Various tools for system maintenance

Root Keeper

2023-05-21

These tools should take care your rooted device stays rooted – even if you install a system update (e.g. via OTA).

Voodoo OTA RootKeeper (3.6@11) 0 LastUpdate: 2013-01-21

Root Checker

2023-05-21

Apps to check whether the rooting process was successful.

Root System Detector (5@47) 7 2 LastUpdate: 2021-01-02
Simple Root Checker (4.4@26) 3 2 LastUpdate: 2016-03-28
Root Verifier (4.3@2,255) 1 $Contains no trackers known to us \o/$ LastUpdate: 2016-03-26 Github
Root Checker: with Terminal Em (4.3@1,043) Ǥ 4 3 LastUpdate: 2020-02-01
Root Checker (4.2@1,191) Ǥ 5 1 LastUpdate: 2018-01-30
SU Root Checker (4@10,645) 3 $Contains no trackers known to us \o/$ LastUpdate: 2016-09-13
Root Validator (3.9@4,013) Ǥ 6 1 LastUpdate: 2018-04-15 Github
Root Checker (3.9@19) Ǥ 6 3 LastUpdate: 2019-05-04
Root Checker (3.8@368,708) Ǥ 10 10 / Root Checker Pro (4.7@2,554; ~EUR 4.75) Ǥ 3 1 LastUpdate: 2019-07-12
Root Checker (3.6@7,132) Ǥ 4 3 LastUpdate: 2019-01-11

With a rooted device, some apps refuse to work (mostly those using "protected" or "sensitive" material. If you still want to use those apps and keep your device rooted, you may wish to hide that fact. These apps help you with that. Also see Magisk, which provides both root and root hiding.

Hide Rooting Lite (2.6@2,200) 4 4 LastUpdate: 2016-09-09
Entrust IdentityGuard Unblocker (0@0) 0 $Contains no trackers known to us \o/$ LastUpdate: 2017-05-11
ANRC (0@0) 2 LastUpdate: 2017-06-06 Github
Zuper (0@0) LastUpdate: 2020-02-10 hide mock location, forbidden ads, root and more
RootCloak (OLD, SEE DESCRIPTION) (0@0) / RootCloak (with 5.x and 6.x support) (0@0; ~EUR 1.25) 1 LastUpdate: 2017-04-09 XDA inkl. Anleitung
unWatch (0@0) LastUpdate: 2015-09-01 Github
Good for Enterprise Disable Root Check (0@0) LastUpdate: 2014-11-07 Hide root from the Good for enterprise client
SberbankUnroot (0@0) LastUpdate: 2016-03-03
No Device Check (0@0) LastUpdate: 2015-09-25 make Google think you run unmodified Android
Sudohide (0@0) LastUpdate: 2017-10-22
Surrogate (0@0) LastUpdate: 2017-04-15 Github; provides rules to directly hook into other apps, replacing their methods (e.g. root checking)
CYBER APPX (0@0) LastUpdate: 2018-09-25
SDW Hide Root (0@0) LastUpdate: 2018-02-16
MaxdomeXposed (0@0) LastUpdate: 2014-03-26 Maxdome trotz root nutzen

SuperUser

2023-05-21

Superuser X Pro [Root] (4.6@225; ~EUR 22.00) 6 $Contains no trackers known to us \o/$ LastUpdate: 2019-03-26
Superuser (4.5@1,265) 1 $Contains no trackers known to us \o/$ LastUpdate: 2016-01-29 Github
SuperSU (4.2@365) 5 $Contains no trackers known to us \o/$ LastUpdate: 2017-05-29
Superuser (4.2@22) 2 $Contains no trackers known to us \o/$ LastUpdate: 2014-04-14
Superuser (3.9@69) 4 $Contains no trackers known to us \o/$ LastUpdate: 2018-11-01 / Superuser Elite (3.8@6,257; ~EUR 3.25) Ǥ 3 $Contains no trackers known to us \o/$ LastUpdate: 2012-06-30

Magisk

2023-05-15

If you don't know what this is, please see Root for all: Magisk in the articles section.

