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

Magnifica 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.

Features

Magnifies stuff. 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.

Freeze. 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.

Sensible zoom. 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.

Tap to focus. See a blurry thing, tap it, it becomes a readable thing.

A torch. 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.

Front and back cameras, one button to flip between them.

Negative mode. 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.

Magnifica is open source and released under the GPLv3 license[1]. Check out the code[2] if you like.

Get it
You can download it for free in F-Droid[3].

Translations are always welcome! :)

The app is available for translation on Transifex[4].

Magnifica: a magnificent way to make small things bigger.

[1] https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.en.html
[2] https://gitlab.com/juanitobananas/magnifica
[3] https://f-droid.org/packages/com.jarsilio.android.magnifica/
[4] https://explore.transifex.com/juanitobananas/magnifica

What’s new (1.2.0)

New in 1.2.0

★ You can now freeze/unfreeze the image using either volume button, without touching the screen.
★ Added Catalan and Italian translations.

New in 1.1.5

★ Added Russian translation. Thanks to @RogerRY!

New in 1.1.4

★ Fixed the flashlight button sometimes showing the wrong state.

New in 1.1.3

★ The flashlight stays on while the image is frozen.
★ The flashlight turns back on when you return to the app.

...

Versions

Version Date Size Requires Android Download
1.2.0 current
5ec8222f506b9198…
2026-08-21 19 MB API 24
1.1.5
aaf0eac9995632e3…
2026-08-12 19 MB API 24
1.1.4
08f7af9a2fa08228…
2026-08-10 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.

Comments