Android 9 Development Cookbook - Third Edition

Accessing external storage with scoped directories in Android N

With security awareness on the rise, users are becoming more skeptical about allowing apps to have unnecessary permissions. Android N introduces a new option called Scoped Directory Access, allowing your application to request access to only the required permissions, instead of general access to all folders.

If your application requests READ_EXTERNAL_STORAGE and/or WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE permission, but only needs access to a specific directory, you can use Scoped Directory access instead. This recipe will demonstrate how to request access to a specific directory, the Music folder in this case.