Recently, I'm trying to migrate my application from SDK-29 to SDK-30. And one thing I concerned the most is scoped storage.
I saw on official document that says "On Android 11 (API level 30) and higher, apps cannot create their own app-specific directory on external storage."
So I tried it out to create my own directory inside external storage and write a new file to it. The code looks like this :
// creating new directory under external storage
val appDir = File(applicationContext.getExternalFilesDir(null), "play")
appDir.mkdir()
// writing new file under my own directory
val newFile = File(appDir.absolutePath, "test.jpg")
val outputStream = FileOutputStream(newFile)
val inputStream = resources.openRawResource(R.drawable.ic_launcher_foreground)
val data = byteArrayOf()
inputStream.read(data)
outputStream.write(data)
inputStream.close()
outputStream.close()
I expected this code will crash but it works. I find the file at the given path. So, I'm a little confused the meaning of that note.
What do Google means with "cannot create their own app-specific directory on external storage"?
They are referring to creating arbitrary directories off of the external storage root (e.g., Environment.getExternalStorageDirectory().
getExternalFilesDir() and similar methods on Context are fine solutions to use instead!