Top Android apps for students in 2026

1. Notion

Notion works as a complete student workspace. Create databases for courses, assignments, readings, and research. Track deadlines, take notes, organize resources, and manage projects in one place.

The power is in connecting information. Link class notes to assignments. Tag readings by topic across different courses. Create dashboards showing all upcoming deadlines. Build a knowledge base that grows throughout your education.

Templates make setup faster. Student templates for class schedules, assignment trackers, and note-taking systems are available in the template gallery. Notion's learning curve is real, but the investment pays off over semesters and years.

2. Forest

Forest helps you stay focused by gamifying concentration. Set a focus timer, and a virtual tree starts growing. If you leave the app to check social media, your tree dies. Stay focused for the full duration, and your tree grows.

Over time, you build a forest representing your accumulated focus time. The visual representation is surprisingly motivating. Forest partners with Trees for the Future, so you can spend virtual coins to plant real trees.

The app includes allowlists for apps you need during study sessions: calculator apps, reference materials, or productivity tools. Everything else is blocked during focus time.

3. Squid

Squid (formerly Papyrus) provides excellent handwriting support on Android. Write naturally with a stylus, organize notes into notebooks, annotate PDFs, and export to various formats. It's particularly good on Samsung devices with S Pen support.

For students who take handwritten notes, Squid offers the flexibility of digital notes with the familiarity of writing by hand. Handwriting recognition makes your notes searchable. Cloud sync keeps everything accessible across devices.

4. Xodo PDF Reader

Students work with PDFs constantly: textbooks, journal articles, assignment instructions, study guides. Xodo handles PDF viewing, annotation, and editing on Android.

Annotation tools include highlighting, underlining, text comments, and freehand drawing. Mark up readings, add notes to study materials, or annotate assignment drafts. These annotations sync across devices. Form filling works well for PDF forms that some schools still distribute.

5. Quizlet

Quizlet helps with memorization through flashcards, practice tests, and study games. Create your own flashcard sets or use sets created by other students for popular courses and textbooks.

Multiple study modes keep things varied: flashcards, writing exercises, matching games, and practice tests. Spaced repetition ensures you review material before you forget it. The mobile app works well for studying during commutes, between classes, or any spare moment.

6. Zotero

Managing research sources becomes essential for longer papers and research projects. Zotero collects, organizes, and cites sources automatically.

Save sources from web browsers with one click. Zotero extracts citation information automatically. Organize sources into collections by topic or project. Citation generation works in multiple formats: APA, MLA, Chicago, and hundreds of others. Insert citations directly into documents and generate bibliographies automatically.

7. Google Drive

Google Drive provides free storage for documents, spreadsheets, presentations, and files. The integration with Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides makes it the default choice for many students.

Real-time collaboration works seamlessly. Multiple students can edit the same document simultaneously for group projects. Comments and suggestions make peer review straightforward. Version history lets you see changes and restore previous versions. Offline access ensures you can work without internet.

8. Wolfram Alpha

Wolfram Alpha is essential for STEM students. It's a computational knowledge engine that solves math problems, plots functions, analyzes data, and answers science questions.

Enter math problems and see step-by-step solutions. Plot complex functions. Solve equations. Perform calculus operations. The explanations help you understand the process, not just get answers. Beyond math, Wolfram Alpha covers physics, chemistry, engineering, and statistics.

9. Grammarly

Grammarly catches grammar mistakes, spelling errors, and awkward phrasing. The keyboard app works across all Android apps where you write: emails, documents, messaging.

Real-time suggestions appear as you type. Tap suggestions to accept them. The free version handles basic grammar and spelling. For students writing papers, emails to professors, or any formal communication, Grammarly reduces errors and improves clarity.