Start here: the Amethyst manual

Amethyst does far more than its screens let on. Most of it is one gesture, one drawer row, or one ⋮ menu away, and nobody has ever written it all down in one place. This is that place: a reference manual for the Android app, in twelve posts, each on one theme, each readable on its own. It is written for people who already use Amethyst and suspect it can do more than they know — which is everyone.

Every entry tells you where to tap, what happens, and the one thing to know before you rely on it. It is a guide, not a changelog and not a review.

How to read an entry

Three conventions, stated once here so the posts don't repeat them:

• Bold is a literal label you will see on screen. A path like Drawer → Relays → Proxy Relays means open the side drawer, then Relays, then that section.
• Play and F-Droid are the two builds of the app. Where a feature exists in only one, or behaves differently, the entry says so inline. If it says nothing, both builds are the same.
• "since v1.17.0" marks something new in the current release. Everything else has been there a while — you just didn't know.

The twelve posts

1. Your phone can do more than you think — gestures. Double-taps, long-presses and swipes that are the fastest route to things, starting with the zap bolt's three gestures.

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2. 220 things behind three dots — the ⋮ menu. Copy raw JSON, Add Media to Gallery, Fork, Timestamp it, and what the two Share menus do.

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3. Your photos, at the size you choose — media. The upload quality slider, what each stop does, HLS uploads, Blossom storage, the player buttons, captions, casting.

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4. The post you wrote and the post that shipped — composing. The scrolling action row, anonymous posts, zap splits, proof of work, drafts, voice notes. nostr:naddr1qqg9wkpnxam56d3sgev9j3nzweyhwqghwaehxw309aex2mrp0yh8qunfd4skctnwv46z7q3qe2yuky03caw4ke3zy68lg0fz3r4gkt94hx4fjmlelacyljgyk79sxpqqqp65wfve450
5. Zaps have more buttons than you think — money. Presets, the Wallet tab, ecash, on-chain, BOLT12, every payment method a profile can carry. nostr:naddr1qqg9x52zg345cjj5v33rsmj4xgukgqghwaehxw309aex2mrp0yh8qunfd4skctnwv46z7q3qe2yuky03caw4ke3zy68lg0fz3r4gkt94hx4fjmlelacyljgyk79sxpqqqp65wgmw5w6
6. Amethyst has a query language — feeds, search and discovery. The search tokens, filters, the drawer's sixty feeds, pinning any room to the bottom bar. nostr:naddr1qqgy5erhf9yk6469dp65gcm2gf68qqghwaehxw309aex2mrp0yh8qunfd4skctnwv46z7q3qe2yuky03caw4ke3zy68lg0fz3r4gkt94hx4fjmlelacyljgyk79sxpqqqp65wv2nyx2
7. What's private, and how to keep it that way — privacy and safety. What is encrypted and what isn't, Tor switch by switch, mute and block, your key on this phone. nostr:naddr1qqgrq7jgvuux2mnhv9nxusjhv9mk2qghwaehxw309aex2mrp0yh8qunfd4skctnwv46z7q3qe2yuky03caw4ke3zy68lg0fz3r4gkt94hx4fjmlelacyljgyk79sxpqqqp65wsx0tyq
8. Where your posts actually go — relays and the outbox. The relay lists, the Proxy Relays off-switch, what fan-out costs, backups that another app changed. nostr:naddr1qqg8smesve8ycktr2d655kts29v8gqgswaehxw309ahx7um5wghx6mmd9upzpj5fevglr36atdnzyf507s7j9z823vkttwd2n9hlnlmsflysfdutqvzqqqr4guwkfup9
9. There are several apps inside your app — the far corners. Calls, audio rooms, mini-apps, git, fitness, the QR scanner, and more. [link pending]
10. Four ways to talk in private — group chat. Cordn, Concord, Marmot and Buzz: who carries the messages, and how to move a group to a new phone. [link pending]
11. A browser that waits for Tor — the in-app browser. The omnibox, search engines, per-site permissions, downloads, the Tor rules. [link pending]
12. Hide something, sign it, let strangers find it — geocaching. The hub, finding and logging caches, QR-verified finds. [link pending]

The early posts have the most surprise per word and need no setup; the later ones go deeper. Read them in any order.

Ten things to try right now

One from most posts, chosen because each takes under a minute and changes how you use the app:

1. Double-tap the zap bolt on any note. You get the custom-amount dialog — any amount, plus a message — without going through the presets. (Post one.)
2. Note ⋮ → Copy raw JSON. The whole event, pretty-printed, on your clipboard. The quickest answer to "what does this note actually contain?" (Post two.)
3. Slide the upload quality to Uncompressed before you attach a photo. The default, Medium, halves the width and height and re-encodes as JPEG; Uncompressed keeps your original resolution and format. (Post three.)
4. Tap your own avatar in the composer. It becomes a "no accounts" glyph and the post publishes from a throwaway key. (Post four.)
5. Type from: in search and pick a person: the rest of your query now searches only their notes. kind:, to: and date windows work the same way. (Post six.)
6. Drawer → Relays → Proxy Relays. Put one relay there and Amethyst stops fanning out to everyone's relays and asks that one for everything — the single biggest lever on battery and data. (Post eight.)
7. Long-press the Amethyst icon on your launcher for a Scan QR shortcut straight into the camera. Share an image to Amethyst and pick Scan QR code to decode a code in a picture. (Post nine.)
8. Settings → Cordn → Move to a new phone. A handoff code moves every Cordn group, with history, to another device; the keys never travel in the code. (Post ten.)
9. Add to Home from the browser's pill. The page becomes a launcher shortcut that opens inside Amethyst and waits for Tor if the page needs it. (Post eleven.)
10. Backup Keys → Tap to reveal. Your nsec as a numbered paper grid, behind your device credential, re-masked the moment the app goes to the background. (Post seven.)

Deeper dives

Two single-feature guides go further than a manual entry can:

• Cast videos to your TV — Chromecast from the Play build, and why the phone is not the projector. [link pending]
• Schedule posts for later — your phone publishes the post, not a server, and what that means for setup. [link pending]

Found something wrong?

Reply to the post you found it in. The manual is checked against the app's code, release by release, and corrections go into the next revision — this index carries the version it currently describes at the top.