PIC

APP MANAGER

User Manual

v2.5.24

April 3, 2021

Copyright ©2020–2021 Muntashir Al-Islam

“Wisely and slow. They stumble that run fast.” — Friar Laurence, Romeo and Juliet

Chapter 1
Introduction

App Manager is an advanced package manager for Android. It offers many features and consequently, it requires a user manual to assist its users with features that it offers. This document acts as a user manual for App Manager in the sense that it contains the description of every feature that App Manager has to offer. The document can be considered as the “official” guidelines for App Manager and represent the expected behaviour of App Manager. Translations can misinterpret this document (which is written in English). Therefore, it is recommended that you read the English version if possible. There might be other unofficial or third-party resources such as blog articles, videos, chat groups, etc. While these resources might be useful for many people, they may not be up-to-date. In case any deviations are detected in App Manager from this document, they should be reported in the App Manager issue tracker.

1.1 Terminologies

1.2 Supported Versions

Currently supported versions are v2.5.20 (stable), v2.5.23 (pre-release) and v2.5.24 (debug release).

1.3 Official Sources

1.3.1 Binary Distribution Sources

App Manager is distributed using the following sources. Unofficial sources may distribute modified versions of App Manager, and none but you shall be responsible for the consequences of using such distributions.

  1. Official F-Droid repository.1
    Link: https://f-droid.org/packages/io.github.muntashirakon.AppManager
  2. IzzyOnDroid repository for F-Droid.2
    Link: https://apt.izzysoft.de/fdroid/index/apk/io.github.muntashirakon.AppManager
  3. GitHub repository.
    Normal releases: https://github.com/MuntashirAkon/AppManager/releases
    Debug releases: https://github.com/MuntashirAkon/AppManager/actions
  4. Telegram.
    Normal releases: https://t.me/AppManagerChannel
    Debug releases: https://t.me/AppManagerDebug

1.3.2 Links to Source Code

All but GitHub are the mirror links. The tags should always be up-to-date, but the master branch is not guaranteed to be up-to-date. If the target is to clone the master branch, use the GitHub link instead of the others.

  1. GitHub: https://github.com/MuntashirAkon/AppManager
  2. GitLab: https://gitlab.com/muntashir/AppManager
  3. Codeberg: https://codeberg.org/muntashir/AppManager
  4. Riseup: https://0xacab.org/muntashir/AppManager

1.3.3 Translations

Horizontal Action Panel, as described in the previous section, consists of various app-related actions, such as–

1.4 Contributing

There are multiple ways a user can contribute such as creating helpful issues, attending discussions, improving documentations and translations, adding unrecognised libraries or trackers, reviewing the source code as well as reporting security vulnerabilities.

1.4.1 Build Instructions

Build instructions are available in the README file of the root directory of the source.

1.4.2 Submitting patches

Repositories located in sites other than GitHub are currently considered mirrors and pull/merge requests submitted there will not be accepted. Instead, patches (as .patch files) can be submitted via email attachments. Make sure to sign-off your commits.

Info. GitHub PRs will be merged manually using the corresponding patches. As a result, GitHub may falsely mark them closed instead of merged.

Notice. In case of submitting patches via email, the whole conversation may be publicly accessible in the future. So, do not include any personally identifiable information (PII) other than your name or email address.

1.5 Donation & Funding

Donation or purchase is not a requirement in order to use App Manager. While App Manager does not support any purchases, donations can be sent to the author of App Manager using one of the following Bitcoin addresses as a tribute:

    33TDkWVv5EgwfKGJk7YaS2Ev1CBzBP9Sav
38bzvWDD99dJhXg9tC4yQEnGdnAKPtwSXG
3FHTxPoYa92dNJK6pkhwyVkMG8Vv3VpGpg

By sending BTC, the sender agrees that he/she/they shall not make the transaction information public i.e. the transaction will remain anonymous, nor shall he/she/they use it as a leverage to prioritise his/her/their requested features. Feature requests do not require any bounties or donations, and they are prioritised according to the authors’ preferences.

