What permissions does Space Saver need, and why?

Space Saver does not use All files access (MANAGE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE) — the permission that would let it read every file on your phone. It never has. Instead it uses three ordinary, documented Android mechanisms: a folder grant you approve yourself, read access so it can notice new media, and the narrowest Drive permission Google offers.

This page exists because the app does something that sounds like it should need far more than that. Putting a placeholder back at the exact path where WhatsApp expects a photo sounds like a trick. It isn't — it's the Storage Access Framework, used the way Android documents it. Below is the full list, so you don't have to take our word for any of it.

Every permission, and what it does

Permission	What it's for
Folder access (Storage Access Framework)	Reading and writing inside the four WhatsApp media folders. You grant this yourself in Android's own folder picker, so you see exactly which folders you're approving. This is the actual access — it isn't a manifest permission, and you can withdraw it whenever you want.
READ_MEDIA_IMAGES READ_MEDIA_VIDEO READ_EXTERNAL_STORAGE (older Android only)	Noticing that new media arrived. This is detection, not access — the app has to know a photo landed before it can do anything with it.
MANAGE_MEDIA ACCESS_MEDIA_LOCATION	Stopping Android from asking you to confirm every single file. See below — this pair looks strange and has the dullest possible explanation.
INTERNET	Uploading to your Drive, and fetching your files back.
FOREGROUND_SERVICE FOREGROUND_SERVICE_DATA_SYNC	Doing the work in the background with a visible notification, so you can always see it running.
RECEIVE_BOOT_COMPLETED	Picking up again after you restart your phone.
POST_NOTIFICATIONS	Telling you what happened — what moved, what came back, what needs you.

That's the complete list. Ten permissions, plus the folder grant and the Drive connection.

What Space Saver never asks for

• All files access (MANAGE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE) — the one Google restricts most, and the one most people assume this app must need
• Your contacts, your location, your camera or your microphone
• Your chats, your messages, or the WhatsApp database — the app only ever touches photos and videos
• The rest of your Google Drive — and that one isn't up to us, see below

Access and detection are two different things

Nearly all the confusion about this comes from treating them as one system. They aren't.

The folder grant is what lets Space Saver read and write your WhatsApp media. You give it once, in Android's picker, and it covers those folders and nothing else.

The read permissions are what let the app notice a new photo arrived in the first place. Android keeps detection and access separate, so the app needs both — and neither of them is All files access.

The permission that looks odd

ACCESS_MEDIA_LOCATION sounds like the app wants to know where your photos were taken. It doesn't, and it never reads that data.

Android requires it as part of a set of three. Without all three, the system shows you an "allow this app to modify these photos?" dialog every single time a file is processed. That's the whole reason it's there. We removed it once to keep the list shorter, the dialog came back on every setup, and we put it back.

As it happens, WhatsApp strips location data from photos before they ever reach your phone — so there'd be nothing to read even if the app went looking.

Your Drive: the narrowest scope there is

Space Saver uses Google's drive.file scope. An app with that scope can only see files it created itself. Everything else in your Drive is invisible to it — your documents, your other photos, everything.

That isn't a promise we're making. It's enforced by Google's API, on Google's side, whatever we might claim on this page.

What Google tells you when you connect

You don't have to believe any of the above, because Google states the scope itself — twice, in its own interface, where we have no say over the wording.

When you connect. Google's consent screen names the access being requested before you approve anything. The distinction to look for is between access limited to only the specific files you use with this app and access to all of your Drive files. Space Saver asks for the first. If you are ever shown the second by an app claiming to be Space Saver, refuse it.

After you connect. Go to myaccount.google.com/permissions and open Space Saver. Google lists the access you actually granted, in Google's own words, and lets you revoke it there. That page is not ours and we cannot influence what it says.

Google documents the two scopes the app uses like this:

drive.file — "Create new Drive files, or modify existing files, that you open with an app or that the user shares with an app while using the Google Picker API or the app's file picker."

drive.appdata — "View and manage the app's own configuration data in your Google Drive."

Source: Google Drive API — choose scopes. The first is why the app can reach the files it moved for you and nothing else. The second is a small hidden configuration file, in a folder only Space Saver can open, which doesn't appear in your Drive listing.

On your phone. Android's Privacy Dashboard, under Settings → Security & privacy, shows which permissions an app has actually used and when. Again, Google's reporting, not ours.

Space Saver never talks to WhatsApp

This is worth stating plainly, because it is the most common wrong assumption about how the app works: Space Saver has no connection to WhatsApp at all. It is not a plugin or an extension, it cannot read your chats, and it cannot see what you tap inside the app. No Android app can do that, and Space Saver doesn't try.

What it works on is files in a folder. WhatsApp happens to be the app that put them there, and the app that opens them again when you view a photo — but as far as Space Saver is concerned, they are files. It keeps an eye on the ones it has replaced, and when something opens one, that is its cue to fetch the original from your Drive. It doesn't need to know which app did the opening.

So the app can't reach into a conversation, and it can't do anything WhatsApp doesn't already do by reading a file from storage. That's a limit on what it can do, and it's also the reason the permission list stays as short as it does.

Is this a workaround?

No, and it's a fair question.

Every part of this uses a documented Android API for the purpose it was designed for. The Storage Access Framework exists so apps can be given access to specific folders instead of your whole phone. MANAGE_MEDIA exists so a media app doesn't have to interrupt you for every file. The drive.file scope exists so an app can use your Drive without seeing the rest of it.

Space Saver isn't reaching around Android's rules. It's using the narrow tools Android provides — which is exactly why it needs your explicit approval at each step, and why you can take that approval back.

How to check all of this

Once the app is on Google Play, the permission list is public: open the Play listing and go to App info → Permissions. It's the same list as above, published by Google rather than by us. The documentation repository sets out which files the app touches and which it never touches.

To withdraw access at any time:

• On your phone — Settings → Apps → Space Saver → Permissions
• For Drive — myaccount.google.com/permissions

Revoke either one and the app stops. Nothing already in your Drive is affected — your files stay yours, exactly where they are.