Courtex for Android is here, and you can install it today

The thing you kept asking for

The most common message we get from organisers is some version of can I just do this on my phone? Usually it arrives the way these things do — at 6pm on a Tuesday, from the sideline of a court, because someone needs to know whether there are still spots tonight and the laptop is at home.

Fair question. Courtex on the web works on a phone browser, and adding it to your home screen makes it feel like an app. But it is not one. It reloads, it re-authenticates, the pull-to-refresh is whatever your browser felt like doing, and it is slower than it needs to be for the one thing you actually want to do in that moment. Check a session. Join it. See who else is in.

So we built the real thing. Courtex for Android is now available, and you can install it today.

What is in the app

The app is a native client talking to the same backend as the website, which means the same account — no second login, no separate profile, no data that lives in one place and not the other. RSVP to a social in the app and it shows up on the web, and the other way around.

The layout is four tabs and a quick-action button:

Discover — sessions and clubs worth your attention, including venues near you
Friends — the people you play with
My Events — what you have joined and what is coming up
Profile — your details, your avatar, your level badge
The shuttlecock button — record a match, or create a session

Sign-in is the same as the web. Password with an authenticator code if you have MFA turned on, or Google sign-in on Android, which uses the native account picker and still asks for your code. Sessions are restored from secure storage, so you stay signed in between app launches until the token legitimately expires.

For the people running the session

The player view is the easy half. The part we spent the most time on is the roster, because that is where a Tuesday night actually gets difficult.

If you organise, the app gives you the roster for your session and, from there:

Add a club member or a named guest directly
Mark attendance once the session has happened
Move someone up from the waitlist when a spot opens
Remove a player, with the waitlist promotion handled properly
Paste in a list of names from wherever your group chat lives, and bulk import them
Save the whole thing as a session template so next week starts from last week

Add to that the ability to create a draft session and publish it when it is ready, and the administration of a weekly social stops needing a laptop.

The small things

Search for blogs and guides from the menu without leaving the app. Clubs have their own pages, with a hero image you can upload from the phone. Player profiles carry an avatar and a level badge, so you can tell who you are looking at in a roster. Profile fields — name, gender, handedness, intent — are editable in the app, not just on the web.

How to install it

Honest status first: the app is not on the Google Play Store or the Apple App Store yet. We are working through both, and we would rather tell you where things actually stand than imply a listing that does not exist.

In the meantime the Android app is available directly from us, which is normal for an app at this stage — and it means you can use it tonight rather than whenever a review queue gets to it.

On your Android phone, open courtex.app/download/android
Tap the download button. The file is about 50 MB, so give it a moment on mobile data
When the browser warns you about downloading an APK, confirm — this is expected for any app installed outside the Play Store
Open the downloaded file. Android will ask permission to install apps from that source (usually Chrome). Allow it, then tap Install
Sign in with your existing Courtex account

You need Android 7.0 (Nougat) or newer. Anything from the last several years qualifies.

Two channels, both with a permanent link

The download page offers two builds, and both links stay the same forever:

Stable — a build we have tested and are happy to recommend
Pre-release — built automatically from the latest change, published within days of it. Expect rough edges

If the page says there is no stable build yet, the default download button gives you the newest pre-release instead — same app, less battle-testing. Either way the link you use never changes, so it is safe to bookmark. Use pre-release only if you want to see things early and are willing to hit a bug. If a bug ever stops you playing, install the stable build over the top.

About that warning

Android will likely show a Play Protect prompt the first time — something along the lines of an unknown app or a scan it could not complete. That is what Android says about every app that did not come through the Play Store, including well-run ones. You can tap through it and install. We are not going to pretend the warning is nothing, so to be concrete about what you are installing: the app connects only to courtex.app over HTTPS, stores your tokens in the platform's secure storage, and asks for location only in the one place described below.

Updating

Because there is no store listing yet, the app will not update itself. When a new version ships, download it from the same page and install over the top — your account, your data and your session all stay exactly as they are. Your place in an upcoming session lives on the server, not on the phone.

What is not there yet

We would rather list the gaps than let you find them:

iOS. The Flutter codebase builds for iOS, but we do not have an Apple Developer account or an App Store review in motion yet. Android first was a deliberate call, not an oversight
Automatic updates. Until a store listing exists, updating is a manual download
Notifications. There is no inbox in the app yet
Payments. Collecting session fees is still a web job
Discussions. Club chat remains on the web
The web app is still the complete product. Everything in the phone app exists on the web. The reverse is not true yet. If you manage a club in depth, the web will stay your main tool for a while

That last point matters more than the rest. The app is a faster way to do the things you do most, not a replacement for the desk-work side of running a club.

On privacy, in one short section

Location is requested once, when you tap to find venues near you, and used for that request. There is no background location, which is a deliberate choice and keeps the Play data-safety declaration simple
Analytics go to the same PostHog project as the website, so your web and app activity belongs to one person rather than two. The identity is your Courtex user ID. No email, no name, no username, no free text you typed
Sign-out clears the identity properly, so the next person on a shared phone does not append to your account

Why we are shipping it this way

A store listing is a milestone, not a working product. Players are on courts now, and the fastest way to find out whether the app is actually useful at 6pm on a Tuesday is to put it in the hands of people who are there.

So we are doing both at once: the listing work continues in the background, and the app is available to anyone who wants it today. What we learn from the first few hundred installs will make the store version better than it would have been if we had waited.

If something is wrong, or missing, or slower than the web in a way that annoys you — tell us. A blunt message from someone who just tried to RSVP on a tram is worth more than any roadmap meeting.

Try it on your next social

Same account as the web, about 50 MB, Android 7.0 and up.

Download for Android

Prefer not to install anything? Use Courtex on the web — it does everything the app does, and more, for now.