App Manager is open for funding/grants. Representatives of the interested organizations can contact the author directly using the options given in §1.6.

1.6 Contact

By default, Termux does not allow running commands from third-party applications. To enable this option, you have to add allow-external-apps=true in ~/.termux/termux.properties, and make sure that you are running Termux v0.96 or later.

Chapter 2
Pages

2.1 Main Page

Main page lists all the installed apps (or a list of apps supplied by any third-party application) as well as apps that has existing backups. A single click on any installed app item opens the respective App Details page. Using the sort option from the menu, the app items can be sorted in various ways and preserved on close. It is also possible to filter items based on your needs using the filter option in the menu. You can filter using more than one options. You can also filter apps using app labels or package name using the search button.

2.1.1 Batch Operations

Batch operations or operation on multiple apps are also available within this page (most these operations require root or ADB over TCP). To enable multiple selection mode, click on any app icon or long click on any app. After that, you can use the regular click to select apps instead of opening the App Details page. These operations include:

2.1.2 Colour Codes

Here’s the list of colours used in this page, and their meaning:

2.1.3 Application Types

An app is either User App or System App along with the following codes:

2.1.4 Version Info

App Ops stands for Application Operations. Since Android 4.3, App Ops are used by Android system to control most of the application permissions. Each app op has a unique number associated with them which are closed inside first brackets in the App Ops tab. They also have private and optionally a public name. Some app ops are associated with permissions as well. The dangerousness of an app op is decided based on the associated permission, and other informations such as flags, permission name, permission description, package name, group are taken from the associated permission. Other information may include the following:

2.1.5 Options Menu

Options menu has several options which can be used to sort, filter the listed apps as well as navigate to different pages.

2.1.5.1 Instructions

Clicking on instructions open an offline version of the App Manager documentations. It opens the online version if the corresponding feature split i.e. feat_docs is not installed.

2.1.5.2 List Options

See also: Appendix: App Ops

Sort Apps listed on the main page can be sorted in different ways. The sorting preference is preserved which means the apps will be sorted the same way that was sorted in the previous launch. Regardless of your sorting preference, however, the apps are first sorted alphabetically to prevent random results.

There is also a reverse option which can be used to sort the apps in reverse order.

Filter Apps listed on the main page can be filtered in a number of ways. Like sorting, filtering preferences are also stored and retained after a relaunch.

Unlike sorting, you can filter using more than one option. For example, you can list the disabled user apps by filtering app lists selecting user apps and disabled apps. This is particularly useful for batch operations where you can filter all user apps to carry out certain operations.

2.1.5.3 1-Click Ops

1-Click Ops stands for One-Click Operations. You can directly open the corresponding page by clicking on this option.

2.1.5.4 App Usage

App usage statistics such as screen time, data usage (both mobile and Wifi), number of times an app was opened can be accessed by clicking on the App Usage option in the menu (requires Usage Access permission).

2.1.5.5 System Config

This page appears after clicking on the 1-Click Ops option in the main menu.

2.1.5.6 Running Apps

This option can be used to block or unblock the ad/tracker components from the installed apps. After you click on this option, you will be asked to select if AM will list trackers from all apps or only from the user apps. Novice users should avoid blocking trackers from the system apps in order to avoid consequences. After that, a multi-choice dialog box will appear where you can deselect the apps you want to exclude from this operation. Clicking block or unblock applies the changes immediately.

2.1.5.7 APK Updater

If you have the app APK Updater installed, you can use the corresponding option in the menu to open the app directly. The option is hidden if you do not have it installed.

2.1.5.8 Profiles

Opens the profiles page. Profiles are a way to configure regularly used tasks. You can also add shortcuts of the profiles in the launcher to run them directly.

2.1.5.9 Termux

This option can be used to block certain app components denoted by the signatures. App signature is the full name or partial name of the components. For safety, it is recommended that you should add a . (dot) at the end of each partial signature name as the algorithm used here chooses all matched components in a greedy manner. You can insert more than one signature in which case all signatures have to be separated by spaces. Similar to the option above, there is an option to apply blocking to system apps as well.

