I am looking for an app that allows me to combine up to 20 images into a grid. That’s it.
Hard requirements:
- not bigger than 60MB (not bloated with useless stickers etc.)
- works properly, multiple grids, maybe adaptive to content, rectangle, resizable images inside the grid.
Soft requirements:
- no ads or creepy network stuff (GrapheneOS network toggle deals with that)
- latest target SDK
- support for share dialog OR android photo picker portal (instead of using their own filepicker and needing storage access)
- FOSS
So far I tried these apps, all garbage:
- Layout for Instagram (outdated)
- Collagemaker which is the same as This Collagemaker
- beFunky: share dialog broken
- Jubo Photo Collage maker
All have their own silly galleries and have a nonfunctional share portal.
Explanation: Apps dont need access to your storage to load content into their internal sandbox storage.
They can use the native android photo picker portal:
GIF (click if not playing)
Or they can catch media sent to them via the share dialog, from your trusted Gallery or Filemanager app.
Apps using a builtin Gallery suck, as they need access to all media (Android 14), specific folders (GrapheneOS) or even all storage (older Android) which is pretty invasive.
And yeah, Signal is still doing that.
Portal in, transform, portal out. Have a look at ZiXTract, it works.