Nu?

They texted. Nu?

An Android app that watches for messages from one person, such as your spouse, and makes them impossible to miss — over the lockscreen, over whatever you were doing instead of replying.

↓ Download APK
v1.0.5 · 1.4 MB · Android 8.0+ · released 2026-08-13
9:41
S

Sarah WhatsApped you

WhatsApp · 21:14
can you grab milk on the way home?
23 seconds ago
OpenReply SnoozeDismiss

What it does

One mechanism, every messaging app.

Everything, not just SMS

WhatsApp, Telegram, Signal, Messenger, Instagram, Gmail, plain SMS — it reads notifications, so a new app works on day one without an update.

Unmissable

Full screen over the lockscreen when the phone is asleep, a full-screen overlay when it is not. Optional volume ramp, strobe and text-to-speech, all off by default.

Reply without leaving

If the app offered an inline reply, so does the popup — the message is sent by WhatsApp itself and lands in the thread as if you had typed it there.

Open lands in the chat

Not the app’s home screen. The exact conversation.

Never snoozes

The Snooze button is decorative and says so, escalatingly. Dismiss always works; holding it for two seconds force-closes. Nothing here traps your phone.

Tells you when it breaks

A watchdog checks every fifteen minutes that the listener is bound and the permissions still hold, and warns you if not. Silent failure is the real enemy.

How to sideload

About a minute. Step 3 is the one that trips people up.

  1. Tap Download APK above.
  2. Your browser will ask to allow installing unknown apps — turn it on for the browser.
  3. Google will try to block it. You will see either “Unsafe app blocked” or “Blocked by Play Protect”. Tap More details (sometimes a small “?” or a chevron), then Install anyway. On some phones the wording is Install without scanning.
  4. Open Nu? and run the setup wizard. It walks you through each permission and ends by firing a real popup so you know exactly what you signed up for.

If there is no “Install anyway” at all

A few phones — and any phone managed by a work profile or a family-safety policy — block the install outright with no override. In that case:

  1. Open the Play Store → tap your profile picture → Play Protect → the gear icon.
  2. Turn off Scan apps with Play Protect.
  3. Install Nu?, then turn that setting back on. It will leave the already-installed app alone.

If it is a work or school profile, an administrator controls this and there is genuinely nothing you can do from the phone.

Why does Google think it is dangerous?

Honestly? Because of what it is allowed to do. An app that reads every notification, can read SMS, reads your contacts and draws over other apps has the same permission fingerprint as stalkerware. An automated scanner cannot tell the difference between “tells you your spouse messaged” and “reports your spouse to someone”, so it assumes the worst.

That is a reasonable thing for Google to be strict about. It is also why every one of those permissions is optional or explained in setup, why message content never leaves the phone, and why the source and the SHA-256 above are published — so the claim is checkable rather than just asserted.

SHA-256 c9794457dfb2bc402af538bb745674512ba463ed28573b7b4d1a914a6419c5bf
↓ Download Nu? 1.0.5
1.4 MB · Android 8.0+ · released 2026-08-13

What permissions, and why

Scary-looking permissions on a sideloaded APK deserve an explanation.

PermissionWhat it is forNeeded?
Notification accessRead incoming messages from every app at once Required
Display over other appsShow the popup instantly while you are using the phone Required
Full screen notificationsWake the screen and show over the lockscreen Required
Show notificationsThe keep-alive notification and the fallback alert Required
Foreground serviceStay alive so nothing is missed overnight Required
Ignore battery optimisationSurvive Doze Strongly recommended
ContactsPull their photo and phone numbers — matching works without it Optional
Receive SMSA second detection route for plain text messages Optional
Do Not Disturb accessLet their messages through when DND is on Optional
Install packagesThe in-app updater Optional

Privacy

This app does not send any of your personal data off your phone. It stays local. It simply needs a lot of permissions, because it takes a lot of permissions to do what it does.

Questions

Does it read my messages?

It reads the notifications your phone already shows, on the device, to decide whether one is from the person you configured. Nothing about a message ever leaves the phone.

Why is it not on Google Play?

Two of the things that make it work — reading notifications and receiving SMS — need a Play policy waiver that a personal project will not get. Sideloading skips that conversation entirely.

Will Play Protect complain?

Yes, and it may block the install outright rather than just warn. That is not only because the APK came from outside Play — it is also the permission set. Reading notifications plus SMS plus contacts plus drawing over other apps is the same fingerprint stalkerware has, and a scanner cannot tell intent apart from capability. The install guide above has the exact taps, including what to do when there is no "Install anyway" button.

Does the snooze button work?

No. That is the whole joke. Dismiss always works, and a two-second hold on Dismiss force-closes the popup, so the app can never trap your phone.

Can I use it for someone who is not a spouse?

Yes. Nothing is hard-coded — it watches whoever you put in the setup screen.

What happens on Xiaomi / Huawei / Oppo?

Those skins kill background apps aggressively. Setup detects your manufacturer and deep-links you to the exact autostart screen that fixes it, with the taps spelled out.

“I created this for myself and it’s really useful, so here it is for you to use.”

— Berel