f-tree

Thank you

That's f-tree on its way.

Android asks a few pointed questions before it will install an app that didn't come from the Play Store. All of them are expected here. Below is each one, what it means, and what to tap.

Download the APK

Starting your download…

Installing

  1. Your browser will call it risky

    Chrome warns about every APK it ever downloads, regardless of what's in it, because a file that can install software deserves a second look. Choose Download or Keep to continue.

    “This type of file can harm your device.” — Download anyway

  2. Open the file and allow this one source

    Tap the finished download in your notifications, or find it in Files → Downloads. The first time an app installs something, Android asks whether that app is allowed to. Turn the switch on, then come back with the back gesture.

    “For your security, your phone isn't allowed to install unknown apps from this source.” — Settings → Allow from this source → back

    This permission belongs to whichever app opened the file — usually Chrome or Files — not to f-tree. You can switch it back off afterwards.

  3. Play Protect will want a word

    Google scans apps it hasn't seen before. f-tree is new and installed by very few people, so it has no reputation yet — that, and nothing else, is what this warning is about. Choose More details, then Install anyway.

    “Unsafe app blocked” or “App scan recommended” — More details → Install anyway

    Don't take my word for it. This is exactly the prompt that protects people from bad APKs, and clicking past it is a habit worth keeping rare. The checksum below lets you confirm the file you downloaded is byte-for-byte the one GitHub built from the public source — and the app requests no permissions at all, which you can see on this screen before you install.

  4. Open f-tree

    Start with yourself, or with the oldest relative you can name. Add the family around them, and use Unknown freely for anyone whose name you never learned — you can fill it in years later without disturbing anything you've built.

Checking what you got

Verify the download

Every release is built by GitHub Actions from the public source and signed with my key. The checksum below is published by GitHub, not by this page. On a computer, run sha256sum (or certutil -hashfile … SHA256 on Windows) against the file you downloaded and compare — if the two strings match, the file is untouched.

File
the latest release APK
Size
about 2 MB
Released
see the release page
SHA-256
published on the release page
Signed by
395d8e62649589a120870a35625bd52183c04a54bcef4c8f9c40e30f1267e634
Release notes
on GitHub

The signing certificate above stays the same for every release. An update signed by any other key will refuse to install over this one — which is the point of it.

If it goes wrong

“App not installed”

Usually an older f-tree signed with a different key is already on the phone. Uninstall it and try again. Exporting your tree first is wise — uninstalling takes its data with it.

Install does nothing

The download probably finished as a partial file. Delete it from Files → Downloads and download it once more.

Older than Android 8

f-tree needs Android 8.0 (Oreo) or newer and won't install below that. There's no workaround for it.

Something else

Open an issue and say what your phone is and what it showed you.