Unofficial Tailscale client for Android — a proxy, a VPN, or root routing
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📖 The guide: bropines.github.io/tailsocks
Setup, connection modes, files, blocked networks, automation, troubleshooting
TailSocks runs a full Tailscale node on your Android phone (or, experimentally, Android TV) and lets you choose how it reaches the rest of the device: as a local SOCKS5/HTTP proxy that needs no VPN permission and coexists with any other VPN, as a system-wide VPN (TUN, split or full tunnel), or — on rooted devices — through a real kernel interface with policy routing. Everything Tailscale offers is there: exit nodes, MagicDNS, Taildrop™, Taildrive™, Serve & Funnel, several accounts, Headscale, and a built-in DPI bypass for the control plane where Tailscale is blocked.
It tells you what is actually going on: whether the tailnet is connected, still connecting or cut off from its relays, which of your devices are reachable directly and which only through a relay — and offers the one action that helps.
Connecting — connection modes
- Three modes: a local SOCKS5/HTTP proxy that needs no VPN permission, a system-wide VPN (TUN), or Root Mode on a real
tailscale0(experimental). - Exit nodes, MagicDNS, split DNS and accepted subnet routes; the proxies can be opened to your Wi-Fi.
- Blocked networks: built-in ByeDPI, a control plane proxy, port 443 for the control connection, a start from the saved network map — details.
Files and services
- Taildrop: send from any app's Share menu, receive into a folder of your choice — files.
- Taildrive: share folders, browse other devices' shares, play their files with seeking.
- Serve & Funnel and Tailscale Services (
svc:), with TLS certificate export.
Managing
- Several accounts, Headscale, and a main account that cannot be deleted.
- Remote management (experimental): manage another device's TailSocks over the tailnet after pairing with a code.
- Admin console: the Tailscale API — devices, DNS, users, keys, the policy — behind a biometric lock.
- Automation: token-protected broadcasts for Tasker, AppFunctions for assistants on Android 16+,
tailsocks://links — automation. - Backups: full encrypted backups and per-account exports.
Using it
- An honest main screen: what is wrong, and the one action that helps.
- Android TV (experimental): the same APK, the whole app on a remote, sign-in by QR code.
- Settings search in English and Russian, forgiving typos and the wrong keyboard layout.
- Material 3 themes and dynamic colour, two panes on tablets and foldables, widgets, a Quick Settings tile.
- Translated on Hosted Weblate.
 Connected, with a summary of the tailnet |
 What is wrong, and the one action that helps |
 Peers, pinged all at once |
 Home relay and DERP latencies |
 Settings side by side on a wide screen |
 Tablets and foldables get two panes |
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Rendered from an invented tailnet by the app's own preview tests — see scripts/readme_shots.py.
Grab the APK from Releases, or add the repository to Obtainium. The same APK installs on Android TV. First steps: getting started.
Betas of the next version come out as GitHub pre-releases: the app offers them once Receive beta versions is on (Settings → Appearance & language), Obtainium once Include prereleases is on for it.
Supported architectures:
arm64-v8a,armeabi-v7a,x86,x86_64
Minimum Android version: 7.0 (API 24)
Using TailSocks: bropines.github.io/tailsocks.
Developing it: Building · Architecture · Root guide · Serve & Funnel · Contributing · Translating · Roadmap · Changelog
| App & Patches | Bropines — app development, architecture, and the majority of upstream patches |
| Initial Android Patches | Asutorufa — original Android networking (anet) and network monitor (netmon) patches that served as a starting point |
| DPI Bypass | hufrea/byedpi — local HTTP/SOCKS5 DPI bypass utility |
| TUN Engine (compatibility) | heiher/hev-socks5-tunnel — native SOCKS5-to-TUN implementation |
| Core Engine | Tailscale Inc. — userspace networking engine (tsnet) |
| AI Assistant | Google Gemini — interface development, LocalAPI research, and patch engineering |
| AI Assistant | Claude by Anthropic, in Claude Code — daemon and bridge fixes (login, network-change handling, the Android 10 crashes), the adaptive layouts, device-free preview screenshots, and the distribution research |
Distributed under the BSD-3-Clause License. See LICENSE for details.
Tailscale, Taildrop, Taildrive, MagicDNS, and Funnel are trademarks of Tailscale Inc. This project is an independent open-source contribution and is not affiliated with Tailscale Inc.