NOVA
The NOVA app icon: a green four-pointed star on a dark background

Open source, for Android 8.0 and newer

Your Unraid server, in your pocket.

NOVA is a community-built, open-source Android client for Unraid® servers: array health, container and VM state and live system metrics in a clean Material 3 interface tuned for quick mobile checks.

Get it on F-Droid Download APK

It talks to your server through the official Unraid API over your own network.

The app

Screenshots of NOVA with sample data. Tap one for the full size.

  • The Overview tab: array capacity, CPU load, memory, network speed and temperature

    Overview

  • The Array tab: array status with a stop button and a check parity button, then every disk with temperature and usage

    Array

  • The Docker tab: a banner for containers with updates and a list of containers with status and CPU and memory use

    Docker

  • The VMs tab: virtual machines with their state and a start, pause or resume button

    VMs

  • Container details: update, restart, stop and open Web UI buttons, with tabs for info, logs, ports and volumes

    Container details

  • The notifications sheet with Unread and Archived tabs and an Archive all button

    Notifications

What it does

  • Overview

    Array capacity, live CPU and memory, container and VM counts and parity-check progress at a glance.

  • Array

    Per-disk status, temperatures and capacity. Start and stop the array.

  • Docker

    Every container with its status. Start, stop, restart or pause one, jump to its Web UI, see live container logs, and find out which containers have an image update and apply it, for one container or all.

  • VMs

    The state of every virtual machine, with start, stop, pause and resume.

  • Multiple servers

    Switch between servers. Each one has its own local and remote address.

  • Notifications

    Unraid notifications with Unread and Archived tabs.

  • Plugins and network

    A read-only inventory of server plugins with their install history, and a read-only list of network interfaces (IPv4, IPv6 and hardware).

  • Your look

    In Settings, pick an accent colour (mint, blue, purple, amber or red), dark or light mode, a padding density and a Docker layout (list, grid or grouped by state).

NOVA shows what the Unraid API offers today. It is an independent client and is not affiliated with Lime Technology.

Install

NOVA comes in two builds of the same app, one for F-Droid and one from GitHub. They differ only in how they are updated.

F-Droid

The F-Droid build follows the stable releases. F-Droid installs and updates it; the app has no updater of its own and makes no GitHub requests for updates.

NOVA on F-Droid

GitHub

Download the APK from the latest release. This build has an update check that tells you about new releases and sends your browser to the file, and an optional “Include pre-releases” setting if you want betas. Android asks you to allow installs from your browser or files app, which is expected for apps from outside a store.

Latest release · All releases

The two builds cannot update each other. They are signed with different keys, so Android refuses to install one over the other. To switch, uninstall one and install the other. Uninstalling removes the app’s local data, so you add your servers again.

Google Play Protect

Versions up to 0.1.46 (GitHub build). On 2026-11-13 we observed that Google Play Protect stopped every GitHub build we tried (0.1.45-beta1, 0.1.45 and 0.1.46-beta1) when it was installed or updated, on a phone with Android 9 and on one with Android 17. Two dialogs appear one after the other:

  • “App scan recommended” (German: “App-Scan empfohlen”). Play Protect does not know the file yet. Android shows this for every new file that is not from Google Play. Tap Scan app (“App scannen”).
  • “Harmful app blocked” (German: “Schädliche App blockiert”), with “This app may be harmful” (“Diese App könnte schädlich sein.”). You can continue through More details > Install anyway (“Weitere Details > Trotzdem installieren”).

This is Google’s rating of the file, not a finding about what NOVA does, and Google does not say why it gives it. What we observed, and Google has not confirmed: these builds could install other apps (that is how the old in-app updater worked), and a build of the same version without that ability was rated “This app seems safe” (“Diese App ist anscheinend sicher”) by the same scan on the same phone. NOVA is open source, and you can check what you downloaded:

  • SHA-256 of the file: the release page lists it next to the APK. Compare it with the output of sha256sum NOVA-v….apk.
  • Signing certificate: apksigner verify --print-certs NOVA-v….apk should show this SHA-256 digest: 9f86baa17c1208004d9284e99597f77276c77301b06340b10075c793152b6824

From version 0.1.47 on, NOVA no longer installs updates itself and no longer asks for the permission to install apps. Download in the update sheet lets your browser download the file, and you open it to install. Android will still ask once to scan each new file (“App scan recommended”) because Play Protect does not know it yet; that is expected. We cannot promise that no warning ever appears, since Google’s rating can change.

F-Droid is the channel without any such prompt we have seen. It has stable releases only, gets updates later, and is signed with a different key, so switching between it and the GitHub build means uninstalling first. That removes your saved servers and API keys.

Requirements

  • Android 8.0 or newer.
  • An Unraid 7.x server with the API/Connect plugin enabled.
  • All app features need Unraid API 4.30.0 or newer; the live network speed needs 4.35.0 or newer (API versions, not Unraid OS versions). On an older API some screens fail to load.

Set it up

  1. On your Unraid server, create an API key: web UI, Settings → Management Access → API / Connect.
  2. Open the app and choose Add server. Fill in a Server name (a label), the Local host (its address on your home network, for example 192.168.1.10; switch on Use SSL (HTTPS) if the server uses HTTPS), optionally a Remote host (Unraid Connect) for when you are away, and the API Key you just created.
  3. Tap Test, then Save. The pill in the top bar switches between Local and Remote.

Verify the GitHub APK

The APKs on GitHub are signed with one release key. Its certificate SHA-256 is public, so you can compare it with the output of apksigner verify --print-certs on a downloaded APK: 

9f86baa17c1208004d9284e99597f77276c77301b06340b10075c793152b6824

Privacy

The short version of the privacy policy, which is the authoritative text.

  • Stays on your device

    Your API key is stored encrypted with the Android Keystore and is excluded from cloud backup and device transfer. It only leaves the device in requests to your own Unraid server.

  • Your server

    All app functionality runs through your own server, at the addresses you configured.

  • Container icons

    The icon of each container comes from a URL your server provides, usually a host chosen by the template author, such as raw.githubusercontent.com, cdn.jsdelivr.net or github.com. The app fetches it directly, so that host sees your IP address. NOVA adds no credentials to these requests.

  • Update check (GitHub build)

    The GitHub build contacts api.github.com when the app starts, when you open Settings and when you press “Check now”. A new version is downloaded by your browser from the GitHub release page, not by NOVA. The F-Droid build makes no such requests.

  • Nothing else

    No analytics, no telemetry, no crash reporting, no advertising and no third-party sign-in. Uninstalling the app removes everything it stored.