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Groups > comp.mobile.android > #154055

Re: Can’t Set File Permissions

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Alan Peeling wrote:
> I think you can be forgiven for that, thanks for your help, I think the 
> end is in sight.
> I'm grateful for the reference to Android file management, the nub is 
> Write access to all internal storage directories⁠ except 
> /Android/data/, /sdcard/Android, and most subdirectories of 
> /sdcard/Android. Distressingly, it doesn't document a workaround.

What you're fighting is Google made it very hard, and maybe impossible, in
the recent Android versions, for any app that isn't a system app, to access
the data of another app.

There are some tricks using Shizuku, but if you're unrooted, as I am,
Google designed it to be almost impossible, if not impossible.

One way I get around the limitation is the savetodevice trick, but I have
only used it for saving APKs off of the Google Play Store repository so
far.

1. I download the APK off the Google Play Store repository using one app
2. But while I'm in that app, I use savetodevice to put it somewhere else

What savetodevice lets you do is save anything somewhere else.
But the limitation is you have to be in the app that has the data.

Once you save it to somewhere else though, then any app can access it.
It's a trick I only recently found out about from the Aurora developers.

> I'm a bit bewildered. I went to 
> <https://f-droid.org/packages/name.lmj001.savetodevice> and installed 
> Save. It appears not to be a stand-alone app but an adjunct to something 
> called Android Sharesheet, which supports apps' sending data to one 
> another. 

Take a look at this screenshot I made while using the saveondevice app.
 <https://i.postimg.cc/SNZzqCQV/saveondevice.jpg>

If you're in any given app, you can save its "stuff" anywhere you like.
For example, let's say you're in a text editor which only saves its files
to its own storage, which no other app has any access to nowadays.

With this app, you can save that text file anywhere on your device.
Once you've saved that text file, any editor can edit it.

The point is that it's a trick to get data out of any given app.
The problem is you have to save the data manually from every app.

So I would only do it when I needed it (which, in my case, is when I use
Aurora to download the APK off of the Google Play repository, I use this
savetodevice app to save that APK so that I can access it outside of the
Aurora app.

Let's say I had a special database in a special app that I wanted another
app to access. I'd use saveondevice to save it OUTSIDE the app so that any
other app could access it.

> Save is concerned with saving files on an Android device. I 
> have no need for chatter between apps or for the saving of files on 
> phones. Is the idea to use Save to access files from the Android storage 
> and save them somewhere else? That would be an ad-hoc backup strategy 
> lacking the excellent and desirable synchronisation capabilities of 
> GoodSync, so I don't think I would go for it.

I think you understand it. It would only be useful for the most important
things that you have, since it's a manual save-as operation as I see it.

> “It will use each app directly & then use Goodsync.” I don't follow 
> this, is the idea that we would visit each app on the phone and copy its 
> private files, then somehow pass them over to GoodSync?

Once you've saved their data to non-privileged storage, then GoodSync can
access that data. But as you already noticed, you have to do it for every
app. That works for me because I only need to save APKs from Aurora.

But it may be too much effort for what you want to do.

> To recap: I am trying to back up a phone but the OS won’t let the backup 
> app have access to all the files that need to be copied to a safe 
> location. I want some way to give GoodSync permission to work with the 
> forbidden files, or some way to configure the OS so it removes its 
> protection from the currently-inaccessible files. It now seems that I am 
> out of luck.

Yup. If you root, it would be different. Thank Google for this.

> 
> Samsung Smart Switch for Windows seems to back up every file on an 
> Android phone, albeit in a crass fashion, does anybody know how it does 
> it? Could it use what Maria Sophia calls ‘a privileged system app’?

I never used Samsung Smart Switch, but others might be able to help.

