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How to remove android.permission.READ_EXTERNAL_STORAGE ?

Discussion in 'Android' started by De-Panther, Sep 4, 2016.

  1. De-Panther

    De-Panther

    Joined:
    Dec 27, 2009
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    As I understand, Unity detects code that needs this permission, and then add this permission to the AndroidManifest file.
    I can remove it by unpacking the apk with external tool, edit the AndroidManifest and repacking the apk.

    But I don't want to use an external tool.
    I want to know which part of the code ask for this permission, and if I can remove it(maybe it's in a dll of one of the plugins I use), I'll remove it.
    I would also want a way to remove it even if there is a code that use it, but I guess that this won't happen soon :/

    So, is there a documentation about which System/UnityEngine classes add some unwanted permissions?

    Thanks
     
    De-Panther, Sep 4, 2016
    #1

  2. liortal

    liortal

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    Oct 17, 2012
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    I am not sure this is is all that Unity does, but you should look into the GenerateManifest class (in UnityEditor.Android.Extensions.dll). Specifically, the SetPermissionAttributes method will added various permissions to the manifest.
    Again, i am not sure this is ALL that Unity does.. but worth checking out.

    I believe that all the tools you need are already available in the Android SDK, but that would be a hassle to do for every build i guess.
    Android plugins are sometimes packaged as .aar libraries (a .zip file that also contains an AndroidManifest). These can contain permission declarations as well (not only .DLLs like you mentioned).

    Why are you trying to do that? why do you care that this permission will be added to your .apk ?

    Maybe @Yury-Habets knows of some of these APIs.
     
    liortal, Sep 4, 2016
    #2

  3. Yury-Habets

    Yury-Habets

    Unity Technologies

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    Actually, I don't think we add READ_EXTERNAL_STORAGE ourselves. We do add WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE based on the write access in the player settings, and if "Split application binary" is selected (the latter is no longer true for latest Unity versions - we left it for the OBB plugin to manage its permissions).

    @De-Panther please check your plugins. If you see Unity adding this permission on an empty project - please submit a bug report immediately!

    By the way, a part of my hack week project was to identify which plugin caused which permission. It may find its way to the Unity code some day...
     
    Yury-Habets, Sep 5, 2016
    #3

  4. De-Panther

    De-Panther

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    Dec 27, 2009
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    Found the guilty ".aar" file.
    "OVRPlugin.aar" it's in the Unity installation folder - "Editor\Data\VR\Unity\Android"
    I'm building the game for the GearVR.
    As far as I know, it's not a required permission. So it's strange that it's there. I'm using Unity 5.4.0f3 (64-bit).
     
    De-Panther, Sep 7, 2016
    #4

  5. De-Panther

    De-Panther

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    De-Panther, Sep 7, 2016
    #5
    andrew-lukasik and Yury-Habets like this.

  6. De-Panther

    De-Panther

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    And... apparently this permission is a must for the GearVR Store. So I wasted my time for nothing :p
     
    De-Panther, Sep 10, 2016
    #6

  7. igorpavlov

    igorpavlov

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    Dec 24, 2016
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    Last edited: Jan 31, 2017
    igorpavlov, Jan 31, 2017
    #7
    Yury-Habets likes this.

  8. CoderPro

    CoderPro

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    Feb 21, 2014
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    Hi @Yury-Habets
    Where i can find your project ? Thanks in advanced.
     
    CoderPro, Aug 9, 2018
    #8

  9. Yury-Habets

    Yury-Habets

    Unity Technologies

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    Unfortunately it's sitting in one of the development branches, and is not public at the moment. I may want to spend some time once to actually make it happen...
     
    Yury-Habets, Aug 10, 2018
    #9
    De-Panther likes this.

  10. tessellation

    tessellation

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    @Yury-Habets All we need is the manifest merger report as a log file. Otherwise, it's SO MUCH WORK to figure out which of the thousands of libraries we use are adding unwanted permissions. Is this possibly written out somewhere already?
     
    tessellation, Nov 13, 2018
    #10

  11. Yury-Habets

    Yury-Habets

    Unity Technologies

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    Yury-Habets, Nov 15, 2018
    #11

  12. Ictcmn

    Ictcmn

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    Just a random thought on this as I just had to solve this issue to submit something to Meta Quest Store. In my instance I believe it was because I was splitting my binary for size reasons. When I turned off that option, it removed android.permission.READ_EXTERNAL_STORAGE from my manifest.

    So that's under Player Settings > Publishing Settings > Split Application Binary.
     
    Ictcmn, Mar 15, 2024
    #12