After following how to install or how to install via adb, you may be wondering what you’re supposed to do next and how you can configure Andoff to lock down your device.

This page will serve as a small guide to walk you through the first-time setup process and provide a brief tour of Andoff’s settings.

Sign back into accounts & turn on personal data sync

The first thing you should do after installing Andoff is sign into the accounts you had to remove during installation, such as your Google account.

Settings > Account and backup > Manage accounts > Add account

If your personal data backup is synced to your Google account, make sure to complete sign-in to resume sync. Also, if you used the factory reset method you will be able to restore your backup–Docs, Contacts, Drive, Sheets and Calendar–now.

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Android settings that are easier to change before enabling Andoff

If you used the factory reset method, finish setting up your phone now. Once you turn on Andoff’s protection settings, many of these steps will be more difficult/time-consuming to complete, or they will be locked down altogether.

  • Install the apps you want (including stock apps that didn’t get installed)
  • Install a different keyboard if you want to block the preinstalled keyboards
  • Install a VPN or add private DNS settings
  • Change date and time settings to ‘automatic’ if you plan to travel outside your timezone with this device

Install Pluckeye browser

If you only want to manage apps and not web browsing (or plan to block browsing completely) on your Android device, you can skip this step.

But if you intend to use your phone to browse the web and want a safe browsing experience, you should install the Pluckeye browser: https://getplucky.net/?os=android

Using the Chrome browser: visit the link, tap the installer button, after it downloads tap “open”, tap “settings” if prompted to give permission to install the .apk, toggle Chrome on, and tap “Install”.

Andoff basic configuration

Finally it’s time to launch the Andoff app.

On the home screen you’ll see a message that protection is off.

Tap on the big red icon in the middle of the screen to turn protections on.

Also on the home screen is the settings cog and pending changes button in the top-right, and the apps button at the bottom.

Tap on the apps button now to go the apps screen.

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Apps screen

This screen is where you’ll spend most time in Andoff. Here you configure the status of apps on the device.

The three statuses are:

  • Default
  • Blocked
  • Protected

Default is basically the “allowed” state where Andoff ignores the app.

Blocked prevents the app from being used at all by preventing it from launching or running in the background.

Protected basically means “allowed and can’t be uninstalled”. This setting is often useful for protecting filtering apps on the device.

Notice on this screen you can also pin any apps to the top and see some info about them like the package name.

Block an app

To block an app, just change the status of the app to Blocked.

See the webm below for a demonstration of blocking Chrome.

The app becomes faded after blocking and tapping on it fails to launch, instead reporting that the “action is not allowed”.

Protect an app (uninstallation prevention)

To prevent an app from being uninstalled, just change the status of the app to protected.

See the webm below for a demonstration of protecting Pluckeye.

After protecting it, attempting to uninstall the app reports the message that “uninstalling Pluckeye was unsuccessful”.

Settings tour

Go back to the home screen and tap the settings cog to get to the Settings screen.

On this screen you will see many unfamiliar options, but you can tap on the info bubble next to an option to learn what it does.

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Sign in to activate Andoff license

If you are a Plucky subscriber, you can activate Andoff by tapping the Login button and signing into your u.pluckeye.net account.

Tip: If you use autocomplete to login, make sure there are no invisible whitespaces after your e-mail or it will report the wrong login credentials!

After completing sign-in, your license state will change from Trial to Plucky-Subscription.

You can also toggle on synchronization at this point.

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Getting help, and uninstallation

The about section has links that may help you if you get stuck, especially the link to the Andoff manual (which you’re reading now).

The “Revoke” button will let you remove Andoff as the device owner and uninstall the app. Don’t worry; the revoke action is protected by a locking mechanism which will be shown how to set up later.

Advanced mode (more settings)

You can toggle advanced mode on to populate the home screen with additional settings. By default, most of these are pre-configured by the basic protection setting.

It’s recommended you try exploring these additional settings later after learning all the basic settings.

Set a locking mechanism (password protect or delay protect)

Now it’s time to set a locking mechanism.

First off, it’s recommended you toggle on “permit tightening changes directly” if you want a Plucky-like experience. When enabled, an action like changing an app’s status to blocked will skip the delay or password requirement, but changing its status to default will still be bound by the locking mechanism.

Now you can set either a password or a delay for your locking mechanism.

If you prefer your accountability partner keep the password and you don’t want to be able to make changes to your setup (even if those changes don’t take immediate effect), the password is the best choice.

If you don’t have a partner to keep a password for you, or you like the ability to make changes to your settings as long as you can exercise some self-control by not being able to make immediate changes, the delay is the best choice. However you think is the right amount of time to wait is up to you. Once you decide, you can use the time increment buttons to set your delay.

Also, you can change your delay time whenever you want. Increasing it will immediately increase the delay if you enabled “permit tightening changes directly”. Decreasing it will make you wait an amount of time equal to original delay - new delay.

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Demonstration of the locking mechanism

In this demonstration, the user has enabled a delay locking mechanism set to 1 minute.

The user tries to allow the YouTube app and it immediately begins a countdown timer which starts with the length of the delay (1 minute).

This means YouTube is still blocked even though the user attempted to change the status to Default (allowed). It won’t actually become unblocked until the timer runs out and the user taps on apply changes now.

View pending changes

You can see the progress of pending changes by going to the home screen and tapping on the clipboard icon in the top-right.

After a timer runs out, you have the option to relock the app if you changed your mind, or apply changes now to confirm changing the status of the app.

Last updated: 2025-01-15