How many Reels and Shorts did you watch today? ScrollLess counts them for you, privately, on your phone.
It counts every Instagram Reel and YouTube Short you watch, times how long you scroll in each app, and shows a small live counter right on top of the feed. No account, no ads, and nothing you watch ever leaves your phone.
| File | For |
|---|---|
ScrollLess-<version>-arm64-v8a.apk |
Almost every phone from the last 6–7 years (pick this if unsure) |
ScrollLess-<version>-armeabi-v7a.apk |
Older 32-bit phones |
ScrollLess-<version>-universal.apk |
Any phone (bigger download) |
Open the file on your phone and allow installing from your browser or file manager when Android asks. Each release lists SHA-256 checksums, and every APK is signed with the same release key, so future versions install as updates.
- Install, open ScrollLess, tap Open accessibility settings, enable ScrollLess under Installed / Downloaded apps.
- Open Instagram Reels or YouTube Shorts. The floating pill shows today's count and scrolling time for that app; the dashboard updates live.
- Toggle the floating counter, reset today or delete all data from Settings in the app.
- Automatic counting: each new Reel or Short counts once. Quick swipe-pasts (under 2 seconds, adjustable), scrolling back, or expanding a caption don't inflate the number.
- Time per app: how long the Reels/Shorts viewer was open, and how long you were in Instagram or YouTube at all.
- Live floating counter over the feed, colour-coded against your daily goal. Drag it anywhere or turn it off.
- Home-screen widgets (small and large) with today's count, time and goal progress.
- History for the last 7 and 30 days, plus a list of recent detections so you can see exactly what was counted.
- Light and dark themes.
- Everything is stored only on your phone, in a local database. No account, no sync, no analytics, no ads.
- ScrollLess reads only the Instagram and YouTube screens. Other apps are never inspected.
- It never stores what you watched: each detection keeps a short hash of the on-screen words, not the words.
- The only thing that can leave your phone is an anonymous crash report if the app crashes.
- Delete today's data or everything with one tap in Settings.
Android doesn't tell apps what you're watching in other apps. An accessibility service is the only way to notice that a new Reel or Short has appeared on screen. ScrollLess explains this before asking, uses it only for Instagram and YouTube, and the code that does it is all here: ScrollLessAccessibilityService and how counting works.
Instagram and YouTube have no API for this, so counting is based on what's on screen. It's designed to never double-count; the usual error is an occasional missed video. YouTube Shorts counting is tested on an emulator; Instagram Reels relies on the same approach and is the one to report problems with. See known limitations.
Found a miscount? Open an issue with your phone model and app versions, or share ideas in Discussions.
ScrollLess is a Flutter app with a native Kotlin accessibility service. Pull requests are welcome.
| Layer | What it does |
|---|---|
ScrollLessAccessibilityService (Kotlin) |
Receives window events for Instagram and YouTube, classifies whether the full-screen Reels/Shorts viewer is showing, fingerprints the page under the screen centre and feeds it to the detector. Also times foreground / Reels-surface usage per app. |
SurfaceClassifier |
Finds the vertical pager by known view ids (clips_viewer_*, reel_recycler) and falls back to layout heuristics (near-full-screen scrollable with Reels/Shorts markers) when ids change. |
FingerprintBuilder + ReelDetector |
Turns the visible words of a page (creator, caption, audio) into a token set, ignores counters/timestamps/UI chrome, and counts a video only when a new page has stayed on screen for the minimum watch time (default 2 s, adjustable in Settings), is not similar to the current one, and has not been counted recently. See docs/LIMITATIONS.md. |
UsageTracker |
Attributes elapsed time to the active app and to the Reels/Shorts surface; discards gaps when the service was not observing. |
OverlayController |
Draggable floating pill (TYPE_ACCESSIBILITY_OVERLAY, so no "draw over other apps" permission) showing today's count and time for the app you are in. Tap opens ScrollLess. |
StatsDatabase (Kotlin) / SqliteStatsRepository (Dart) |
One SQLite file, scrollless.db: daily_stats(day, package, reels, surface_ms, foreground_ms) and reel_events(ts, day, package, fingerprint, confidence). Kotlin writes, Flutter reads through sqflite; live updates reach Flutter over an EventChannel. |
| Flutter app | Onboarding → guided Setup screen (accessibility disclosure, add-widget flow, daily goal), three tabs (Today with animated count and goal ring, History with 7/30-day charts, Settings), live banner, per-app cards, recent detections with confidence, overlay toggle, reset / delete, in-app privacy policy, light and dark themes. |
TodayWidgetProvider / TodayWidgetLargeProvider (Kotlin) |
Small (2×2) and large (4×3) home-screen widgets, each resizable with size-aware layouts (today's count, per-app split, time, goal progress; tap opens the app). Refreshed by the service after each count and once a minute, by the app on data/goal changes, and by the launcher every 30 min. Pinned from inside the app with requestPinAppWidget. |
Requirements: Flutter 3.44+, JDK 17, Android SDK 36.
flutter pub get
flutter analyze
flutter test # Dart unit + widget tests
(cd android && ./gradlew :app:testDebugUnitTest) # Kotlin detector tests
flutter build apk --releaseandroid/app/build.gradle.kts reads android/key.properties (git-ignored):
storeFile=keystore/scrollless-release.jks
storePassword=…
keyAlias=scrollless
keyPassword=… # must equal storePassword for PKCS12 keystores
Without that file release builds fall back to the debug key so the project
still compiles on other machines. Never commit the keystore or the
properties file; both are covered by .gitignore.
Project scroll-less-chandra, Android app dev.chandra.scroll_less.
lib/firebase_options.dart and android/app/google-services.json are
Firebase client configuration (identifiers, not credentials) and are
committed so the project builds from a clean clone. Crashlytics is wired via
the com.google.firebase.crashlytics Gradle plugin (mapping files are
uploaded on release builds) and firebase_crashlytics in Dart.
Distribute a build to testers:
firebase appdistribution:distribute build/app/outputs/flutter-apk/app-release.apk \
--app 1:687567897909:android:514ba8205b2dfcb911f87c \
--groups testers --release-notes "…"Everything needed for the listing lives under store/: signed AAB/APK and
checksums (store/release/, git-ignored binaries), icon and feature graphic
(store/graphics/), framed phone screenshots (store/screenshots/phone/),
listing text and policy answers (store/listing/), the hosted privacy policy
source (store/hosting/, deployed to https://scroll-less-chandra.web.app/privacy)
and the step-by-step publish checklist.
Brand sources are in assets/brand/; launcher icons and the Android 12 splash
are generated with flutter_launcher_icons and flutter_native_splash
(configuration in pubspec.yaml).
| Suite | Count | Result |
|---|---|---|
Kotlin JVM unit tests (:app:testDebugUnitTest) |
33 | pass |
Flutter unit + widget tests (flutter test) |
17 | pass |
flutter analyze |
– | no issues |
| Live YouTube Shorts run on a Pixel 7 emulator (release APK) | 7 scenarios | pass, see docs/LIMITATIONS.md |
| Crashlytics end-to-end (test crash → issue) | 2 builds | 1.0.0 and 1.1.0 (3) both confirmed via the Crashlytics API |
MIT. See LICENSE.