Storage Scopes / Allow Limited Access | Please Explain

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I am a long time GrapheneOS user and have come to enjoy Storage Scopes (great GOS feature!). Recently I noticed that there is also a new (to me at least) option called "Allow limited access". So the options are 1) "Always allow all", 2) "Allow limited access", 3) "Do not allow". Below the three options, there is also the old Storage Scope feature as an alternative.

For example, this menu can be found in the Photos and Videos permissions of the Signal app on the latest GrapheneOS version.

The confusing thing is that "Allow limited access" seems to be very similar to "Storage Scopes" with the difference that it is easier and faster to choose which files I want to add. It simply brings up a file picker and I can choose directly. In this way, it feels very similar to manually adding files with Storage Scopes.

I would like to know if this is a new feature or if I have just been missing it for the last few years. Also, is this an enhancement to Storage Scopes or a new Android feature?

If they're not the same, which one is better? Are there any security/privacy issues I should be aware of? When should I use one over the other?

Thanks!

GrapheneOS

ttmp12 The limited access feature is a standard Android feature specific to images/videos which was added after Storage Scopes already existed. You can use it when it's supported, but Storage Scopes works for ALL forms of media / storage permissions even including the file management permissions and it works for older apps for photos/videos. Some users also already had an existing setup for photos/videos. We could hide it as an option for that specific permission but it works a bit differently and some people may still want it.

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Any thoughts?

Carlos-Anso

Its a media picker feature added to AOSP.

DeletedUser87

GrapheneOS yeah, please keep it as is and don't alter it. I currently use storage scopes to filter out album covers that are in the /Music folder for example (or any other folders that contain images) that would otherwise get uploaded to my Immich instance. It's fine as of right now!

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GrapheneOS

Thank you for your answer. What could you hide? The limited access feature to avoid confusion or Storage Scopes when limited access is available?

Is there a security/privacy downside to using the limited access feature when it is sufficient?

To sum up, limited access is nice to use when it is sufficient (media files and modern applications), while Storage Scopes is more advanced and works for any application. Both are fine to use. Is this correct?