Magisk (4.6@3,095) 12 $Contains no trackers known to us \o/$ Github; Guide 9/2016 | 3/2017; Video Tutorial 3/2017 (~7min) | 6/2017 (~6min) | 9/2017 (~6min); Howto 8/2017; IzzyOnDroid 5/2018; XDA Home; Magisk Wiki; Installation & Troubleshooting Guide; Universal Systemless Interface
Unified Hosts Manager (4@141) 1 $Contains no trackers known to us \o/$ LastUpdate: 2018-01-28
MMRL (0@0) 4 $Contains no trackers known to us \o/$ Github; Magisk Module Repo Loader, supporting custom repos
Fox's Magisk Module Manager (0@0) 9 $Contains no trackers known to us \o/$ Github
MRepo (0@0) 9 $Contains no trackers known to us \o/$ Github; a Manager for Magisk Modules
KernelSU (0@0) 1 $Contains no trackers known to us \o/$ Github; a rooting solution comparable to Magisk
MRepo supports adding custom repositories. Here are some you can add:
- the IzzyOnDroid Magisk Modules Repo (only F/LOSS modules)
- the mirror of the Magisk Alt repo
Lygisk: a fork of Magisk
aa4mg: Android Auto 4 microG
android-auto-stub: likewise, with CalyxOS in mind
magisk_for_linux: patch boot image from your Linux PC
Magisk and MagiskHide Installation and Troubleshooting guide
Magisk Documentation
Magisk Modules Repo: here you can find many modules for Magisk
Androidacy Magisk Modules Repository
Best Magisk Modules: Call Recorder, Font Manager, 1Controller, and more, including some background and instructions (10/2021)
Collection of Magisk Modules
Passing-SafetyNet-with-Magisk-Zygisk-and-DenyList
Magisk v24 has removed MagiskHide, but: A new method for hiding root in Magisk is in development (1/2022)
Also see Shamiko: Check the new method for hiding root is on the way (1/2022)
How to Uninstall a Magisk Module and Magisk zip from a Rooted Device (in case a newly installed module goes bonkers) (6/2021)
10 Must-Have Magisk Modules (1/2020 - 11/2022)

Busybox

2023-05-21

BusyBox is software that provides several stripped-down Unix tools in a single executable file. (Wikipedia) Usually requires root.

BusyBox Installer (5@112) 3 $Contains no trackers known to us \o/$ Github
BusyBox X [Root] (4.3@9,645) Ǥ 10 3 LastUpdate: 2018-09-09 / BusyBox X Pro [Root] (4.9@226; ~EUR 22.00) 8 $Contains no trackers known to us \o/$ LastUpdate: 2018-09-09
BusyBox (4.3@5,531) 3 $Contains no trackers known to us \o/$ Github
BusyBox (4.1@160,195) 2 $Contains no trackers known to us \o/$ LastUpdate: 2020-07-19 / BusyBox Pro (4.5@8,398; ~EUR 2.75) 3 $Contains no trackers known to us \o/$ LastUpdate: 2020-07-18
BusyBox for Android (4@26,507) Ǥ 13 20 Github
BusyBox Installer Classic (4@94) Ǥ 9 3 LastUpdate: 2019-09-19
EXA Busybox Installer(no root) (2.8@225) 7 1 LastUpdate: 2021-07-11

Terminal Apps

2023-05-21

Command line to interact with the system, see Terminal Emulator.

