Hello everyone,
So I installed WhatsApp on a work profile with Google services installed. When asked for storage access, I enabled Storage Scopes and created new folder for it and added that. But the images and files get saved in the default folder WhatsApp creates, which is inside Android/media/com.whatsapp. The folder which i gave permission to is in Main Storage/WhatsApp so how come the files are being saved inside Android/media?
That's a common misconception about how storage scopes works. It's not a permission-only kind of thing. It's more a visibility and pretend access thing.
With Storage Scopes on (no folders or files added in the storage scopes settings), WhatsApp thinks it has access to EVERYTHING, but it sees nothing saved anywhere, except some standard folders (I think). WhatsApp can save files anywhere it wants. Pictures, Downloads, etc. Then, WhatsApp will only be able to see the files/folders it itself has created.
When you add a folder or a file to the Storage Scopes settings, the app in question will now be able to see every folder and every file in that folder, regardless of which app created the files/folders.
I'd suggest reading the Storage Scopes section here: https://grapheneos.org/usage#storage-access for more information.
I hope that clarifies things.
Since Google Photos didn't actually create anything, it won't be able to see anything if you just enable Storage Scopes. So, if you want Google Photos to see photos, you'd have to add folders in Storage Scopes, like the DCIM folder for camera photos, or Pictures for other photos that other apps had saved.
unwat With Storage Scopes on (no folders or files added in the storage scopes settings), WhatsApp thinks it has access to EVERYTHING
Perhaps I'm still misunderstanding this, or perhaps there's a bug with SAF that lets apps determine whether they actually have "access to everything"...
The app Automagic requires access to all shared storage, i.e. the Internal/ folder as part of its setup steps. With SAF, I cannot grant it this access, so I created a folder Internal/Automagic/ and gave it scoped access to that. Yet, Automagic somehow knows it doesn't truly have full access, and it refuses to proceed past this step in the setup.
Obviously, the best scenario would be if the app required less broad permissions, but it is feature-complete and not under active development, so it's unlikely to get updated. Therefore, it seems like the best way to proceed would be:
A) Find and close whatever loophole Automagic uses to determine the true state of its storage access
AND/OR
B) Give users the ability to make an informed decision when granting storage access, up to and including the entire Internal/ folder. (This would also make it much easier to set up things like image gallery and file manager apps)
I just tried Automagic to see what's going on, and the issue you're having with it isn't related to Storage Scopes. For whatever reason, the app expects to be granted access to the entire internal storage root using the file picker. Google made it impossible to select internal storage root directory in Android 11, apparently. That restriction is covered here in Android documentation: https://developer.android.com/training/data-storage/shared/documents-files#document-tree-access-restrictions
I have no idea why Automagic doesn't support storage permissions. I can't even manually give it all files access, meaning it didn't even request that access. Considering how they programmed it and Android restrictions, I don't see how you can get it to work.
unwat You're right, I guess I'm not clear on the distinction between file picker, SAF, and Storage Scopes. I might be conflating concepts. I also tried to just grant it all files access without success. Maybe I will try to contact the dev, bc otherwise it looks like it just doesn't work on Android at all anymore.
