I recently bought a Samsung Galaxy S20 FE with Android 12, and I quickly noticed that many applications were unable to access files on the SD card. For instance, I used to access local HTML/MP3 files from different browsers or music players. On my new system, these applications can see folders and navigate through them, but can not open or even list any regular file. There is a few exceptions, e.g Total Commander or AIMP.
From what I understood, this is a policy change from Google which appeared on Android 11 (API/SDK 30): https://www.xda-developers.com/android-11-all-files-access-permission-form/
I tried a few solutions I could find online, for instance:
pm grant com.XXX.YYY android.permission.MANAGE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE
appops set --uid com.XXX.YYY android:legacy_storage allow
This is not working because, probably, the application (i tried with Opera) is not requesting this permission during the installation. Also, most of the solutions I could find are related to apps under development, not apps installed from the store. E.g. : Android 11 Scoped storage permissions
A workaround I could find is to move all the files in /storage/SD_CARD_ID/Android/data/com.XXX.YYY/files, however, this means that I have to copy these files each time I install a new app and for each app I use, which is quite stupid if I have GB's of MP3 or other media. This is also quite tedious to enter the full path in the URL bar as it is not possible to navigate to or open this folder easily.
I am therefore trying to find a way to enable the permission by default for all apps, or at least find a simple way to do it via the GUI. For instance, I tried to tweak /etc/permissions/platforms.xml with some more or less random tries as I could not find any documentation about the syntax of this file, but nothing worked.
Note that my phone is rooted.
Related
On Android versions higher than v4.4 (since storage framework was introduced) opening the local memory filesystem in a web browser via file:///sdcard does not show all the files and folders.
For example, I can access the file:///sdcard/Download folder by typing the URL but some files and folders are not shown or some folders cannot be navigated to.
Tried with different browsers, including Firefox, Chrome, Chromium, Brave and Opera, and even though I've given all the apps the Files and media permission this is observable for all of them. Files downloaded by a specific browser would be visible from that browser, but not other files that have been placed there by other apps.
The question is how to grant full file access to /sdcard or a specific subfolder from outside the app since not all browsers mentioned above can trigger the on-demand storage permission dialog. Opera is the only which allows doing it from within the app when saving a file to a custom path — then it triggers the on-demand permission dialog and after that the chosen folder becomes fully readable through the file:// protocol.
The preferred solution would be via adb with pm or something similar.
While something like appops might allegedly be used to achieve the desired goal as per this article (didn't work for me), an easier workaround is to use the App Manager (f-droid) and enable in the App Ops tab the following permissions for your browser app:
MANAGE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE
LEGACY_STORAGE
NO_ISOLATED_STORAGE
After applying these actions for Brave, Chrome, and Chromium started displaying all files.
NOTE: Only tried on a rooted device. Since I have no unrooted devices at hand I cannot tell if this would also work on stock Android.
The application I'm currently working on requires a manual setup (entering some information) on device provisioning. This information needs to be written to a file that should not be deleted when the application is uninstall or the application data is wiped (user support requirement, as they can direct users to do this in some cases)
There was a very similar old question, but the answer is now deprecated and no up-to-date answer has been posted
Keep files after uninstallation of android app
So the question is, given the deprecation of Environment.getExternalStorageDirectory() on Android 10, how do we programmatically write/read a file that will not be deleted when the application is uninstalled or the data is wiped?
For what is worth, we can not rely on app auto backup, as the users don't have google accounts configured.
Thanks
To summarize while targetting 30.
For Android 10 device: Request legacy external storage to get external storage access as usual.
And Googles step back for Android 11 devices: use directories like Download, Pictures, Movies, Documents, DCIM and so on. Read and write access for all. Android OS is very picky to use the right extensions for files to be created in those folders.
I'm looking for a way to make my VR Android app (for Samsung Galaxy S7 and S9) able to write files to the SD card (e.g. by downloading a .zip file and unzipping it there).
The app is mostly going to be used by people, who don't know a lot about Android/smartphones and don't want to have to deal with anything complicated (not necessarily seniors but close enough), that's why I want to make it as easy as possible for them, which also includes making choices myself (and setting it up for them) instead of showing complicated dialogs.
Special requirements:
The files must not be deleted when the app is uninstalled - that's why I can's use getExternalFilesDirs() (Storage Volume).
