This is the loop FoldRender is actually finished for: clone a public repository anonymously, then read every file in it — Markdown, source, notebooks, PDFs — from one file tree. It has been run on a clean device. What follows is that procedure step by step, including the parts that are slow, and a straight account of where the git half stops.
FoldRender is on the Play Store as FoldRender: Git Repo Reader, package id dev.foldrender.app, free and distributed worldwide. Install it the ordinary way — no allow installs from this source prompt to approve, and updates arrive on their own. The app declares minSdk 30, so it needs Android 11 or newer; Play will tell you if a device is below that rather than letting you install a build that cannot run.
Open the git panel with the branch glyph in the top bar. Paste an HTTPS URL into Clone an HTTPS repository URL — the placeholder shows the expected shape, https://github.com/you/repo.git — and tap Clone. For a public repository that is all of it: no account, no token, no sign-in. HTTPS only; SSH remotes are not supported.
FoldRender opens the clone as the workspace and begins listing it. On a repository of roughly 4,600 files this takes a long time and shows only a spinner — no percentage, no file count, no estimate. It does complete. Small and medium repositories are quick; it is the large ones where the missing progress indicator is felt.
The Files tab is the tree, with a type badge on every row and .gitignore-aware hiding so vendored directories and build output stay out of the way. Tap README.md. Unfolded, the tree stays on the left and the document renders on the right; folded, the document takes the screen and the tree becomes a back step.
Source files render with whole-file lexical highlighting and line numbers, under a header giving the detected language and the line count, with a Wrap chip for long lines. JSON, YAML, TOML and lockfiles open as a collapsible tree with a copyable path breadcrumb; CSV opens as a sortable table with a frozen header; logs get severity colouring; PDFs get a page counter and a tap-to-jump thumbnail strip; notebooks show their cells, execution counters and saved outputs.
The Search tab greps the entire workspace — literal or regex, results streaming in as path:line rows with a preview line, tap to open at that line. It respects .gitignore, skips binaries and anything over about 1.5 MB, and caps at 500 hits with the status line telling you it capped. On a phone this is the difference between reading a repository and scrolling one.
Scroll position is stored per document and restored when you reopen it. The Recent tab collects the files you have opened, and a long-press in the tree pins a file as a favourite — worth doing for the two or three files you keep returning to in an unfamiliar codebase.
Back in the git panel, each clone has a chip; the header shows the current branch, ahead and behind counts, and either “· clean” or “· N changed”. Underneath are Pull, Browse files, the local branch chips, and the recent commit list showing each commit's short id and author.
Markdown, source in around sixty languages, JSON/YAML/TOML, CSV/TSV, images including SVG, PDF, HTML, logs and Jupyter notebooks all open in the same pane from the same tree. Rendering has been verified on device for Markdown, source, PDF and notebooks.
Each format is a stateless renderer scoring the file on name, MIME type and magic bytes together, and the highest score wins. An extensionless file that starts with %PDF or <svg still lands in the right renderer.
Two panes — tree left, document right — appear when the window is wide enough or the device is genuinely half-open; folded it collapses to one column with the tree a back step away. The activity handles configuration changes itself rather than being recreated.
The honest list — shipped-but-unverified behaviour included, so you can tell before installing whether this build does the thing you came for.
Four apps people actually reach for, and the one axis that separates them: whether the repository ends up on the phone, and whether anything renders it once it is there.
| Tool | Download price | Where you get it | Clones to the device | Renders PDF / notebook / Markdown | Editor or shell |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| FoldRender 0.8.2 | US$0 | Google Play, worldwide | Yes — HTTPS, anonymous for public repos | Yes — native Compose renderers | No, deliberately: a reader, not an IDE |
| GitHub Mobile | US$0 | Google Play and the App Store | No — it reads repositories hosted on GitHub | Only what GitHub itself renders, online | Edits files inside a pull request |
| Termux + git | US$0 | F-Droid or GitHub | Yes — the real git CLI | No — terminal text only | Yes, a full shell and any CLI editor |
| MGit 1.7.0 (2023) | US$0 | F-Droid only | Yes — clone, pull, push, HTTPS or SSH keys | No | No — its own listing says it ships no text editor |
Prices are for the download. GitHub Mobile’s capabilities follow your GitHub plan; Termux and MGit are both free software. MGit’s version and date are from its F-Droid listing.
Every figure here is read out of the shipping build or off a primary source listed at the foot of this page — nothing is rounded up for effect.
0.8.2, build 16, last reviewed on 27 August 2026.minSdk 30 — the API level Android 11 shipped with in 2020 — compiled and targeted against API 36.The primary documents behind the figures above, so you can confirm any of them without taking our word for it.
git-clone reference — the operation the app's clone button performs, in the words of the project that defines itminSdk names as its floorPage last reviewed 2026-08-27, against FoldRender 0.8.2.