(Image credit: Adobe)
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Adobe Photoshop Sketch is a free app that provides users with a set of expressive drawing tools. Users can choose from utilities that mimic a graphite pencil, ink pen or marker. The app supports a variety of Bluetooth styluses on the market such as those by Wacom and Adonit.
Sketch aims to replicate the analog drawing experience, augmented with a few digital flourishes such as a color picker and an undo history and is best suited for phones with bigger displays.
Users can import assets from other Creative Cloud tools such as custom brushes and colors, and your creations can also be exported into Creative Cloud as layered PSDs to Photoshop, or to Illustrator.
Download: Adobe Photoshop Sketch
Nova Launcher
best free android apps: Nova Launcher
(Image credit: TeslaCoil Software)
Tired of your stock launcher, looking to optimize your home screen performance, or just looking to customize your device’s UI? Nova Launcher is among the best Android launchers, offering loads of cosmetic and utility customizations with minimal performance overhead, letting you set your home screen just right without slowing down your phone.
There are a lot of options to work through, from color themes to icon packs, scrollable docks to app drawer customizations, folder settings and infinite scrolling. The Nova team is never content to rest on its laurels, continuously adding new features, such as Sesame Shortcuts, animations, new adaptive icon shapes and other improvements geared toward recent Android versions.
While many customizations are available in this best free Android app, others such as gesture controls are gated behind the premium version.
Download: Nova Launcher
Strava
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best free android apps: strava
(Image credit: Strava)
In addition to being a top-notch running and cycling tracker — we think it’s the best running app you can download — Strava adds gamified features to give the usual run-tracking recipe a competitive edge, whether you’re monitoring your runs, bike rides, or swims.
The app records your running speed, distance traveled, time and course taken, but also combines it with leaderboards, achievements and challenges. Strava supports a variety of running trackers, in addition to Wear OS and Apple Watch.
A premium subscription improves on the formula with filtered leaderboards, the ability to create exercise goals and view more detailed analytics and more. But the free version is enough for basic tracking.
Download: Strava
Castbox
best free android apps: Castbox
(Image credit: Castbox.fm)
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Podcasting platform Castbox combines a clean and navigable interface, a good selection of podcasts, and powerful podcast audio searching to deliver an excellent mobile podcatcher and one of the best free Android apps.
Users can sign in with Gmail, Facebook, or Twitter, and then search and subscribe to podcasts, download episodes for offline listening and sync their subscriptions across multiple devices. You can stream podcasts through Chromecast or Amazon Echo.
A premium tier of Castbox removes subscription limits, allows for homepage customization, and puts you on priority for customer support and new features.
Download: Castbox
AccuWeather
best free Android apps: AccuWeather
(Image credit: AccuWeather)
Now that Dark Sky is gone from Google Play, AccuWeather provides Android users with timely and detailed weather forecasts, from 15-day outlooks to the hyperlocal MinuteCasts. Forecasts come with animated weather info, radar maps, detailed summaries, and push notifications for extreme weather alerts in the US.
Extra features include AccUcast, a system for crowd-sourced warnings on hazardous weather and road conditions, as well as customizable forecast details, weather-related videos, and Wear OS support so that you can get forecast info at a glance on your smartwatch.
Download: AccuWeather
Carrot Weather
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best free Android apps: Carrot Weather
(Image credit: Grailr)
For a bit more snark with your weather report, check out Carrot Weather. This free Android app delivers the forecast with a hefty side order of biting commentary.
Carrot Weather pulls data from Dark Sky to provide current, hourly, and 7-day forecasts leavened with sarcastic humor to cushion even the gloomiest outlook. Infographics put useful information in quick reach, with more detailed meteorological data available as you tap and swipe. You can even configure Carrot’s sense of humor to be friendly, snarky, or murderous, with the ability to set how political the AI’s jokes can get.
While you can enjoy Carrot Weather for free, a Premium Club subscription removes ads and unlocks features like a Weather Time Machine and widgets.
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