Another Term (5@46) 8 $Contains no trackers known to us \o/$ / Another Term (0@0) 8 $Contains no trackers known to us \o/$ / Another Term Shell Plugin - Android 10 Essentials (0@0) $Contains no trackers known to us \o/$ LastUpdate: 2021-11-12 Github / Github
TTerm (5@44) 5 $Contains no trackers known to us \o/$ LastUpdate: 2018-04-22
RHazOS (5@1) 5 $Contains no trackers known to us \o/$ LastUpdate: 2018-08-03 Github
Material Terminal (4.3@6,491) Ǥ 6 $Contains no trackers known to us \o/$ LastUpdate: 2016-04-04
Qute: Terminal emulator (4.3@5,796) Ǥ 15 13
Remote ADB Shell (4.3@803) 3 $Contains no trackers known to us \o/$ connect to one Android device from another Android device
☆ AirTerm (floating terminal) (4.3@586) Ǥ 7 $Contains no trackers known to us \o/$ LastUpdate: 2013-08-07
Termux (4.1@158,154) 14 $Contains no trackers known to us \o/$ / Termux:API (4.7@8,960) 24 $Contains no trackers known to us \o/$ / Termux:Styling (4.4@537; ~EUR 2.00) 0 $Contains no trackers known to us \o/$ Github; Repository for additional packages; Kurzvorstellung 1/2016; Anleitung 12/2019; Howto 12/2020; includes apt to install a lot of packages like aapt, busybox, git, mc, python, rsync and more
Terminal (4@172) 4 $Contains no trackers known to us \o/$
Terminal Emulator for Android (3.9@121,154) 5 $Contains no trackers known to us \o/$ LastUpdate: 2017-07-18 Github
TermOne Plus (3.6@391) 9 $Contains no trackers known to us \o/$ GitLab
Shell Terminal Emulator (3.3@2,878) 4 1 LastUpdate: 2021-03-20
Ping Net (3.3@7; ~EUR 4.25) 5 $Contains no trackers known to us \o/$ LastUpdate: 2018-06-27
NeoTerm (0@0) 7 $Contains no trackers known to us \o/$ LastUpdate: 2021-05-19 Github

Custom Recovery & Flashing

2023-05-22

Treble Info (4.8@1,375) Ǥ 1 $Contains no trackers known to us \o/$ GitLab; check Project Treble, A/B and Architecture for GSI installation
ROM Manager (4.8@32) Ǥ 12 2 LastUpdate: 2018-10-30
ZIPme (4.4@19) 3 1 LastUpdate: 2017-04-11 create update ZIP packages to install in recovery
ROM Toolbox Lite (4.3@59,692) Ǥ 27 20 / ROM Toolbox Pro (3.2@25,428; ~EUR 10.00) Ǥ 26 6 LastUpdate: 2019-04-03
ROM Installer (4.3@43,759) Ǥ 16 19
Flasher (4.2@93) 7 $Contains no trackers known to us \o/$ LastUpdate: 2020-06-05
Auto Flasher ROM flash utility (4.1@1,976) Ǥ 6 2 LastUpdate: 2017-03-24
Smart Flasher (4.1@66) 4 $Contains no trackers known to us \o/$ LastUpdate: 2021-06-24 Github; make flashing recovery zips easier
Flashify (for root users) (4.1@27) Ǥ 7 2 LastUpdate: 2015-12-12 maintains your recovery partition
[ROOT] CRAB - Custom Recovery (4@31) 1 $Contains no trackers known to us \o/$ LastUpdate: 2018-10-22
TWRP Manager (Requires ROOT) (3.8@34,415) Ǥ 12 4 LastUpdate: 2017-07-02 Live Nandroid Backup for TWRP
Official TWRP App (3.4@41,114) Ǥ 16 1 LastUpdate: 2020-08-14 Intro 12/2016
[root] FlashFire (3.3@7,697) Ǥ 9 $Contains no trackers known to us \o/$ LastUpdate: 2017-09-21
DD GUI (0@0) $Contains no trackers known to us \o/$ LastUpdate: 2020-05-23 Github; GUI for the good-old dd tool
Kernel Flasher (0@0) 1 $Contains no trackers known to us \o/$ Github
DSU Sideloader (0@0) 5 $Contains no trackers known to us \o/$ Github
Horizon Kernel Flasher (0@0) $Contains no trackers known to us \o/$ LastUpdate: 2021-10-31 Github; flash AnyKernel flashable zips
Free-Droid: Linux/Mac/Win tool to make flashing easy
Anarchy-Droid: Successor of Free-Droid. Finds matching ROMs for your device, apply special adjustments and more. Linux, Mac, Windows.
PixelFlasher: Pixel™ phone flashing GUI utility
openandroidinstaller: makes installing alternative Android distributions nice and easy
otadump: extracts partitions from OTA-files
android-ota-payload-extractor: OTA payload extractor

