A. Introduction

Mobile phone users need help to efficiently get almost if not all of their mobile activities competed in no time. To archive this, mobile tools are needed. However, It's amazing to seeing how a lot of developers out there are solving these problems with their projects. And, I'm most pleased to have set-up a blog where these tools are being Introduced.

In today's blog post, I will be discussing another great mobile tool that was developed and it's being maintained by Screaminghawk. He titled itphone Saver.

The title of this tool got me thinking... Phone saver? Like it saves phones? Well, that was how I reasoned it the very first time I came across it. But, I can testify that it's an awesome project.

What Exactly Is PhoneSaver?

ScreamingHawk defined Phone Saver as; "An Android app that lets users save files to their phone using the share function." That's one of the best ways to describe it. But, I would rather define it as an android tool that automatically saves an item to your phone by just sharing the item with it.
Before we go deeper into details, let us check how you can get it installed on your Android device.
ScreeamingHawk didn't leave his project stranded like the developer behind ScreenShotGo. There are three different sources where PhoneSaver can be downloaded from. PlayStore customers can get it downloaded from here, while F-Droid lovers from here.

B. My Experience With Its Features Vs Other Apps

For PhoneSave to work perfectly as intended, it requires a permission request to be accepted. The permission request was the first prompt I received on launching the project. I didn't expect this so soon, as I was expecting to see an introductory page first. You should also notice that it lacked an introductory page, even after accepting the permission.
Although, an introductory page shouldn't be an issue if the app is easy to use. And yes, it's an easy project.
When the Home screen finally displayed, I was amazed by how the home screen looked. PhoneSaver is actually the first mobile tool I'd use that has its home screen as the neatest. The first screenshot below shows the home screen when a folder hasn't been added to it, while the second shows when a folder was added.

As you've seen from the second screenshot that I added four different folders. And, despite the folders, the home screen still looked neat.
You must have been wondering that what are these folders for?
Well, since PhoneSaver is an app that automatically saves any type of file that is shared with it, then, it definitely needs a folder to save those files. From the screenshot above, I added just four folders. I can decide to add more, but, I don't need them. These four folders will contain most of the files I work with. One may decide to add several folders without being restricted. Folders are added using the (+) button on the home screen. When it's clicked, it then opens the list of the folder on the user's device. Tapping on any of those folders will automatically get them added to the app.

If I am asked to describe PhoneSaver in three words, I would say PhoneSaver is simple.
I chose the word simple because it only requires a tap to get a file saved to your storage. The Gif below shows a demonstration of how I saved an image while browsing the net.

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Why Should I Use PhoneSaver And Not The Download Manager Embedded In My Browser?

I have two reasons for not using the download manager embedded in my browser. And they are;

Speed

If you've ever downloaded with your default browser, you would understand what I meant by speed. At times, downloading the picture from the demo Gif above, have to load. Meanwhile, it doesn't even load anything while using PhoneSaver. You can download anything with PhoneSaver. I confirmed this after I doubted if it can download a .mp3 file. To my surprise, it did. All I did was to share the mp3 link to it.

Time-saving

The downloader that is embedded in my Chrome saves every of my downloaded file on a single folder. Although there's an option from its settings, where I can set it to always ask me for a location to save the files. But, repeatedly scrolling through my folders can be frustrating.
So, Why don't I just use PhoneSaver? A downloader that lets me pre-define the folders where to save files without letting me scroll past all other folders. As you've from the Gif above that it only displays the four folders I selected during installation.

PhoneSaver As an Intelligent Downloader

PhoneSaver is able to detect if a file is a duplicate in a selected location. If the condition is true, it appends the file name with a digit. If not, it downloads the file with its default name. This feature isn't new to me. I have seen it in different downloaders including Chrome Downloader. The only problem I have with this feature on PhoneSaver is how it appends the file name. I was expecting it to Iterate the numbers, and not to add a (1) every time. Due to this issue, the name becomes longer upon saving the same file.

Force Saving Feature

By default, PhoneSaver won't save an unknown file format. It automatically prompts a message that the file isn't supported. To bypass this instance, enabling Force saving from settings interface will solve it.
If you've enabled it, you're now free to share any type of file with PhoneSaver.

Ability To Enable/Disable Android Document UI

Here are the few facts I gathered while using PhoneSaver. PhoneSaver doesn't save shared files to sd card by default. Also, trying to pre-define an Sdcard folder isn't possible. Because of this, an option has been implemented to enable Android document UI. With this feature, Users are allowed to save to sd card directly. Below is a quick example of how it works. If you compare the style of saving in this Gif with the first Gif, you will notice that there's a difference.

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Automatically Hide Your Downloaded Files From The Apps That Can Access Them

The days when I go searching for an application to hide some of my contents from being viewed is over. With this feature enabled, a music player won't be able to see the music file downloaded with PhoneSaver, Gallery won't be able to view the downloaded images, and so on. This is amazing. After using this feature, I can boldly say PhoneSaver is a download manager and also a file hinder.

Project Update

The project got updated to v4.1.1 4days ago. The major changes in this release was where he fixed this issue by upgrading from depreciated preference activity.

Upcoming Features

The very day he updated the project to V4.1.1, he also started working on V5. In V5, he upgraded the build version and implemented the Special handling for Imgur links.
Three days ago, he started working on V5.1. And in this version, he's still attempting to Fix lint issues.

conclusion

I am already a lover of this project. I can't wait to see the upcoming features. If you are not using this product yet, I recommend it to you. Thanks for stopping, and bye.