I’m not the most tech savvy person and don’t really know most of the official terms but I’ll try my best to explain my question.

Earlier today, I installed Distraction Free Instagram, which is basically a mod for the Instagram Android app which enables you to block certain features like stories or reels, to help you not get distracted and increase your productivity. I only have Instagram installed to chat with my friends so it’s very useful for me.

There’s this bug with Instagram where certain accounts don’t have the ability to reply to messages. It also gets rid of certain other features but the replying thing is the most important for me. When I installed this mod for Instagram, I realised that I could no longer reply to messages.

What I wanna do is, I want to install both this version of the app as well as the official one so I can use this as my main app while using the other one when someone sends lots of messages which I need to reply to separately. I’ll set a very strict time limit for that app so I don’t get distracted. I basically want two different Instagram apps on my home screen which I can click on to open the different versions. However, when I try to install this app, it makes me update the old one, so I can no longer access it.

I’m sorry for doing such a crude job explaining this. As I mentioned I’m not very tech savvy and am not very familiar with the terminology for all this. I hope someone can help me figure this out.

    • mizu@lemmy.worldOP
      11·
      1 year ago

      I’ve managed to create a work profile using Island. How do I add apps to the work profile?

  • kniescherz@feddit.deEnglish
    3·
    1 year ago

    I know of two ways:

    1. Use a virtualization app like Parallel Space (Play Store). The way I understand it is that it creates some kind of virtualization where you can clone your installed apps into. They than work independent from each other.

    2. Alter the package name. Apps are distinguished by package name. When you alter it for an apk you can install it without overwriting the app with the original apk. Revanced Managar (found on github) should be able to do this. I wasnt successful with it though the last time i tried. But I bet that there are working solutions out there.

    • kniescherz@feddit.deEnglish
      2·
      1 year ago

      Also a third idea: Write the devs of the app to offer two versions, one with original package name and one without it, that way users can choose. Thats not an uncommon thing to do, I think Youtube Vanced did that.

    • mizu@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      I’ve been trying to do the second one for the past hour or so but my dumb ass can’t figure out how exactly to do it. Is there a tutorial or something I can follow?