How do Poweramp accessing files while Android restricts apps from using files directly?

[Rayraychen]

Yeah, in the title how does Poweramp actually work on Android. Is it caching files while opening or is there a way to access media files directly. Because I heard that new Android restricts users from using files directly.

[andrewilley]

You've probably been listening too much to what Sonos are trying to fob off on their users to avoid doing proper development work.

The Poweramp Library only works with files stored on your local device (plus some shoutcast streaming options) and it can read your audio files from both internal memory and SD Cards (if available) on all Android devices.

There are some Google hoops to jump through to provide the required access permissions, but that should only be necessary once when you first install the app.

Andre

[Rayraychen]

On 5/20/2023 at 9:34 PM, andrewilley said:

You've probably been listening too much to what Sonos are trying to fob off on their users to avoid doing proper development work.

The Poweramp Library only works with files stored on your local device (plus some shoutcast streaming options) and it can read your audio files from both internal memory and SD Cards (if available) on all Android devices.

There are some Google hoops to jump through to provide the required access permissions, but that should only be necessary once when you first install the app.

Andre

I don't know who is Soros but I was trying to build a media player app with flutter and some developers said about this android restrictions. But I find a workaround with a 3rd party library. 

[maxmp]

@Rayraychen Android doesn't restrict from accessing files in general, it may disallow certain types of file IO on some folders/storages/directories (sometime in a weird way) - similar to other OSes. It's quite documented, e.g. https://developer.android.com/guide/topics/data