GitLab app for Android: MergeBell on Google Play

GitLab Inc. doesn’t publish an Android app, and the request for one has been open since July 2022 (more in does GitLab have a mobile app?). MergeBell, the GitLab app we make, has been on Google Play since 16 October 2026, and since 26 October on the App Store for iPhone too. Here is what it does on Android, what it costs, and how to set it up.

What MergeBell does on Android

The free tier covers the whole review loop:

• A To-Do inbox. Review requests, mentions, assignments and failed pipelines from your GitLab To-Do List, grouped by project. Swipe one done.
• Merge requests. To review, assigned to you and yours, each with its overview, activity, changes and pipelines, and GitLab’s Markdown drawn properly: tables, task lists, references.
• Diffs. Syntax-coloured, with every thread under its line. Tap a line to comment, or hold to pick a range. On a tablet, side by side.
• Approve and merge. Approve or revoke your approval, then merge with squash, delete the source branch, or set it to merge when the pipeline passes. Every reason it can’t merge yet is listed first.
• Pipelines. Stages and jobs as they run, the job log, retry, cancel, and run a manual job.
• Issues, search and files. Read, comment, create, edit and close issues; search projects, merge requests and issues, or paste a GitLab link to open it; browse a project by branch.
• Push alerts for new To-Dos, checked every five minutes, with Mark done and Open on the notification.
• Home screen widgets with your To-Do count and a project’s latest pipeline.
• Offline. What you opened is still there, and what you do without a network is sent when you’re back.
• Demo Mode, to try everything on a sample GitLab before you sign in.

It covers one gitlab.com account and one self-managed instance, on GitLab 16.0 or later.

What’s built for Android

• A channel per kind of alert. Reviews, mentions, assignments and pipelines arrive on separate notification channels, so you can choose in Android’s settings how loud each one is.
• A live pipeline notification (Pro). Follow a running pipeline, and it stays in your notifications as a progress bar with one segment per stage. On Android 16 it asks to be shown as a Live Update. With alerts on it updates by itself; with alerts off it only moves while the app is open.
• Retry behind the lock (Pro). Retry on a failed pipeline’s notification runs on the phone with your own token, and a locked phone asks you to unlock it first.
• Two widgets. A small To-Dos widget, and a wider Pipeline widget whose project and branch you pick from its edit button.
• The Android Keystore. Your GitLab token is sealed with a key that never leaves the Keystore, is left out of backups and device transfers, and is only ever sent to your GitLab.

What Pro adds, and what it costs

Pro is $4.99 a month or $14.99 a year, billed by Google Play. New yearly subscribers can start with a first month for $0.99, after which the plan renews at $14.99 a year. There is no free trial. It adds:

• Alerts checked every minute, or Instant mode: a webhook on your project rings our server and the alert arrives within seconds (on projects where you’re a Maintainer or Owner).
• A choice of what rings, muted projects and quiet hours.
• Pipeline watches on a branch: a push when its pipeline fails, is fixed, or waits on a manual job.
• The live pipeline notification.
• Review drafts: write comments as you read and submit them as one review, with Approve or Request changes.
• Suggestions: propose a change on a line, and apply one, or a batch as a single commit.
• Code search, and every GitLab account you have in one inbox.

To cancel, open Google Play, then your profile › Payments and subscriptions › Subscriptions › MergeBell › Cancel subscription. Prices are in US dollars and may differ in your country’s store.

Install and sign in

1. Get MergeBell from Google Play, or search for “MergeBell” in the Play Store.
2. Optionally, try Demo Mode to look around first.
3. gitlab.com: sign in on GitLab’s own sign-in page, which opens in a Custom Tab.
4. Self-managed GitLab: enter your instance’s address and a personal access token with the api scope. The sign-in screen opens your instance’s token page with the name and scope already filled in. (Why api: GitLab token scopes explained.)
5. Alerts: in Settings › Alerts, turn alerts on, allow notifications when Android asks, and give the alert server a read-only key: on gitlab.com, GitLab asks you to allow read_api access; on a self-managed instance, you paste a token with the read_api scope.

Android apps don’t trust certificates you install on the phone yourself, so a company GitLab needs a certificate from a public certificate authority. If the instance is only reachable over a VPN, the app works while the phone is on the VPN, and its alerts are checked on the phone instead. More in using self-managed GitLab on your phone.

Your token stays on the phone

MergeBell talks to your GitLab directly, and there is no MergeBell account. Alerts use a separate read-only key, and our server, which runs in Germany, refuses any key that could approve, merge or push code. The security page lists every GitLab endpoint it calls.

Other GitLab apps for Android

On Google Play there are also Glabby, LabFox, GitBear and LabCoat, the long-running open-source client whose listing, when we checked on 16 October 2026, had last been updated in April 2026 and didn’t mention pipelines or push notifications. GitAlchemy and OctoLab are on F-Droid. We compare them in the best GitLab apps for Android and iPhone.

On iPhone too? MergeBell for iPhone has the same features and prices, and what differs between the iPhone and Android apps covers the details.