init.d

2023-05-19

init.d scripts support (3.6@430) Ǥ 10 2 select a folder to place scripts which shall run at boot time
Run Userinit (0@0) 2 $Contains no trackers known to us \o/$ LastUpdate: 2018-08-25
Init.d Light (0@0) 4 $Contains no trackers known to us \o/$ LastUpdate: 2017-12-24 Github

Sandbox (isolate) apps

2023-05-23

Island (4.7@6) Ǥ 19 3 Vorstellung 3/2018; XDA; like Greenify, but more: freeze, isolate (sandbox) apps, clone (for parallel usage), hide …
Shelter (3.8@1,870) 10 $Contains no trackers known to us \o/$ Github; Vorstellung 9/2018 | 1/2019; Vorstellung & Howto 7/2019; Intro 9/2019; Howto 11/2020; Anleitung 12/2020 | 3/2020-2/2021; FOSS alternative to Island
App Cloner- Clone App for Dual (1.4@1,056) Ǥ 111 4 not "sandboxing", but allows multiple instances of an app by cloning and re-installing with different package names; random Android ID, IMEI, IMSI & more at runtime
Insular (0@0) 16 $Contains no trackers known to us \o/$ Github; FOSS variant of Island

Run Linux on Android

2023-05-26

UserLAnd - Linux on Android (4.4@7,016) Ǥ 12 $Contains no trackers known to us \o/$ Github; Anleitung 1/2019; Video Howto 5/2019; Howto 6/2019 | 11/2019; run GNU/Linux on Android (no root required)
Linux Deploy (3.9@15,739) 7 $Contains no trackers known to us \o/$ LastUpdate: 2020-03-02 Github; Howto 9/2017 | 8/2018; Anleitung 4/2020-7/2021; Install and run GNU/Linux on Android
AnLinux - Run Linux on Android (3.6@2,239) Ǥ 6 2 Github; Video Howto 4/2020

SafetyNet

2023-05-19

YASNAC - SafetyNet Checker (4.9@1,364) 0 $Contains no trackers known to us \o/$ Github
SafetyNet & Root Check (4.7@62) Ǥ 4 2
SafetyNet Helper Sample (4.5@995) 1 1 Github; find out whether your device passes the SafetyNet test
SafetyNet Test (4.1@1,829) Ǥ 5 3 LastUpdate: 2018-10-03 find out whether your device passes the SafetyNet test
SafetyNet Checker (4.1@501) Ǥ 5 2 / SafetyNet Checker Pro (5@31; ~EUR 1.00) Ǥ 4 1
SafetyNet Device Check (4.1@118) Ǥ 6 4