2.1.5.10 Settings

You can go to in-app Settings by clicking on the corresponding option.

2.2 App Details Page

This option can be used to configure certain app operations of all or selected apps. You can insert more than one app op constants separated by spaces. It is not always possible to know in advance about all the app op constants as they vary from device to device and from OS to OS. To find the desired app op constant, browse the App Ops tab in the App Details page. The constants are integers closed inside brackets next to each app op name. You can also use the app op names. You also have to select one of the modes that will be applied against the app ops.

2.2.1 Colour Codes

List of background colours used in this page, and their meaning:

2.2.2 App Info Tab

App Info tab contains general information about an app. It also lists many actions that can be performed within this tab. A complete description is given below:

2.2.2.1 General Information

The list below is in the same order as listed in the App Info tab.

2.2.2.2 Horizontal Action Panel

Horizontal Action Panel, as described in the previous section, consists of various app-related actions, such as–

2.2.2.3 Options Menu

Options-menu is located in the top-right corner of the page. A complete description of the options present there are given below:

2.2.2.4 Termux

By default, Termux does not allow running commands from third-party applications. To enable this option, you have to add allow-external-apps=true in ~/.termux/termux.properties, and make sure that you are running Termux v0.96 or later.

Info. Enabling this option does not weaken your Termux’ security. The third-party apps still need to request the user to allow running arbitrary commands in Termux like any other dangerous permissions.

2.2.3 Component Tabs

Activities, Services, Receivers (originally broadcast receivers) and Providers (originally Content Providers) are together called the application components. This is because they share similar features in many ways. For example, they all have a name and a label. Application components are the building blocks of any application, and most of these have to declared in the application manifest. Application manifest is a file where application specific metadata are stored. The Android operating system learns what to do with an app by reading the metadata. Colours used in these tabs are explained in §2.2.1. You also have the ability to sort the list of components to display blocked or tracker components on top of the list using the Sort option in the overflow menu.

2.2.3.1 Activities

Activities are windows or pages that you can browse (for instance Main page and App Details page are two separate activities). In other words, an activity is a user interface (UI) component. Each activity can have multiple UI components known as widgets or fragments, and similarly, each of these latter components can have multiple of them nested or on top of each other. But an activity is the master component: There cannot be two nested activities. An application author can also choose to open external files within an activity using a method called intent filters. When you try to open a file using your file manager, either your file manager or system scans for intent filters to decide which activities can open that particular file and offers you to open the file with these activities (therefore, it is nothing to do with the application itself). There are other intent filters as well.

Activities which are exportable can be usually opened by any third-party apps (some activities require permissions, if that is the case, only an app having those permissions can open them). In the Activities tab, the name of the activity (on top of each list item) is actually a button. It is enabled for the exportable activities and disabled for others (root users can open any activities). You can click on the button to open the activity directly in App Manager. You can also open the Interceptor page by long clicking on an activity. Currently, it only works for exportable activities.

Notice. If you are not able to open any activity, chances are it has certain dependencies which are not met, e.g. you cannot open App Details Activity because it requires that you at least supply a package name. These dependencies cannot always be inferred programmatically. Therefore, you cannot open them using App Manager.

You can also create shortcut for these exportable activities (using the dedicated button), and if you want, you can edit the shortcut as well using the Edit Shortcut button.

Caution. If you uninstall App Manager, all shortcuts created by App Manager will be lost.

2.2.3.2 Services

Unlike activities which users can see, Services handle background tasks. If you’re, for example, downloading a video from the internet using your phone’s Internet browser, the Internet browser is using a foreground service to download the content.

When you close an activity, it usually gets destroyed immediately (depending on many factors such as how much free memory your phone has). But services can be run for indefinite periods if desired. If more services are running in background, your phone will get slower due to shortage of memory and/or processing power, and your phone’s battery can be drained more quickly. Newer Android versions have a battery optimisation feature enabled by default for all apps. With this feature enabled, the system can randomly terminate any service.

