TrueTo for ADHD

Android settings for ADHD

10 settings across 5 apps that reduce distraction, protect focus, and remove the executive function tax of managing your own phone. TrueTo flips Spotify Canvas in one tap today; automation for the rest of the profile is rolling out.

Spotify Canvas — the looping video behind songs — is engineered to hold visual attention. For ADHD, it competes with the audio for a brain that tracks movement involuntarily. Turning it off takes 5 taps, buried in Content and display — or one with TrueTo. Its catalog covers 10 settings like this across 5 apps.

Applying them yourself requires knowing which settings exist, where to find them across 5 different apps, and remembering to act — exactly the sequence that executive dysfunction impairs. TrueTo knows the list, handles the navigation, and lets you decide which recommendations apply to you.

Which three settings have the most immediate impact?

Canvas off (Spotify) — the most surprising. The looping video behind the playback controls, competing with the audio you actually opened the app for.
Read Receipts off (WhatsApp) — RSD. The one most ADHD users feel viscerally before they've heard the explanation.
Autoplay off (YouTube + Spotify) — directly addresses the hyperfocus trap, and the most recognizable ADHD experience on this list. Both are marked Manual below: the paths are accurate, but you flip these two yourself.

Turning off Spotify Canvas takes 5 taps, buried where nobody looks. TrueTo does it in one. Read Receipts takes another 4 by hand; automation for that one is rolling out.

You decide which recommendations apply to you. Accept the ones that make sense; skip the ones that don't. Any setting can be turned off at any time.

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What's in your ADHD profile?

10 settings across 5 apps in TrueTo's verified catalog, with the exact path for each; one-tap automation for this profile is rolling out. Another 15 are listed below and marked Manual: not in the catalog yet, but the path is accurate, so you can apply them yourself. Each includes a one-sentence explanation of why it matters for ADHD specifically.

Dimensions: S Stimulation · A Attention · T Transparency · C Content

Android System

Window / Transition / Animator Duration scales S Manual

Every animation is a visual interrupt. At full speed they pull attention away from what you were doing. At 0.5× the UI gets out of the way. No catalog check targets the Developer Options animation scales — the nearest one reads the Accessibility "Remove animations" toggle, which is a different setting — so the path is accurate and you set these three yourself.
Extra Dim S

The standard brightness floor is still too bright for a brain that's already overstimulated. Extra Dim removes the floor.
Per-app notifications A Manual

The default is every app screams at you. ADHD needs a deliberate allowlist, not an ongoing opt-out process. TrueTo has no check for it: the path is accurate, you build the allowlist yourself.

Spotify

counterintuitive: Canvas S

Looping video behind the playback controls is engineered to hold visual attention. You opened Spotify for audio. The video competes with it for a brain that tracks movement involuntarily.
counterintuitive: Autoplay C Manual

When your playlist ends, Spotify continuing removes your natural exit point. For an ADHD brain, that exit point is the only moment you'll voluntarily stop. Not the same setting as Canvas above, and not yet in TrueTo's automated catalog: the path is accurate, you flip this one yourself.
Playlist privacy T

Public listening history is a low-level social monitoring loop. It doesn't hurt acutely, but it adds ambient self-consciousness that competes with focus.

YouTube

counterintuitive: Autoplay next video C Manual

This is the mechanism behind 3-hour accidental YouTube sessions. ADHD hyperfocus + autoplay is the combination. Breaking it requires a deliberate next-video choice, which is also a deliberate continue-or-stop choice. Google documents this path; confirm it on your device. Not yet in TrueTo's automated catalog: you flip it yourself.
Playback in feeds S+C Manual

Videos start playing the moment you scroll past them, before you've decided to watch them. That's the app making the consumption decision for you. YouTube dropped "Muted" from the old label; the behavior is the same. The catalog check that targets this row still looks for the old name, so it can't match the new one yet.
Notification frequency A Manual

YouTube sends alerts for every upload from every subscribed channel. Instant delivery turns subscriptions into a notification flood. No check targets delivery frequency — the catalog's YouTube notification checks are per-category on/off toggles, a different control — so you set the schedule yourself.

Instagram

Quiet Mode A Manual

Quiet Mode tells Instagram when it's allowed to push alerts. Without it, the app decides when your attention belongs to it. TrueTo has no check for it: the path is accurate, you schedule this one yourself.
Activity status (online visibility) T

Showing online status creates read-receipt pressure — people can see you're on Instagram instead of responding to them. RSD turns that into a source of anxiety.
Data Saver S+C Manual

Prevents videos from pre-loading as you scroll. The brief visual lag before a video plays is friction — and friction is the only thing that breaks a scroll trance for an ADHD brain. TrueTo has no check for it: the path is accurate, you flip this one yourself.