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Thread

Can’t Set File Permissions Alan Peeling <Alan@invalid.co.uk> - 2026-06-02 14:59 +0100
  Re: Can’t Set File Permissions Maria Sophia <mariasophia@comprehension.com> - 2026-06-02 09:30 -0600
    Re: Can’t Set File Permissions Alan Peeling <Alan@invalid.co.uk> - 2026-06-02 16:50 +0100
      Re: Can’t Set File Permissions Maria Sophia <mariasophia@comprehension.com> - 2026-06-02 18:33 -0600
        Re: Can’t Set File Permissions Alan Peeling <Alan@invalid.co.uk> - 2026-06-03 12:59 +0100
          Re: Can’t Set File Permissions Maria Sophia <mariasophia@comprehension.com> - 2026-06-03 08:37 -0600
            Re: Can’t Set File Permissions Alan Peeling <Alan@invalid.co.uk> - 2026-06-03 23:04 +0100
              Re: Can’t Set File Permissions Maria Sophia <mariasophia@comprehension.com> - 2026-06-03 17:37 -0600
                Re: Can’t Set File Permissions Alan Peeling <Alan@invalid.co.uk> - 2026-06-04 22:02 +0100
              Re: Can’t Set File Permissions "Carlos E.R." <robin_listas@es.invalid> - 2026-06-04 08:20 +0200
                Re: Can’t Set File Permissions Alan Peeling <Alan@invalid.co.uk> - 2026-06-04 21:52 +0100
                Re: Can’t Set File Permissions "Carlos E.R." <robin_listas@es.invalid> - 2026-06-05 13:33 +0200
                Re: Can’t Set File Permissions Maria Sophia <mariasophia@comprehension.com> - 2026-06-05 07:10 -0600
                Re: Can’t Set File Permissions Alan Peeling <Alan@invalid.co.uk> - 2026-06-05 16:07 +0100
                Re: Can’t Set File Permissions Maria Sophia <mariasophia@comprehension.com> - 2026-06-05 10:41 -0600
                Re: Can’t Set File Permissions Alan Peeling <Alan@invalid.co.uk> - 2026-06-05 23:06 +0100
                Re: Can’t Set File Permissions Alan Peeling <Alan@invalid.co.uk> - 2026-06-05 23:22 +0100
                Re: Can’t Set File Permissions Maria Sophia <mariasophia@comprehension.com> - 2026-06-05 19:12 -0600
                Re: Can’t Set File Permissions Andy Burns <usenet@andyburns.uk> - 2026-06-06 08:40 +0100
                Re: Can’t Set File Permissions Dave Royal <dave@dave123royal.com> - 2026-06-05 16:42 +0000
                Re: Can’t Set File Permissions Maria Sophia <mariasophia@comprehension.com> - 2026-06-05 10:54 -0600
                Re: Can’t Set File Permissions Alan Peeling <Alan@invalid.co.uk> - 2026-06-07 12:46 +0100
                Re: Can’t Set File Permissions "Carlos E.R." <robin_listas@es.invalid> - 2026-06-07 14:32 +0200
                Re: Can’t Set File Permissions Maria Sophia <mariasophia@comprehension.com> - 2026-06-07 09:46 -0600
                Re: Can’t Set File Permissions "Carlos E.R." <robin_listas@es.invalid> - 2026-06-07 20:09 +0200
                Re: Can’t Set File Permissions Alan Peeling <Alan@invalid.co.uk> - 2026-06-07 19:57 +0100
                Re: Can’t Set File Permissions "Carlos E.R." <robin_listas@es.invalid> - 2026-06-07 23:09 +0200
                Re: Can’t Set File Permissions Alan Peeling <Alan@invalid.co.uk> - 2026-06-08 00:45 +0100
                Re: Can’t Set File Permissions Maria Sophia <mariasophia@comprehension.com> - 2026-06-07 23:11 -0600
                Re: Can’t Set File Permissions "Carlos E.R." <robin_listas@es.invalid> - 2026-06-08 09:47 +0200
                Re: Can?t Set File Permissions Frank Slootweg <this@ddress.is.invalid> - 2026-06-21 14:33 +0000
                Doing a backup [Was: Can’t Set File Permissions] "Carlos E.R." <robin_listas@es.invalid> - 2026-06-08 13:11 +0200
                Re: Doing a backup Maria Sophia <mariasophia@comprehension.com> - 2026-06-08 10:51 -0600
                Re: Doing a backup "Carlos E.R." <robin_listas@es.invalid> - 2026-06-08 21:19 +0200
                Re: Doing a backup Maria Sophia <mariasophia@comprehension.com> - 2026-06-08 20:40 -0600
                Re: Doing a backup "Carlos E.R." <robin_listas@es.invalid> - 2026-06-09 20:04 +0200
                Re: Doing a backup Maria Sophia <mariasophia@comprehension.com> - 2026-06-09 12:41 -0600
                Re: Doing a backup "Carlos E.R." <robin_listas@es.invalid> - 2026-06-09 22:26 +0200
                Re: Doing a backup Dave Royal <dave@dave123royal.com> - 2026-06-09 21:57 +0100
                Re: Doing a backup [Was: Can’t Set File Permissions] "Carlos E.R." <robin_listas@es.invalid> - 2026-06-08 21:33 +0200
                Re: Can’t Set File Permissions Maria Sophia <mariasophia@comprehension.com> - 2026-06-07 09:27 -0600
                Re: Can?t Set File Permissions Frank Slootweg <this@ddress.is.invalid> - 2026-06-21 14:16 +0000
                Re: Can?t Set File Permissions "Carlos E. R." <robin_listas@es.invalid> - 2026-06-21 19:01 +0200
                Re: Can?t Set File Permissions Frank Slootweg <this@ddress.is.invalid> - 2026-06-22 14:44 +0000
  Re: Can’t Set File Permissions "Carlos E.R." <robin_listas@es.invalid> - 2026-06-02 18:06 +0200
    Re: Can’t Set File Permissions Alan Peeling <Alan@invalid.co.uk> - 2026-06-02 20:01 +0100

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