Configure in-app language. App Manager currently supports 15 (fifteen) languages.

2.2.3.3 Receivers

Configure in-app theme.

2.2.3.4 Providers

Providers (also called content providers) are used for data management. For example, when you save an apk file or export rules in App Manager, it uses a content provider called ‘androidx.core.content.FileProvider‘ to save the APK or export the rules. There are other content providers or even custom ones to manage various content-related tasks such as database management, tracking, searching, etc. Each content provider has a field called Authority which is unique to that particular app in the entire Android eco-system just like the package name.

2.2.3.5 Additional Features for Rooted Phones

Unlike non-root users who are mostly spectators in these tabs, root users can perform various operations.

Blocking Components On the right-most side of each component item, there is a “block” icon (which becomes a “unblock/restore” icon when the component is being blocked). This icon (actually, a button) can be used to toggle the blocking status of that particular component. If you do not have Instant Component Blocking enabled or haven’t applied blocking for the app before, you have to apply the changes using the Apply rules option in three-dots menu. You can also remove already applied rules using the same option (which would be read as Remove rules this time).

Turning off this option disables the App Usage page as well as data usage and app storage info in the App Info tab. With this option turned off, App Manager will never ask for Usage Access permission.

Blocking Trackers You can disable tracker components using the Block tracker option in the three-dots menu. All tracker components will be blocked regardless of the tab you’re currently in.

Info. Tracker components are a subset of app components. Therefore, they are blocked using the same method used for blocking any other components.

See also: FAQ: Tracker classes versus tracker components Scanner Page 1-Click Ops Page: Block/Unblock Trackers

2.2.4 Permission Tabs

App Ops, Uses Permissions and Permissions tabs are related to permissions. In Android communication between apps or processes which do not have the same identity (known as shared id) often require permission(s). These permissions are managed by the permission controller. Some permissions are considered normal permissions which are granted automatically if they appear in the application manifest, but dangerous and development permissions require confirmation from the user. Colours used in these tabs are explained in §2.2.1.

2.2.4.1 App Ops

App Ops stands for Application Operations. Since Android 4.3, App Ops are used by Android system to control most of the application permissions. Each app op has a unique number associated with them which are closed inside first brackets in the App Ops tab. They also have private and optionally a public name. Some app ops are associated with permissions as well. The dangerousness of an app op is decided based on the associated permission, and other informations such as flags, permission name, permission description, package name, group are taken from the associated permission. Other information may include the following:

Info. Contents of this tab are only visible to the root and ADB users.

There is a toggle button next to each app op item which can be used to allow or deny (ignore) the app op. You can also reset your changes using the Reset to default option or deny all dangerous app ops using the corresponding option in the menu. You can also sort them in ascending order by app op names and the associated unique numbers (or values). You can also list the denied app ops first using the corresponding sorting option.

Warning. Denying an app op may cause the app to misbehave. Use the reset to default option if that is the case.

See also: Appendix: App Ops

2.2.4.2 Uses Permissions

Uses Permissions are the permissions used by the application. This is named so because they are declared in the manifest using uses-permission tags. Information such as flags, permission name, permission description, package name, group are taken from the associated permission.

One-click option to remove all rules configured within App Manager. This will enable all blocked components, app ops will be set to their default values and permissions will be granted.

Info. Since dangerous permissions are revoked by default by the system, revoking all dangerous permissions is the same as resetting all permissions.

Notice. Permissions cannot be changed for apps targeting API 23 or earlier. Therefore, permission toggles are disabled for such apps.

Users can sort the permissions by permission name (in ascending order) or choose to display denied or dangerous permissions at first using the corresponding options in the menu.

