File system access is an essential part of making an application. Up until Android 10 any app could request file storage permissions and have access t

Scoped Storage in React Native: New Android 10 API for File System Access

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2022-01-15 08:30:09

File system access is an essential part of making an application. Up until Android 10 any app could request file storage permissions and have access to all files stored on a user's device even if they needed access to just one folder. This was a huge security issue which was exploited time and again. To fix this, Google introduced Scoped Storage API in Android 10 — a way for apps to access only the folders required with user's explicit permission.

Since the release of Android 10, Google has made Scoped Storage the default way to access files on an Android device but up until Android 11, it was possible to override this by putting android:requestLegacyExternalStorage="true" in AndroidManifest.xml.

However, this is changing fast since the start of 2021. Google is enforcing all apps to use Scoped Storage to store or read files on a user's device. Some apps can still get all files access if the pass this criteria.

Scoped Storage API gives user full control over which app access which directories. Whenever an app needs to write files on user's device, the user must explicitly grant permission to store files to that specific folder. The app can then read/write only to that directory and it's subdirectories.