Questions tagged [file-permissions]

Use this tag if your issue is with permissions in the file system (files & directories). For app permissions, use the 'permissions' tag instead.

What are file permissions?

Android uses Linux at its core, and Unix/Linux use a special permission system on files:

  • each file has an owner (single user), and a group (user group) it is owned by
  • permissions are granted to the owner, the group, and "others" (neither being the user nor belonging to the group)
  • permissions basically consist of being allowed to read, write, and execute a file (in case of a directory, "execute" means to change into it)

Thus a permission-set basically consists of three groups, prefixed by a "type":

  • drwxrwxrwx would be a directory with full permissions to everybody
  • -rwx------ would be a very private file (only the owner has permissions to do everything with it)
  • -rw-rw--- looks like a document/data file read- and writable by the owner and the group.

Related tags:

Further readings

163 questions
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Changing file permissions with root, will they remain if I unroot?

I currently use the run-as command through adb to be able to access the data folder of an app that I am developing directly on my phone using AIDE. When connecting to the phone locally, using connectbot, I can find the run-as command in /system/bin/…
Russ Wheeler
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How to debug Android permission denied at the file system level?

Something is basically pretty messed up on my phone. It looks like everything is running. But sometimes I can't open something or something crashes. The logcat shows a lot of permission denied. A simple example is com.oneplus.calculator: I don't…
Zweikeks
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Is this possible in Android that a file/folder can have multiple owners and group?

So in my scenario, I am trying to assign multiple groups, the user to a file in /dev/. So I have created a custom AID in config.fs and the corresponding [path], mode, caps parameter also configured. Also modifies my apk to uses this new gid. At…
Vishal Gupta
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Can't change file and folder permissions on rooted device

I can't change the file and folder permissions on my rooted android 4.4.2 device. I tried doing this from Root Explorer, Total Commander and also from terminal emulator and it didn't worked. Any idea why?
user1800997
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Understanding android partitions and directories permissions

I'm playing with mount points, directories and files permissions on a rooted MotoG1 using adb (a model without SDCard Slot), and I've come into certain behaviours I can't really understand. Connected with shell I can see a mounted partition: $ mount…
Toni
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Android Photo/Media/File Permission

I've downloaded an android application, then the application asked about this permission: I've searched for it but there isn't any efficient answer. Does it mean that the application is able to send all of my files through the Internet?
Saman Gholami
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How can I set a directory permission so that all files, existing, and newly added are indelible?

I am tinkering with an app that I do not control. It creates files and then sometime later deletes them, I want to prevent it from being able to delete those files. Or if I could create a file system watcher app that would auto copy the file to a…
MitchellKrenz
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How to get permission for overwrite files in /system/fonts directory in Android phone

I'm tryng to overwrite the fonts files (*.ttf) in my android device (Dell Aero). my new fonts are resident in the sdcard and I'm using the following command in a command shell (on the phone): cd /sdcard/MyFonts/ cp *.ttf /system/fonts/ I get a…
shaeli
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What does it mean by "Set permissions read, write / read, write / none for *.db file"?

I've come across a *.apk where permissions are needed to be set to the *.db file. But I don't know what's it meaning. Help?
Ahmadul Hoq
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