The 12 Best Android Widgets for Your Home Screen

Widgets have been part of Android since day one, and they remain one of the platform's most useful features. These tiny applets that you can place on your home screen are ideal for quick, at-a-glance information like weather updates. Sometimes they have buttons for controlling music or your phone's flashlight.

But with so many apps offering cool widgets, how can you be sure you aren't missing out? Here's our pick of the best Android widgets every user should have.

Want to keep your home screen uncluttered but still like to have a handy summary of your agenda for the day? You've already got the best widget; you just might not have noticed it.

At a Glance is part of the Google app installed on every Android phone. It's a single-row, full-width widget that updates throughout the day to show bits of information like traffic or your next appointment. If there's nothing special happening, it becomes a nice date and weather widget.

If you prefer a bit more customization, then take a look at Another Widget. It's inspired by At a Glance—and is almost identical in looks—but offers a tad more functionality.

Download: Google (Free)

Overdrop is one of the most impressive members of Android's ever-expanding weather app genre. It's one of the best-looking and offers accurate minute-by-minute forecasts from a whole range of weather services.

It also has a heavy focus on widgets. You get around 25 free widgets, and over 50 in total if you upgrade through an in-app purchase. They cover pretty much every style you could think of.

If Overdrop doesn't work out for you, take a look at our guide to more of the best weather widgets for Android. You're sure to find something you'll love there.

Download: Overdrop (Free, in-app purchases available)

Every home screen needs a great-looking clock widget. Chronus gives you a bunch of them. It offers a choice of digital and analog clocks, with added agenda view, weather, stocks, or a news feed. It even has a widget that's compatible with Google Fit, putting your daily steps onto your home screen.

You can customize every part of the look and feel of your Chronus widgets. And by downloading some third-party extensions from the Play Store, you can make it even more useful. Once you get your head around how to customize Chronus widgets, they become some of the coolest widgets for Android.

Download: Chronus (Free, in-app purchases available)

4. Best Notes Widgets: Google Keep & Samsung Notes

You'll find lots of excellent note-taking apps with widgets in the Play Store. But you can't really beat Google Keep.

It offers three widgets. One is a simple shortcuts button that lets you create a basic note, list, voice memo, handwritten note, or photo note. The next allows you to pin a collection of notes for quick access, and to add new ones with ease. The third lets you add a single note to your home screen, which is ideal for reminders, or for checking off the items on your shopping list.

There are a lot of great Google widgets, and Keep has some of the most useful.

Download: Google Keep (Free)

While Google Keep has some great note widgets, Samsung users also have access to one of the best Samsung widgets out there, Samsung Notes. The widget options here include a sleek and stylish toolbar, miniature note shortcuts, and a larger full-view option.

Download: Samsung Notes (Free)

Month is a beautiful collection of calendar widgets, with over 90 themes to fit in seamlessly with whatever wallpaper, icon set, or launcher you use. There's something for everyone.

You can choose a classy, transparent, full-page Month view or go for a more functional Agenda view suitable for busy professionals. It's fully compatible with Google Calendar as well.

Download: Month (Free, in-app purchases available)

TickTick is an awesome task management app that comes with a collection of widgets guaranteed to make you a whole lot more productive. They range from a comprehensive multi-page to-do list to a three-day agenda view, to a basic checklist. There's even a Pomodoro timer widget that will help you cut out procrastination and get more work done.

It all ties into an app that's vital for anyone with a busy life. In fact, the app is so good we've produced a full guide full of essential TickTick tips.

Download: TickTick (Free, subscription available)

A sleek battery widget is one of those widget ideas that you didn't know you needed. A simple battery widget is a must when you need to keep an eye on your phone's remaining charge and can help you prolong your battery life throughout the day.

Battery Widget Reborn is as simple as they come: it's a small 1x1 circle with a number inside it. That number can be either a percentage, or the estimated time you've got left. You can click through for some extra battery stats, too.

For those who love a nice graph, Battery Widget Reborn also offers a cool graph widget that allows you to see how your battery life will diminish at its current rate of use.

Download: Battery Widget Reborn (Free, in-app purchases available)

Flashlights are one of the most notorious categories of Android apps. They're so often packed full of junk ads, and permissions that snoop through your data—or worse.

Flashlight Widget is a breath of fresh air. It's free, open-source, has no ads, and requires no permissions.

In fact, all it does is drop a little on/off button on your home screen that you can use to toggle your flashlight. And when you think about it, that's really all it needs to do, which is why it's one of the most useful widgets and one of our top widget apps for Android.

Download: Flashlight Widget (Free)

Spotify, Apple Music, and other streaming services have their own widgets that let you control your tunes without opening the app. But if you prefer to listen to music stored on your phone and you want a great-looking widget to control it, look no further than Musicolet.

Not only is it a fantastic music player, with unusual features like support for earphone controls and multiple queues, it also offers a handy selection of widgets. These include basics like the standard music controls with album art, up to a larger option that lets you browse your chosen playlist.

Download: Musicolet Music Player (Free, in-app purchases available)

Sofascore is one of the best apps for sports scores, and comes with two very useful widgets. The first is a column that you can resize to run down the side of one of your home screen panels; the other can be expanded to fill the whole screen. In both cases, they show the games and scores for the teams, leagues, and sports that you've marked as favorites in the app.

The app is ideal for whatever you're into. It has info on over 20 sports, with thousands of leagues and competitions, including even eSports.

Download: Sofascore (Free, in-app purchases available)

Keeping track of your stock prices is one of the best uses of a widget. Investing.com has a good one as part of its Stock Exchange app. You can search for stocks on over 70 global exchanges and track as many as you like. These automatically get added to your widget, which you can resize to fit a full home screen panel. You can then view real-time price updates.

If cryptocurrency is more your speed, Investing has an app with a Bitcoin widget, too.

Download: Investing.com Stock Exchange (Free, in-app purchases available)

One of the best things about widgets is that they enable you to see the latest info without having to open your apps, and that helps to cut down on distractions and reduce your screen time.

To help even further, the Digital Wellbeing app built into every Android phone has a cool widget of its own. It shows you how much time you've had your screen turned on today, and the three apps you've spent the most amount of time in. If you want to start using your phone more consciously instead of mindlessly scrolling, this is a must-have.

Download: Digital Wellbeing (Free)

These are just some of the best widgets for Android. The chances are that most of your favorite apps offer their own widgets. It's always worth checking, as it's so easy to miss out on some really useful extra functionality in apps you use every day. Gmail, Snapchat, Spotify, VLC, Fitbit, Chrome, and so many more have them.