Find any file by what's in it.
Type what you remember. Better Files searches your documents and photos by meaning, right on your phone. No cloud. No account.
You remember what a file was about. The name is long gone.
Accept the model once.It downloads about 320 MB. Photo search adds 110 MB more.
It indexes your files on the phone.Newest files go first. On older phones, the first pass can take hours.
Search the way you'd describe it.Try "land records" or "beach at sunset". English, Hindi and Hinglish all work.
Features
A file manager that reads your files
The usual file manager tools, plus a search that reads what's inside each file.
Search by meaning
Type "rent agreement" or "beach at sunset". It finds the file even if you named it something else.
Runs on your phone
The search model and index live on the device. Your files, their names and your searches stay there.
The rest of the toolbox
Archives, root access, SMB, SFTP, FTP, WebDAV and themes. Built on Material Files.
Demo
See it work
A real search, recorded on a six-year-old phone.
Privacy
What stays private
There is no account, and no server of ours receives your files.
Nothing leaves
Your files, file names, folders and searches stay on your phone.
Analytics start off
You can turn them on in Settings. If you do, only anonymous usage counts go to PostHog in the EU.
No ads, no tracking
No advertising ID and no Google Play Services. The full details are in the privacy policy.
Beta
Before you install
It's a beta. These are the limits we know about.
Requirements
- Android 10 or newer.
- The search model downloads once, about 320 MB. Photo search adds 110 MB.
- Meaning and photo search need about 3.5 GB of RAM. On phones with less, search matches keywords inside documents.
Known limits
- The first index can take hours on older phones. Each file is searchable as soon as it's done.
- Some phones stop apps in the background. If indexing stops, open Better Files and it picks up where it left off.
- Scanned PDFs and password-protected PDFs can't be searched yet.
- Excel, PowerPoint and old .doc files aren't indexed yet.