Magnifica

Magnifica

A magnificent magnifier

juanitobananas Camera Graphics

Screenshots

Screenshot of Magnifica Screenshot of Magnifica Screenshot of Magnifica Screenshot of Magnifica Screenshot of Magnifica Screenshot of Magnifica Screenshot of Magnifica Screenshot of Magnifica

Description

<i>Magnifica</i> is a magnifier app I built because sometimes text is tiny, labels are impossible to read, and product designers apparently enjoy using microscopic fonts.

The name is a little bilingual joke, born of a glorious act of linguistic optimism. I'm Spanish, and "Magnifica" sounds a bit like "magnify" in English. At the same time it brings to mind magnífica in Spanish, which means "magnificent." So the goal was obvious: build a magnifier app that's, well... magnificent.

<b>Features</b>

▸ <b>Magnifies stuff.</b> The tiny print on a medicine box, the impossible serial number on a router, the ingredients list written by someone who clearly hates you — or that suspicious little dot on your kid's leg that you really, really need to know is a freckle and not a tick. Point, zoom, see.

▸ <b>Freeze.</b> Tap to hold a full-resolution still. While frozen, zoom in further and pan around to examine detail you couldn't see in the live view. Tap again to unfreeze.

▸ <b>Sensible zoom.</b> It steps in powers of two (1x, 2x, 4x, 8x…) and tops out at whatever your camera can actually do. Tap plus and minus, no fiddly pinching.

▸ <b>Tap to focus.</b> See a blurry thing, tap it, it becomes a readable thing.

▸ <b>A torch.</b> On the back camera it's your real flashlight. The front camera has no flash, so it turns the whole screen blindingly white and calls that a "flash." It's a hack. It works.

▸ <b>Front and back cameras</b>, one button to flip between them.

▸ <b>Negative mode.</b> Invert the colors with one tap — handy for low-contrast or light-on-dark text. The button even previews what you're about to switch to.

No accounts. No ads. No mysterious permissions. It wants the camera, because it's a camera app, and then it would like to be left alone to do its job.

<i>Magnifica</i> is open source and released under the <a href="https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.en.html">GPLv3 license</a>. Check out the <a href="https://gitlab.com/juanitobananas/magnifica">code</a> if you like.

<b>Get it</b>
You can download it for free in <a href="https://f-droid.org/packages/com.jarsilio.android.magnifica/">F-Droid</a>.

<i>Magnifica:</i> a magnificent way to make small things bigger.

What’s new (1.1.2)

New in 1.1.2

★ Add German and Spanish translations.
★ Allow frozen image to be zoomed up to 3x max zoom.

New in 1.1.1

★ Updated translations.

New in 1.1

★ Freeze: hold the image still and zoom/pan into full-resolution detail.
★ Camera-switch moved to a corner icon; tap while frozen to unfreeze and switch.
★ Fixed landscape: overflow menu no longer overlaps buttons.
★ Corner icons now readable against bright scenes.

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Versions

Version Date Size Requires Android Download
1.1.2 current
c7ebc7d0cbd46344…
2026-07-23 19 MB API 24
1.1.1
42a68af70e471245…
2026-07-21 19 MB API 24
1.1
e2f42e976df36fd9…
2026-07-19 19 MB API 24

Permissions

What the app asks the system for. Android only grants sensitive access after you confirm it.

  • CameraTake photos and videos.
  • magnifica.DYNAMIC_RECEIVER_NOT_EXPORTED_PERMISSION
  • Network stateCheck whether and how the device is connected.

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