2.2.4.3 Permissions

Permissions are usually custom permissions defined by the app itself. It could contain regular permissions as well, mostly in old applications. Here’s a complete description of each item that is displayed there:

2.2.5 Signatures Tab

Set which compression method to be used during backups. App Manager supports GZip and BZip2 compression methods, GZip being the default compression method. It doesn’t affect the restore of an existing backup.

    320c0c0fe8cef873f2b554cb88c837f1512589dcced50c5b25c43c04596760ab

There are three types of checksums displayed there: MD5, SHA1 and SHA256.

Caution. It is recommended that you verify signing info using only SHA256 checksums or all three of them. DO NOT rely on MD5 or SHA1 checksums only as they are known to generate the same results for multiple certificates.

2.2.6 Other Tabs

Set an encryption method for the backups. AM currently supports OpenPGP only.

2.3 1-Click Ops Page

This page appears after clicking on the 1-Click Ops option in the main menu.

2.6.9 Device Info

Display Android version, security, CPU, GPU, battery, memory, screen, languages, user info, etc.

Notice. Certain apps may not function as expected after applying the blocking. If that is the case, remove blocking rules all at once or one by one in the component tabs of the corresponding App Details page.

See also: How to unblock the tracker components blocked using 1-Click Ops or Batch Ops? App Details Page: Blocking Trackers

2.3.2 Block Components…

This option can be used to block certain app components denoted by the signatures. App signature is the full name or partial name of the components. For safety, it is recommended that you should add a . (dot) at the end of each partial signature name as the algorithm used here chooses all matched components in a greedy manner. You can insert more than one signature in which case all signatures have to be separated by spaces. Similar to the option above, there is an option to apply blocking to system apps as well.

Caution. If you are not aware of the consequences of blocking app components by signature(s), you should avoid using this setting as it may result in boot loop or soft brick, and you may have to apply factory reset in order to use your OS.

2.3.3 Set Mode for App Ops…

This option can be used to configure certain app operations of all or selected apps. You can insert more than one app op constants separated by spaces. It is not always possible to know in advance about all the app op constants as they vary from device to device and from OS to OS. To find the desired app op constant, browse the App Ops tab in the App Details page. The constants are integers closed inside brackets next to each app op name. You can also use the app op names. You also have to select one of the modes that will be applied against the app ops.

Caution. Unless you are well-informed about app ops and the consequences of blocking them, you should avoid using this feature as it may result in boot loop or soft brick, and you may have to apply factory reset in order to use your OS.

2.4 Profiles Page

Profiles page can be accessed from the options-menu in the main page. It displays a list of configured profiles. Profiles can be added using the plus button at the bottom-right corner, imported from the import option, created from one of the presets or even duplicated from an already existing profile. Clicking on any profile opens the profile page.

2.4.1 Options Menu

There are two options menu in this page. The three dots menu at the top-right offers two options such as presets and import.

Another options menu appears when you long click on any profile. They have options such as–

2.5 Profile Page

Profile page displays the configurations for a profile. It also offers editing them.

Notice. When you apply a profile, if some packages do not match the criteria, they will simply be ignored.

2.5.1 Options Menu

The three dots menu on the top-right corner opens the options-menu. It contains several options such as–

2.5.2 Apps Tab

Apps tab lists the packages configured under this profile. Packages can be added or removed using the plus button located near the bottom of the screen. Packages can also be removed by long clicking on them (in which case, a popup will be displayed with the only option delete).

2.5.3 Configurations Tab

Configurations tab can be used to configure the selected packages. Description of each item is given below:

2.5.3.1 Comment

This is the text that will be displayed in the profiles page. If not set, the current configurations will be displayed instead.

2.5.3.2 State

Shared preferences can be edited in this page. Clicking any item on the list opens the edit dialog where the item can be edited. The floating action button on the bottom-right corner can be used to add a new item. To save or delete the file, or to discard current changes, the respective options in the menu can be used.

2.5.3.3 Users

Many root-only features can still be used by enabling ADB over TCP. To do that, a PC or Mac is required with Android platform-tools installed, and an Android phone with developer options & USB debugging enabled.

