Better Files

A file manager for Android with meaning search. Find documents and photos by what is in them, not only by their name. Search runs on your phone.

better-files-launch.mp4

Video file: art/better-files-launch.mp4

What it does

• Meaning search for documents and photos. The search index and the model stay on your phone.
• No account.
• Analytics are off until you turn them on. See the privacy policy.
• File manager: root access, archives, SMB, SFTP, FTP and WebDAV, themes.
• Needs Android 10 or later.

Install

Download the APK from GitHub Releases.

The search model (EmbeddingGemma 2, about 320 MB) downloads once, after you accept the Gemma terms. Photo search needs one more download of about 110 MB.

Known limits

This is a beta.

• The first index takes hours on older phones. You can search files as soon as they are done, newest first.
• Some phones stop apps in the background. On vivo, turn on Settings > Battery > High background power consumption for Better Files. On Xiaomi, Oppo and Realme, allow Autostart and turn off battery limits for the app.
• If indexing stops, open Better Files. It continues where it stopped.
• Phones with less than about 3.5 GB of RAM search inside documents by keyword only. Meaning search and photo search need more memory.
• Scanned PDFs and password-protected PDFs are not searchable yet.
• Excel, PowerPoint and old .doc files are not indexed yet.

Build

Install Android NDK 30.0.16248370 and 26.3.11579264 before building.

./gradlew :app:assembleRelease

Release builds read the signing key from signing.properties (see signing.properties.example) or from STORE_FILE, STORE_PASSWORD, KEY_ALIAS and KEY_PASSWORD. A build without POSTHOG_API_KEY and POSTHOG_HOST has no analytics.

Based on Material Files

Better Files is based on Material Files by Hai Zhang.

Changes from Material Files

aipdv changed the program from 2026-10-23. This list was last updated on 2026-10-25.

• New name (Better Files), app id com.aipdv.bf and launcher icon.
• Added meaning search and indexing (the Narad engine in lib/) and an Indexing screen.
• Removed Firebase Analytics and Crashlytics.
• Added analytics with PostHog EU, off until the user turns them on.
• Minimum Android version is now 10 (API 29).
• About screen and open source notices updated.

Name, logo and credit

"Better Files" and the Better Files logo are trademarks of aipdv. If you distribute a modified version, use a different name and a different icon.

These additional terms under section 7 of the GPL-3.0 apply to the code that aipdv added to Material Files (the lib/ search engine and the indexing and search code in app/):

• 7(b): Keep the notice "Includes work from Better Files by aipdv (https://github.com/aipdv/better-files)" in the source and on the About or Licenses screen of any app that you build from this code.
• 7(c): Mark modified versions as changed. Do not present them as Better Files or as made by aipdv.
• 7(e): This license gives no rights to the aipdv trademarks above.

License

Copyright (C) 2026 aipdv
Copyright (C) 2018 Hai Zhang

This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
(at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
along with this program.  If not, see <https://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.