NoReels

Instagram and YouTube without Reels and Shorts.

NoReels opens Instagram and YouTube in a window of its own and takes out the parts built to hold you there. What you came for stays: your messages, the people you follow, profiles and search.

WHAT GOES

- Short video: Reels and Shorts, with their tabs and links
- The Explore grid, which becomes plain search
- Ads and sponsored posts
- Suggested posts from accounts you do not follow
- If you want: stories too, or the home feed itself, or everything except messages

Every filter is its own switch. You decide how far it goes.

REELS FROM MESSAGES

If someone sends you a reel, you can watch it. Swipe on and you are back in the chat. That is the whole difference between looking at something and losing half an hour.

WHEN THAT IS NOT ENOUGH

NoReels can block the installed Instagram app as well: outright, or after a daily limit you set yourself. Open Instagram anyway and you land in NoReels. Insights shows which app took how much time, measured on the device.

Both are optional and need permissions you grant yourself in system settings.

ACCESSIBILITY SERVICE

NoReels uses Android's accessibility service, the AccessibilityService API. Here is everything it is for.

The service learns one thing: which app has just come to the front. The name of the app, nothing else. What is on your screen, what you type, and what happens inside other apps cannot be read by NoReels.

That one signal drives two features you switch on yourself:

- The handoff. Open the Instagram app and NoReels opens instead, with your filtered Instagram.
- Blocking. If you have blocked apps, outright or after a daily limit you set, NoReels shows a block screen when you open one of them.

Both stay off until you turn them on. NoReels explains what the service does and asks you to confirm before it sends you to the Android settings, and you can switch it off again there at any time.

PRIVACY

What you look at in the feed, which apps you block and how long you use them stays on the device. The filtering runs locally. Your login goes straight to Instagram or YouTube and never through us.

An account is optional and exists for two things: so support can reply to you, and so your roadmap votes stay yours. It holds your name, email address and profile picture. Everything else works without signing in.

No analytics, no ad tracking, no data brokers.

NoReels is free and has no in-app purchases.

NoReels is not affiliated with, endorsed by or sponsored by Meta, Instagram, Google or YouTube.

Privacy: https://use-less.app/noreeels/datenschutz
Terms: https://use-less.app/noreeels/nutzungsbedingungen