newbie24689 Storage Scopes is an alternative to granting storage permissions. If the app doesn't ask for storage permissions, it's not relevant. It's a way to make the app think it has storage permissions and work properly without giving it access to files from other apps in shared storage. Enabling storage scopes doesn't reduce access unless you had storage permissions granted already. It's not a restriction compared to not granting anything.

      thank you for replying, mythodical and GrapheneOS
      I've not seen any option for using it during installations, so presume my few applications haven't asked for it (storage permissions).

          5 months later

          Hello Folks, I can't see storage permission in my apps settings. I tried installing a new app (Syphon). It didn't ask for any permission but when I tried to import keys from my previous Element account, it couldn't apparently couldn't reach the storage. And I seem to have no way to fix that. Did I mess something up ?

          9 months later

          RedHenry in app info, under permissions, go to any storage permission and there should be an option to set up storage scopes.

            I don't see any options under the permissions tab for enabling Storage Scopes so I guess that option does not apply to what I have. All the apps clearly have storage....If I hit the clear cache and clear storage buttons does that do any harm or help

              RedHenry clearing the cache is harmless. Clearing the app's storage will wipe it clean like a fresh install, losing any data that wasn't backed up.

                I found Storage Scopes options in the All Files Access permissions tab. But all these files seems to be stock Graphene Files...not the apps I've loaded myself. I tried to enable Storage Scopes on some of these files, my phone either shuts the page down or doesn't respond to my touch. Don't know why Graphene would have this Storage Scopes option on a file p[age if we could not enable it.

                If I'm not mistaken, grant Storage Scopes is only necessary if an app asks for storage access (normally during setup process or first time necissity to access storage) or if you already have allowed it in the past ("ask every time" also counts as "allowed") and now you want to reverse that decision.

                To find out if an app has this permission to access storage you can check the permission of the app in question via
                App Info>App permissions> "Photos and videos" or "Files".

                If neither "Files" nor "Photos and videos" appear under the described app permissions and you have already used it without problems, the app does not seem to need these permissions - therfore there would be no need to set up Storage Scopes.

                If storage permissions were allowed, you can reverse this decision and set up Storage Scopes as described above.

                By the way: If you have activated Storage Scopes, another menu item named "Storage Scopes" will appear in "App Info" directly under "Permissions".

                Via App Info> Storage Scopes you can then directly add or remove images, files or folders to which the app should have access.

                Apps only need storage permissions to interact with files they didn't create. Storage scopes just allows you to limit their ability to do that in a way that's transparent to the app.

                Many apps only need to interact with their own files and nothing else. Those apps don't need any special storage permissions, so there won't be an option to set storage scopes.

                Changing the permissions or otherwise disabling apps that came pre installed is generally a bad idea. It can cause your system to break in ways that are difficult to diagnose and there's no benefit to doing it.

                I noticed with discord I have storage scopes enabled and for some reason the app now has full access to all files and folders. Do I need to redo storage scopes? Uninstalling and reinstalling isn't really an option.

                  MethRaptor To enable storage scopes you just have to change the permissions in app info, it acts no differently than any other permission

                    MethRaptor app now has full access to all files and folders

                    How have you determined this? My guess is you are seeing the system file picker.

                    When you enabled storage scopes, did you add a bunch of folders and/or files? I typically just turn on storage scopes and add nothing until I need to access a folder or file.

                    Read this for more info: https://grapheneos.org/usage#storage-scopes

                        4 days later

                        Im seeing this when i open the app and choose a file to upload. Every other app only sees the folders i allow. But discord sees them all
                        Also No I only add one file to the scope. And it doesn't matter if I remove the single folder. It still sees everything

                          MethRaptor But discord sees them all
                          Also No I only add one file to the scope. And it doesn't matter if I remove the single folder. It still sees everything

                          No it doesn't. See other8026's comment

                              MethRaptor I just checked, and it's exactly what I said it is. Discord uses the system file picker, which has access to all files. Discord doesn't have access to any files you haven't given it access to with storage scopes.

                              You can test that by giving Discord access to one image, then try to upload an image. You will see the one image in the upload box within Discord because that's all it has access to, but once you tap browse, you can browse everything using the system file picker.

                                6 months later