2.5.3.4 Components

This behaves the same way as the Block Components… option does in the 1-Click Ops page. However, this only applies for the selected packages. If the state is on, the components will be blocked, and if the state is off, the components will be unblocked. The option can be disabled (regardless of the inserted values) by clicking on the disabled button on the input dialog.

See also: FAQ: ADB over TCP

2.5.3.5 App Ops

This behaves the same way as the Set Mode for App Ops… option does in the 1-Click Ops page. However, this only applies for the selected packages. If the state is on, the app ops will be denied (ie. ignored), and if the state is off, the app ops will be allowed. The option can be disabled (regardless of the inserted values) by clicking on the disabled button on the input dialog.

2.5.3.6 Permissions

This option can be used to grant or revoke certain permissions from the selected packages. Like others above, permissions must be separated by spaces. If the state is on, the permissions will be revoked, and if the state is off, the permissions will be allowed. The option can be disabled (regardless of the inserted values) by clicking on the disabled button on the input dialog.

2.5.3.7 Backup/Restore

After locating the developer options, enable Developer option (if not already). After that, scroll down a bit until you will find the option USB debugging. Use the toggle button on the right hand side to enable it. At this point, you may get an alert prompt where you may have to click OK to actually enable it. You may also have to enable some other options depending on device vendor and ROM. Here are some examples:

If the state is on, the packages will be backed up, and if the state is off, the packages will be restored. The option can be disabled by clicking on the disabled button on the input dialog.

2.5.3.8 Export Blocking Rules

This option allows you to export blocking rules.

Danger. This option is not yet implemented.

2.5.3.9 Disable

Enabling this option will enable/disable the selected packages depending on the state. If the state is on, the packages will be disabled, and if the state is off, the packages will be enabled.

2.5.3.10 Force-stop

Enabling this option will allow the selected packages to be force-stopped.

2.5.3.11 Clear Cache

Enabling this option will enable clearing cache for the selected packages.

2.5.3.12 Clear Data

In order to enable ADB over TCP, you have to set up ADB in your PC or Mac. Lineage OS users can skip to §3.1.4.1.

3.1.3.1 Windows

Enabling this option will block/unblock tracker components from the selected packages depending on the state. If the state is on, the trackers will be blocked, and if the state is off, the trackers will be unblocked.

2.5.3.14 Backup APK

Enabling this option will enable APK backup for the selected packages. This is not the same as backup/restore as described there.

2.6 Settings Page

Settings can be used to customise the behaviour of the app.

2.6.1 Language

Configure in-app language. App Manager currently supports 15 (fifteen) languages.

2.6.2 App Theme

Configure in-app theme.

2.6.3 Mode of Operation

You can select one of the four options:

2.6.4 Usage Access

Turning off this option disables the App Usage page as well as data usage and app storage info in the App Info tab. With this option turned off, App Manager will never ask for Usage Access permission.

2.6.5 APK Signing

2.6.5.1 Signature schemes

Select the signature schemes to use. It is recommended that you use at least v1 and v2 signature schemes. Use the Reset to Default button in case you’re confused.

2.6.6 Rules

3.1.4.2 Enable ADB over TCP via PC or Mac

For other ROMs, you can do this using the command prompt/PowerShell/terminal emulator that you’ve opened in the step 3 of the previous section. In this section, I will use adb to denote ./adb, adb or any other command that you needed to use based on your platform and software in the previous section.

Notice. Enabling this setting may have some unintended consequences, such as rules that are not completely removed will be applied again. So, proceed with caution. This option should be kept disabled if not required for some reasons.

See also: FAQ: What is instant component blocking?

2.6.6.2 Import/Export Blocking Rules

It is possible to import or export blocking rules within App Manager for all apps. There is a choice to export or import only certain rules (components, app ops or permissions) instead of all of them. It is also possible to import blocking rules from Blocker and Watt. If it is necessary to export blocking rules for a single app, use the corresponding App Details page to export rules, or for multiple apps, use batch operations.

