Add the appropriate “Tag” based on what Expo library you have a question on.
Hi. I got this notification inside the Google Play Store. Starting May 5th, you must let us know why your app requires broad storage access with content saying We've detected that your app contains the requestLegacyExternalStorage flag in the manifest file of 1 or more of your app bundles or APKs.
The app does not require access to write files, just to read from Photo Library… Do you if it’s a matter of removing some permissions or this is tied to SDK 40 ?
I might have overloaded this so I appologize. But all I need is to make sure people can upload Photos and take Photos with their camera (in terms of what’s related to files). Is external_storage needed for that?
@notbrent, sorry, I bit confused where to start. Was checking the links and those seem to talk about the expo-media-library, but I am currently using expo-image-picker with Permissions.askAsync(Permissions.CAMERA_ROLL) and Permissions.CAMERA. Does that affect me? Looking at the latest docs for the image picker, only things I am doing wrong is not using Permissions.MEDIA_LIBRARY instead of CAMERA_ROLL and asking permissions via ImagePicker instead of expo-permissions?
And what do I do with the permissions set in app.json?
if you are have an expo managed workflow app, as far as i know there is no action needed on your behalf. i imagine almost every app on the play store would have received this same warning email.
we’ll investigate further and let people know what we find
Thank you for dealing with this with high priority. What I’m surprised the most is that Google have given such a short timeframe to rectify the situation, 3 weeks is extremely tight for many developers especially for big companies.
I’m little confused about the expo response. Should I at least migrate my managed app to expo sdk 41? Will my app be removed from Google Play if I don’t do anything and keep my app on sdk 40?
I would suggest to wait for @notbrend updates in the next few days. I’m also on SDK40 but reluctant to upgrade now to SDK41 as some of my dependencies may break.
Furthermore, I’ve not read that SDK41 would solve the issue.
I have a bare workflow app that uses expo-media-library. It imports images from the media library and saves images taken in my app to the media library. I also use the app’s document directly to store images sometimes. Doesn’t seem like I need any broad access to storage. I already request permission to work with the media library. And anything else I’m doing on storage is in my app’s own directory. So why is my manifest requesting for more than that?
If you have something to add, let’s continue the conversation there (but please make sure that whatever you add is relevant, otherwise it’ll just become a long list of “+ 1s” and “also getting this warning”)
I would suggest to wait for @notbrend updates in the next few days. I’m also on SDK40 but reluctant to upgrade now to SDK41 as some of my dependencies may break.
I’m little confused about the expo response. Should I at least migrate my managed app to expo sdk 41? Will my app be removed from Google Play if I don’t do anything and keep my app on sdk 40?