Read Receipts T

Blue ticks are an RSD delivery mechanism. The sender knows you read their message and didn't reply. For ADHD brains already managing guilt about response time, that creates a background anxiety loop that persists until you reply.
Last Seen and Online T

One screen, two controls: who sees your last-seen timestamp and who sees you as online right now. Both let people calculate how long you've been on the phone without answering them. Same RSD mechanism, broader scope.
Media Auto-Download C

Every photo and video that arrives automatically is content that arrived without your permission. Turning this off means you decide what to receive.
Group chat notifications A

Group chats generate noise at a rate no single contact does. The ADHD brain treats every ping as equally urgent — there's no automatic triage. Muting forces that triage to happen once, not continuously.

Slack

Notification schedule A

Without a schedule, Slack treats 11pm the same as 9am. Hard boundaries remove the always-on availability expectation that makes task-switching harder to resist.
Non-essential channel notifications A

Slack's default is everything is equally loud. ADHD can't filter signal from noise in real time. Muting forces that filtering to happen at setup time, when executive function is available.
Show images and files from linked websites S Manual

Inline previews make Slack visually dense and unpredictable. Every new message might expand into a large image. Off keeps the workspace text-only and scannable. Slack has twelve checks in the catalog and none of them touches link previews, so the path is accurate and this one is on you.

counterintuitive: Autoplay Video Previews C Manual

Reddit's video autoplay starts the next clip without asking: same hyperfocus-trap mechanism as YouTube. It's filed under Accessibility, three menus deep. The setting moved screens recently, and the catalog check that targets it can't reach the new location yet, so this one is on you.
Community recommendations C Manual

Reddit surfacing communities you don't follow expands your information surface without permission. Every new subreddit is another attention destination. No check in the catalog reaches Reddit's recommendation settings, so the path is accurate and this one is on you.
Trending posts C Manual

Trending content is algorithmically chosen to maximize engagement, not to match what you came to Reddit for. Nothing in the catalog targets it, so this is a manual change.

Chrome + GitHub Mobile

Discover / news feed (new tab) C Manual

You opened a browser tab with a specific intent. The news feed activates before you type anything. For ADHD, this is a derailment at the highest-frequency moment in your day. Chrome's catalog checks cover cookies, tracking and zoom — none of them the new-tab feed — so you turn this one off yourself.
Site notification permissions A Manual

Web apps accumulate notification permissions over time. None of them should be able to interrupt your phone unless you've explicitly decided they can. No check reaches Chrome's per-site notification permissions, so this is a manual pass.
Notification filter (GitHub Mobile) A Manual

Default GitHub notifications are a high-volume stream across all repositories. ADHD doesn't need to know about trending repos — it needs to know when someone actually needs it. GitHub Mobile has no entry in TrueTo's catalog at all, so nothing here is automated.

Counterintuitive — feels right to keep on; data says turn it off.

Manual Not yet in TrueTo's supported catalog. The path is accurate; you make the change yourself.

Common questions

Why does my phone feel impossible to put down when I have ADHD?

Three mechanisms work together. Autoplay removes your natural exit point — when content keeps coming, there's no moment to stop. Notifications reset your attention recovery clock every 23 minutes on average. Animated feeds and Canvas give your brain constant visual input to track involuntarily. The combination means the phone is always pulling, and your executive function — the thing that lets you choose to stop — is already depleted.

What's the difference between app-level time restrictions and changing these settings?

Time restrictions block access entirely — all or nothing. They don't stop you from wanting to open the app; they just prevent it. These settings remove the activation energy for distraction without blocking anything. You can still open Spotify intentionally. You just won't get pulled in by a looping video the moment you do.

Why turn off Spotify Canvas if I have ADHD?

Canvas is optimized to hold visual attention. You opened Spotify for audio. The looping video behind the playback controls competes with the audio for a brain that tracks movement involuntarily. It's not that Canvas is harmful — it's that it's engineered to capture a specific kind of attention that ADHD brains have trouble deliberately releasing. Turning it off costs you nothing if you came for the music.

Do I have to apply all 10 settings or can I choose which ones?

You decide which apply to you. TrueTo shows you each recommendation with an explanation. Accept the ones that make sense; skip the ones that don't. Any setting applied through TrueTo can be toggled off at any time. The goal isn't a locked configuration — it's a starting point that reflects how your brain actually works. A further 15 settings are listed below and marked "Manual": the path is accurate, but TrueTo doesn't automate those yet, so you apply them yourself.

How much faster is TrueTo than doing this manually?

Turning off Spotify Canvas takes 5 taps, buried in a menu you have to navigate to. TrueTo does it in one. WhatsApp Read Receipts takes another 4 by hand; one-tap automation for that setting and the rest of the profile is rolling out.

One tap to apply, one tap to reverse — rolling out across this profile now.