“Starting May 5th, you must let us know why your app requires broad storage access We’ve detected that your app contains the requestLegacyExternalStorage flag…”
I got the following message in the google play console which is not clear to many developers:
“We’ve detected that your app contains the requestLegacyExternalStorage flag in the manifest file of 1 or more of your app bundles or APKs.
Developers with apps on devices running Android 11+ must use Scoped Storage to give users better access control over their device storage. To release your app on Android 11 or newer after May 5th, you must either:
- Update your app to use more privacy friendly best practices, such as the Storage Access Framework or Media Store API
- Update your app to declare the All files access (
MANAGE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE) permission in the manifest file, and complete the All files access permission declaration in Play Console from May 5th - Remove the All files access permission from your app entirely
For apps targeting Android 11, the requestLegacyExternalStorage flag will be ignored. You must use the All files access permission to retain broad access.
Apps requesting access to the All files access permission without a permitted use will be removed from Google Play, and you won’t be able to publish updates.”
My app targets android 10 API build version is 29 with requestLegacyExternalStorage=true set. Somewhere in my app I used raw path to access the media file and I have no plan to change it write now. The message seems that Android 11 is allowing to use raw paths to access the media file/data under the scope storage and for Android 10 or lower we could use requestLegacyExternalStorage=true.
However, there might some changes about MANAGE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE permission and I knew Google forces developer to target API version 30 from November, 2021.
I am not so much clear about the message. Anyone can enlighten me. Thanks.
