Redcast

An unofficial, open-source Android client for RedGIFs, with Chromecast and autoscroll that keeps going on the TV.

18+ only. Redcast shows adult content from RedGIFs. It isn't affiliated with or endorsed by RedGIFs, and it hosts no content of its own. The API it uses is unofficial and may change or stop working at any time.

Features

• Sign in with your own RedGIFs account, or browse as a guest
• Chromecast with a continuous queue: clips play one after another, and the phone can be locked
• Autoscroll to the next clip, or loop the current one
• Swipe to curate: right keeps a clip and keeps playing it, left passes and moves on; both teach My Mix
• My Mix: a feed ranked on your phone from what you like, finish, skip and pin
• Feeds: Trending, Explore, For You, Liked, Following, creator pages and tag pages
• Saved lists, watch history and search history
• Hide clips, creators and tags, and manage them in Settings
• Layouts: grid, staggered grid (2 to 4 columns), or a list that plays in place
• Themes: System, Light, Dark, AMOLED, Midnight, Sunset and Forest
• Video quality: Auto, HD or SD
• Hold to sort a clip into a collection, and collections that carry on into more like them
• Updates: checks GitHub releases and offers new versions; you choose whether to install
• App lock, sleep timer, and JSON export of your data

History, lists and taste stay on your phone unless you export them.

Build

./gradlew :app:testDebugUnitTest :app:assembleRelease

Needs JDK 17 and Android SDK platform 37. The APK lands in app/build/outputs/apk/release/. It is signed with the local debug key, so builds from different machines won't install over each other.

Releasing

Bump versionCode and versionName in app/build.gradle.kts, commit, then:

scripts/release.sh "What changed"

It builds and tests the APK, tags the commit, and publishes a GitHub release with the APK attached. Installed copies find it through the releases API and offer it as an update. Android only installs an update signed with the same key, so every release has to come from the same signing key.

How it works

• Guest browsing: /v2/auth/temporary tokens, cached because RedGIFs limits how often they can be requested.
• Sign-in: the real site runs in a WebView because login sits behind a Cloudflare captcha. A script limited to www.redgifs.com reads the bearer token the site attaches to its own API calls. The app never handles the password, and an off-screen WebView renews the token from the site's session cookie.
• Phone autoscroll: the feed is one ExoPlayer playlist, and the pager follows the player.
• Cast: the media host refuses Chromecast's default media receiver, so CastRelay serves clips from the phone over the local network, behind a random token and limited to the media host. CastController keeps a short window queued, tops it up as clips finish, and loops a finished feed. CastKeepAliveService, a foreground service, keeps that going with the phone locked.

License

MIT