Other tools

2023-05-21

Power App | Simple Power Menu (5@87) 2 $Contains no trackers known to us \o/$ LastUpdate: 2020-11-09 Github; power options menu (reboot, recovery etc.)
SELinuxModeChanger (4.7@17) 1 $Contains no trackers known to us \o/$ LastUpdate: 2018-04-10 Github; Set SELinux mode on boot
DontKillMyApp: Make apps work (4.5@7,085) 4 $Contains no trackers known to us \o/$ LastUpdate: 2021-06-02 Github; benchmark (how aggressively is your phone killing background apps) and more
Simple Reboot (only for rooted (4.5@4,946) 0 $Contains no trackers known to us \o/$ LastUpdate: 2020-10-10 Github; boot menu (requires root)
Prevent Running (4.5@673) 7 $Contains no trackers known to us \o/$ LastUpdate: 2019-05-15 prevent force-stopped apps from auto-restarting
[root] LiveBoot (4.4@6,591) Ǥ 3 $Contains no trackers known to us \o/$
Shizuku (4.4@2,417) 4 $Contains no trackers known to us \o/$ Github; using system APIs directly with adb/root privileges from normal apps
[ROOT] KTweak — Universal Kern (4.4@449) 3 $Contains no trackers known to us \o/$ LastUpdate: 2020-12-02 Github
Brevent (4.3@8,677) Ǥ 11 1 Github; prevent apps from auto-(re)starting; no root required
Bash Shell X [Root] (4.3@2,004) Ǥ 10 3 LastUpdate: 2018-09-09 installs GNU bash 4.2;
Sysctl GUI - Kernel parameters (4.1@62) 4 $Contains no trackers known to us \o/$ Github
Root Essentials (4@9,923) Ǥ 15 3 LastUpdate: 2017-10-28
Kernel Profiler (3.9@17) 4 $Contains no trackers known to us \o/$ LastUpdate: 2021-06-20 Github; manage your kernel settings
Script Manager (3.8@72) 4 $Contains no trackers known to us \o/$ LastUpdate: 2021-07-26 Github
Bash (3.2@9) 4 1 LastUpdate: 2017-04-19
Timezone Updater (1@128) 4 $Contains no trackers known to us \o/$ Github
Magic (0@0) 1 $Contains no trackers known to us \o/$ LastUpdate: 2019-11-08 Github; file type guesser
P7Zip (0@0) 2 $Contains no trackers known to us \o/$ LastUpdate: 2021-04-21 Github; (un)compress files and directories
PSAUX (0@0) 1 $Contains no trackers known to us \o/$ LastUpdate: 2020-01-15 Github; task manager and automated background service killer
BackgroundRestrictor (0@0) 0 $Contains no trackers known to us \o/$ LastUpdate: 2017-11-03 Github; restrict apps from running in background
Command Click (0@0) 7 $Contains no trackers known to us \o/$ Github; change shellscript to Gui App
ScriptManager (0@0) 8 $Contains no trackers known to us \o/$ LastUpdate: 2021-03-01 Github
SmartPack-Kernel Manager (0@0) 14 $Contains no trackers known to us \o/$ Github
Content Provider Helper (0@0) 14 $Contains no trackers known to us \o/$ LastUpdate: 2017-05-14 Github; find available content provider URIs; add & delete your own
FakeGapps (0@0) $Contains no trackers known to us \o/$ Github; signature spoofing for MicroG as an Xposed module
Network Monitored Blocker (KitKat) (0@0) LastUpdate: 2015-02-14 Github; get rid of the "network may be monitored" message triggered by adding a CA cert to the key store in KitKat
Switch My Slot (0@0) $Contains no trackers known to us \o/$ LastUpdate: 2021-05-09 Github; switch between A & B Slots easily
MinMinHide (0@0) LastUpdate: 2015-03-03 Github; hide apps from other apps (not only from app-drawers)

Further Readings:

rooting tag-wiki at Android.SE including a rooting index with hints for specific devices
Magisk for "systemless modding" (incl. root); also see this guide at AndroidPolice
The 4 Best Alternatives to TWRP Recovery on Android (4/2023)
10 Mistakes to Avoid When Installing Custom ROMs on Your Android Phone (3/2023)
10 Must-Have Magisk Modules for Your Android Device (3/2022)
How to Trick Apps Into Thinking Your Android Is Not Rooted (3/2022)
How to pass SafetyNet on Android after rooting or installing a custom ROM (1/2022)
Ist Rooten ein Sicherheitsrisiko bzw. gefährlich? (10/2018)
Was ist Rooten und Jailbreak? (5/2016 - 12/2020)
5 reasons you should learn how to root your phone today (and how to do it) (2/2015 - 9/2021)

2023-06-01

IzzyOnDroid