The folder everything happens in has to be easily accessable, so the zip files can be transfered to the SD card on your PC too (instead of downloading them through the app in case they are too big) without having to go down a huge amount of levels and remembering a long folder path.
Using Storage Access Framework isn't a good alternative either because not only is picking folders nothing that's especially VR friendly but it also requires knowledge about folders most of the users simply won't have and/or won't want to deal with every time they open my app. But: If there was a way to only show this once (on the very first start after installing the app) and maybe even set the root folder to the folder I chose, so the users only have to hit "accept", that would be worth a try (unless there's an easier way).
Yes, I did set the android.permission.WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE permission and also enabled the "force allow apps on external storage" developer setting but trying to write to the SD card still throws an "Access Denied" exception.
Are there any others ways to write to the SD card that are VR friendly?
I'm developing application that is targeted for API 18. Application download data by Bluetooth and GSM and stores data on internal sdcard (usually \emulated\sdcard - readed by Environment.getExternalStorageDirectory()).
Till this time everything works fine - files and folders are correctly saved.
Today i've faced very strange behaviour:
1) Started the app, and it works for over an hour and store data files.
2) After that, i've closed app and want to download data to the computer.
Before plugin USB, I've used Android file explorer software to check stored data.
I was shocked - new folder (any new data) was gone!
It's like system removes or hide all files and data created in last app session.
Remarks: application don't have procedures for deletion folder or files. Also it works good on previous versions of Android (mostly 4.X and 5.X).
It's very strange because app has warning mechanism when save isn't possible and that warnings wasn't displayed. So I think, write was allowed by system, but data isn't visible at this moment.
Another stranger thing is that application can't write any file in internal storage from this moment (and the warnings are displayed as should in this case).
It looks like Android Marshmallow "decides" in particular moment - your new data won't be available anymore, and your app won't write to internal card.
I've checked app permissions in system - OK.
Any ideas, why this happens? How to deal with it?
You may refer to these guides for managing permissions during runtime: http://www.howtogeek.com/230683/how-to-manage-app-permissions-on-android-6.0/
https://developer.android.com/training/permissions/requesting.html
I am working on a project that needs to store some .txt to android, and get it from the computer for other use. From what I read from the documentation, I know that there are two types of storage: 1 Internal, which is somewhere deep in the phone that is private to the app. 2 External, which includes the SD card and the Internal Storage of the phone. I want to store it to External->Internal, and I am using this line of code to do that:
public String WalkDir = android.os.Environment.getExternalStorageDirectory().getAbsolutePath() + "/Walks/";
When I logged WalkDir, LogCat says "/storage/emulated/0", I stopped the app, checked with the adb shell, and there is no folder "0" but "legacy". I unplugged the phone and plugged it back in, the "Walks" folder is now in the root directory, and I don't need adb shell to access it.
So my question is, can you help explain how this system works? Why did "0" disappear? What is "legacy"? Why is the file in Internal Storage when I unplug&plug it?
Thank you very much!
Those are what in Linux are called symlinks (like shortcuts in Windows) that various system apps in Android are using..
/storage, /sdcard are sym linked folders,that means when you open one of those, it redirects to the original(/data/media/0), as for the 0 is just a multi user feature implemented in android 4.2, but only enabled on tablet androids.
Why do this Sym-Link?: simple so it dosent break apps(not only file explorer type of app, but all apps).
Still dont get, why it would break?.Simple. android api have lots of ways to write/read files from folders, u can do manually,u can get the data path, u can get the sdcard path, etc,etc. so to not break that they just does these sym links, thats why in one app the storage contentents are listed on /sdcard but on others, is /storage, etc,etc. one example of an app that broke because of these changes to android is titanium backup, u need to change the internal storage on it, so it work.
2 mount points pointing to the same storage device and partition.
If you create something in one folder, it will show up in the other. Same applies for deleting stuff.
They do not take away more storage space, as it is only available once but shown twice.
You also don't need to worry about it in any way because file browsers normally set their default directory to one of these locations.
As far as i know, Google changed the mount points in Android 4.2 to /storage/emulated/0/ due to them switching to MTP and EXT4(?) for the sdcard. The other mount points are still there for compatibility.