Permission for "Storage"

[Veiko Heiberg]

Hello!
I am eager to learn about the topic.
What if I grant an android app a permission to "storage", what actually becomes accessible?

a) just a specific folder for this one app to use
b) also your personal files (a-la downloads, music, pictures, documents...)
c) also files of other apps
d) also system files
e) another group of files / folders
?

I would be thankful for your take on this.

 

[Deleted User]

What's the name of the permission you're talking about is it

READ_EXTERNAL_STORAGE
WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE

 

[Veiko Heiberg]

What's the name of the permission you're talking about is it

READ_EXTERNAL_STORAGE
WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE

On the Xiaomi Mi A2 Android (9) phone permissions page this is not specified.
There is only "Storage". And when the app asks for it, it also is not specified.
The list at settings goes as:

....location
microphone
phone
SMS
storage
additional permissions.

So I cannot really answer your question.
Do you have a different list of permissions?
Furthermore - my phone does not have external storage - perhaps this is the answer.

 

[Deleted User]

I think "Storage" just allows the app to access the internal storage, in order to save data it needs to function.
Apps definitely can't access the data of other apps. They also can't access system files, unless your device is rooted.
Each app has a dedicated area of storage to use. This is protected from access by any other app.

 

[Veiko Heiberg]

I think "Storage" just allows the app to access the internal storage, in order to save data it needs to function.
Apps definitely can't access the data of other apps. They also can't access system files, unless your device is rooted.
Each app has a dedicated area of storage to use. This is protected from access by any other app.

Your answer makes sense.
However, some doubts still remain.
Every app needs a storage space for user data, yet only 27 of 60 of my
apps have asked and have permission to storage.
This makes me wonder, that some space is given by default, but then some extra access is covered via permission.

And here is a example to back that idea - I have two photo related apps on my phone, FaceApp and Prisma.
Both of them have only one permission granted - storage.
Yet - both of them display me the photos in my download folder.
So - they have access to my download folder, where also happens to be a lot of other files, sheets, docs, mp3-s.

Now - it seems to me, that allowing storage gives access to some group of folders, which
by Android must be considered somewhat "public".

I would be glad if anyone could confirm that or to contradict that.

 

[Deleted User]

You're correct in saying that there are certain 'public' areas that apps are allowed to access by default. There's no specific permission to allow or deny access to photos, unless I am mistaken.

Btw if you're interested, here's a list of permissions, from a programmatic point of view. As you can see, these are more detailed than the list which is presented on the permissions page of the settings.

https://developer.android.com/guide/topics/permissions/overview

Can you see anything related to granting access to photos or downloaded files? I couldn't.