See also: Rules Specification

Export Export blocking rules for all apps configured within App Manager. This may include app components, app ops and permissions based on the options selected in the multi-choice options.

Import Import previously exported blocking rules from App Manager. Similar to export, this may include app components, app ops and permissions based on the options selected in the multi-choice options.

Import Existing Rules Add components disabled by other apps to App Manager. App Manager only keeps track of component disabled within App Manager. If you use other tools to block app components, you can use this tools to import these disabled components. Clicking on this option triggers a search for disabled components and will lists apps with components disabled by user. For safety, all the apps are unselected by default. You can manually select the apps in the list and re-apply the blocking through App Manager.

Caution. Be careful when using this tool as there can be many false positives. Choose only the apps that you are certain about.

Import from Watt Import configuration files from Watt, each file containing rules for a single package and file name being the name of the package with .xml extension.

Tip. Location of configuration files in Watt: /sdcard/Android/data/com.tuyafeng.watt/files/ifw

Import from Blocker Import blocking rules from Blocker, each file containing rules for a single package. These files have a .json extension.

3.1.4.4 Stop ADB over TCP

In order to ensure device security, you should stop ADB over TCP right after AM detects it. To do that, connect your device to your PC or Mac and run the following command:

2.6.7 Installer

Installer specific options

2.6.7.1 Show users in installer

For root/ADB users, a list of users will be displayed before installing the app. The app will be installed only for the specified user (or all users if selected).

2.6.7.2 Sign APK

Whether to sign the APK files before installing the app. See APK signing section above to configure signing.

2.6.7.3 Install location

Choose APK install location. This can be one of auto, internal only and prefer external. In newer Android versions, the last option may not always install the app in the external storage.

2.6.7.4 Installer App

App Manager has a modern, advanced and easy-to-use backup/restore system implemented from the scratch. This is probably the only app that has the ability to restore not only the app or its data but also permissions and rules that you’ve configured within App Manager. You can also choose to back up an app multiple times (with custom names) or for all users.

2.6.8 Backup/Restore

Settings related to backup/restore.

2.6.8.1 Compression method

Set which compression method to be used during backups. App Manager supports GZip and BZip2 compression methods, GZip being the default compression method. It doesn’t affect the restore of an existing backup.

2.6.8.2 Backup Options

Customise the backup/restore dialog.

2.6.8.3 Backup apps with Android KeyStore

Allow backup of apps that has entries in the Android KeyStore (disabled by default). Some apps (such as Signal) may crash if restored. KeyStore backup also doesn’t work from Android 9 but still kept as many apps having KeyStore can be restored without problem.

2.6.8.4 Encryption

Set an encryption method for the backups. AM currently supports OpenPGP only.

Caution. In v2.5.16, App Manager doesn’t remember key IDs for a particular backup. You have to remember them yourself. This has been fixed in v2.5.18.

2.6.9 Device Info

Display Android version, security, CPU, GPU, battery, memory, screen, languages, user info, etc.

2.7 Scanner Page

Scanner page appears after clicking on the scanner button in the App Info tab. External APK files can also be opened for scanning from file managers, web browsers, etc.

It scans for trackers and libraries, and displays the number of trackers and libraries as a summary. It also displays checksums of the APK file as well as the signing certificate(s).

Disclaimer. AM only scans an app statically without prejudice. The app may provide the options for opting out, or in some cases, certain features of the tracker may not be used at all by the app (e.g. F-Droid), or some apps may simply use them as placeholders to prevent the breaking of certain features (e.g. Fennec F-Droid). The intention of the scanner is to give you an idea about what the APK might contain. It should be taken as an initial step for further investigations.

Clicking on the first item (i.e. number of classes) opens a new page containing a list of tracker classes for the app. All classes can also be viewed by clicking on the Toggle Class Listing menu. A sneak-peek of each class can be viewed by simply clicking on any class item.

Notice. Due to various limitations, it is not possible to scan all the components of an APK file. This is especially true if an APK is highly obfuscated. The scanner also does not check strings (or website signatures).

