DetoxDroid: Grayscale & Focus

Your phone is designed to hook you. DetoxDroid is designed to unhook you.

Most digital detox apps want a contract with yourself, and a penalty when you break it. DetoxDroid flips that. It strips the attention-grabbing tricks out of your phone, so a calm phone is what you get when you do nothing at all.

Use your phone. Don't let your phone use you.

HOW IT WORKS

You sort apps and websites into groups. A group says when it counts, how much time it gets per day or per hour, and what happens then: a short wait before each open, gray, a break when you scroll too long, a lock. Templates get you started, from social feeds to nights off. Rules from older versions become groups.

FEATURES

🎨 Gray

Color is what makes feeds addictive. DetoxDroid drains it out of a group's apps and websites, from the first minute or once part of the budget is used. On Android 12 and newer it blurs them too. A feed turns into shapes, no longer worth scrolling. With one permission (see setup) you get true system grayscale, plus extra dim for the evening.

🌐 Websites too

In Chrome, Firefox and most browsers built on them. Your own list, or ready-made ones for porn, gambling, dating, shopping, social media and video.

📵 Doomscroll Breaker

Notices when you are stuck in an endless feed, and counts the short videos you swipe through on Reels, Shorts and TikTok. After a break, that feed stays locked for a while.

🚫 Wait and Lock

A distracting app can make you wait a few seconds before it opens, sit behind a blocking screen, or be deactivated outright. Once the group's budget is gone, it locks until the next window.

🛑 Emergency Brake

For the moment you notice you are slipping. One tap, and for 30 minutes to 8 hours every group runs at its strictest: whole screen gray, locked apps stay locked, schedules and pause off.

🔕 Automatic Do Not Disturb

On whenever DetoxDroid runs, or on a schedule.

⏸️ Pause Button

From Quick Settings, your assistant, or a long press on a hardware button. DetoxDroid resumes on its own. A minimum gap between pauses keeps "just one more" in check.

🔒 Commitment Password

Lock your groups behind a passphrase, one by one or all of them. Or hand it to someone who won't give it back the second you ask.

📊 Screen Time

Per app and per website, app opens, scroll distance, what those hours are worth. A widget and the notification show today's time without opening the app.

FREE AND OPEN SOURCE

No ads, no tracking, no account. Every self-control feature is free. A single one-time purchase, no subscription, unlocks the extras (right now a longer usage history) and supports development.

HOW DETOXDROID USES THE ACCESSIBILITY SERVICE API

DetoxDroid uses Android's AccessibilityService API, with your consent during setup, for its self-control features. The service sees which app is in the foreground and when you scroll, so it can apply your rules: wait, gray, break up endless scrolling, lock or budget the apps in your groups, and react to a long press of your hardware pause key. If a group names websites, or you count time on websites, it also reads the address your browser shows, nothing else on the page. While the Commitment Password is on, it notices when someone opens DetoxDroid's own settings pages to switch it off. Everything stays on your device. DetoxDroid does not collect, store or share any personal or sensitive data.

ONE-TIME SETUP FOR TRUE GRAYSCALE

The screen filter needs no setup. System grayscale and extra dim do: Android hands that switch only to apps with the WRITE_SECURE_SETTINGS permission. Grant it once, from a computer over adb, on the phone through Shizuku, or in one tap if you are rooted. Guide: https://github.com/flxapps/DetoxDroid#installation

Less screen time, an end to doomscrolling, your focus back. Developed openly on GitHub.