These 5 productivity apps you’ve never heard of deserve a spot on your phone

Most productivity app recommendations tend to look the same after a point — Notion, Todoist, ChatGPT, Wispr Flow, and the usual suspects. And sure, all of those are great apps. But you probably already know about them. There are plenty of other productivity apps out there that aren’t mainstream but are just as useful, if not more. I went digging and put together a list of these underrated apps that deserve way more attention than they’re getting.

Floccus

When you use the same browser on both your phone and PC, things are pretty seamless. But when you don’t, switching between devices can be a pain. Floccus is a free, open-source app that reduces that. It can sync bookmarks across Chrome, Firefox, Edge, and Safari, so you can use different browsers on both your PC and mobile and still have your bookmarks synced.

What makes Floccus work is that it doesn’t host anything itself. You pick the storage — Google Drive, Dropbox, Nextcloud, even a Git repo — and that’s where your bookmarks actually live. You just need to set up the Floccus extension on your PC browser, download the Flocuss app on your phone, and sign in with the same cloud storage account. Floccus also keeps the bookmark structure intact, and you can assign tags and search for them. For anyone who uses different browsers on your phone and PC for whatever reason, this one is a must-have.

Automate

There’s no shortage of automation apps like Tasker and MacroDroid, but Automate is different because it has almost no learning curve. You build flows by dragging and connecting blocks, like a flowchart, and each flow is basically an “if this, then that” setup, with room to branch into “if not, then this instead.”

There are triggers for Wi-Fi networks, location, messages, sensors, battery level, notifications, and even time of day. Pair any of those with an action, and you’ve got a flow. For instance, you can set your phone to lower the ringer volume at night or share a live location with your wife when your phone disconnects from office Wi-Fi. These are just basic examples, but you can make these automations slightly more complex by adding Yes and No branches to account for different scenarios.

You don’t have to start from scratch either. There are hundreds of ready-made automations from the community, so you can simply find the one you like and start using it straightaway. Even if your phone already has a built-in feature like Samsung Routines or Pixel Rules, Automate is worth a shot for the sheer amount of flexibility and options it offers.

Feeder

RSS feels like a relic to most people, but if you’re tired of Google Discover serving you random tweets, news articles, and YouTube videos you don’t care about, Feeder is the app you need. It’s a free, open-source RSS reader that doesn’t require an account and runs entirely locally. The initial setup takes a bit of work because you have to add the blogs, news sites, YouTube channels, and subreddits you actually care about. But once that’s done, Feeder pulls every new post into one clean timeline.

I’ve disabled the Google Discover page on my phone and replaced it with a full-page Feeder widget. I’ve got mine loaded with a mix of tech sites, a few subreddits, and a couple YouTube channels.

The best part is there are no ads anywhere. Even the articles open in Feeder’s own reading mode, so you can avoid whatever pop-ups or banner ads the site would’ve thrown at you. You can also customize pretty much everything — the reading view, notifications, themes — and save articles for later if you don’t have time to read them right away.

Quick Cursor

Phones have gotten bigger, and while Android does have a built-in one-handed mode, it works by shrinking your entire screen down, which isn’t exactly ideal. Quick Cursor fixes this cleverly. It adds a computer-like cursor to the bottom half of your display, so you can reach the top of the screen without stretching your thumb or resorting to two hands.

You simply have to swipe in from the edge of the screen to activate the tracker and then use it to click and swipe on the top of the screen. When your keyboard is open, the trackpad automatically shrinks down to a thin strip, so it doesn’t get in the way.

You can tweak the tracker size, how taps register, haptic feedback, and even the trigger area itself. And since it behaves like an actual trackpad, you can map long presses and swipe gestures to toggle the flashlight, grab a screenshot, jump into split screen, or adjust brightness. The free version covers pretty much everything essential, but there’s also a Pro version if you want more gestures and customization options.

Touch Portal

This one’s kind of niche, but if you’ve ever liked the idea of owning a Stream Deck without spending a hundred dollars on one, Touch Portal lets you turn your Android phone into a customizable macro pad for your PC or Mac. It’s a free app that lets you set up pages of buttons and assign each one actions like launch an app, run a keyboard shortcut, control media playback, switch OBS scenes, or trigger a script.

You just need to install the app on both your PC and phone, pair them with a QR code, and create buttons. The free version offers two pages of 4×2 grids, but if that’s not enough, you can get the Pro version for a one-time fee of $13.99 — it gives you unlimited pages and buttons.

I find it useful while I’m working — it gives my phone an actual job to do instead of sitting there as a distraction. And if you’ve got an old phone lying around doing nothing, this is a solid way to turn it into a makeshift Stream Deck.

That wraps up my list. Hopefully I didn’t cover anything you were already using — though if I did, at least you know you’ve got good taste. And if you’ve got a personal favorite productivity app that you feel deserves more love, share it in the comments below.