Shelf
Hide folders instantly behind a working decoy app. Root optional.
io.github.melastore.shelf
About Shelf
Shelf is a private-space utility that can appear on the launcher as a habit
tracker, calendar, or calculator. Each decoy is a functional app with its own
name, icon, and colour scheme.
Five taps in the top-right corner open the credential prompt. Settings adds a
second, quieter gesture: a long press on the decoy title, or on a natural
control inside the decoy. Access uses a PIN, a password, a 3×3 pattern, or a
knock code on four unmarked quarters. The knock pad shows a blank screen while
it is entered, so a watcher learns neither the length of the code nor how far
through it you are. Optional strong-biometric unlock always opens the real
space, with the credential as fallback. The entry gesture can also put up a
fake app-has-stopped dialog; a long press on its message carries on to the
credential.
Auto hide runs after screen off, immediately when Shelf leaves the foreground,
or never. It closes the private space and puts exposed folders back out of
sight. An optional quiet notification, under the disguise's own name, offers
the same emergency hide on demand.
Folders you add stay on the list whether or not they are hidden, and one control
hides or unhides all of them at once. A hidden folder can be opened without
unhiding it: photos, video, audio, PDFs, and text are decrypted as they are
read, with nothing written back to disk and no gallery picking them up.
An optional second credential opens a private space that looks and behaves like
the real one and contains nothing that matters, the one to give up if you are
ever made to hand one over. Shelf records that it was used and tells you on your
next real unlock, along with any wrong credentials someone else tried.
A separate emergency PIN destroys the encryption keys and journals as soon as it
is entered at any unlock prompt. Turning the phone face down or plugging in a
USB cable can also lock everything at once.
Folders can be hidden in three ways: with root, by clearing permission bits on
the backing filesystem