Restore respects all the backup options and will fail if Source option is set, but the backup doesn’t contain any source backups or in other cases, if the app isn’t installed. When restoring backups for multiple packages, you can only restore the base backups (see backup section for an explanation). However, when restoring backups for a single package, you have the option to select which backup to restore. If All users option is set, AM will restore the selected backup for all users in the latter case but in the former case, it will restore base backups for the respective users.

The third item lists the number of libraries along with their names. The information are mostly taken from IzzyOnDroid repo.

See also: FAQ: Tracker classes vs tracker components

2.7.1 Missing Signatures

At the bottom of the page, there is a special item denoting the number of missing signatures (i.e. missing classes). The missing signatures are the ones that AM has failed to match against any known libraries. The number itself has no particular meaning as many libraries contain hundreds of classes, but clicking on the item will bring up a dialog containing the signatures which is helpful in inspecting the missing signatures. This feature is only intended for people who know what a missing signature is and what to do with it, average users should just ignore it.

2.8 Interceptor Page

Interceptor can be used to intercept communication between apps using Intent. It works as a man-in-the-middle between the source and the destination apps. It offers a feature-complete user interface for editing Intents.

Info. Development of interceptor is still in progress. It can only intercept activities for now.

Warning. Interceptor only works for implicit intents where the app component isn’t specified.

See also: Common Intents Intents and Intent Filters

2.8.1 Intent Filters

Intent filters are used by the apps to specify which tasks they are able to perform or which tasks they are going to perform using other apps. For example, when you’re opening a PDF file using a file manager, the file manager will try to find which apps to open the PDF with. To find the right applications, the file manager will create an Intent with filters such as MIME type and ask the system to retrieve the matched applications that is able to open this filter. The system will search through the Manifest of the installed applications to match the filter and list the app components that are able to open this filter (in our case the PDF). At this, either the file manager will open the desired app component itself or use a system provided option to open it. If multiple app components are able to open it and no default is set, you may get a prompt where you have to choose the right app component.

2.8.1.1 Action

Action specifies the generic action to perform such as android.intent.action.VIEW. Applications often declare the relevant actions in the Manifest file to catch the desired Intents. The action is particularly useful for broadcast Intent where it plays a vital rule. In other cases, it works as an initial way to filter out relevant app components. Generic actions such as android.intent.action.VIEW and android.intent.action.SEND are widely used by apps. So, setting this alone may match many app components.

2.8.1.2 Data

No. But components blocked by the Android System or any other tools are displayed in the App Details page (within the component tabs). In v2.5.12 and onwards, you can import these rules in Settings. But since there is no way to distinguish between components blocked by third-party apps and components blocked by the System, you should be very careful when choosing app.

Examples:

http://search.disroot.org/?q=URI%20in%20Android%20scheme&categories=general&language=en-US
https://developer.android.com/reference/android/net/Uri
file:///sdcard/AppManager.apk
mailto:email@example.com
content://io.github.muntashirakon.AppManager.provider/23485af89b08d87e898a90c7e/AppManager.apk
2.8.1.3 MIME Type

MIME type of the data. For example, if the data field is set to file:///sdcard/AppManager.apk, the associated MIME type can be application/vnd.android.package-archive.

2.8.1.4 Categories

This is similar to action in the sense that it is also used by the system to filter app components. This has no further benefits. Unlike action, there can be more than one category. Clicking on the plus button next to the title allows adding more categories.

2.8.1.5 Flags

Some apps may misbehave due to their dependency to tracker components blocked by AM. From v2.5.12, there is an option to unblock tracker components in the 1-Click Ops page. However, in previous versions, there is no such options. To unblock these tracker components, first go to the App Details page of the misbehaving app. Then, switching to the Activities tab, click on the Remove rules options in the top-right menu. All the blocking rules related to the components of the app will be removed immediately. Alternatively, if you have found the component that is causing the issue, you can unblock the component by clicking on the unblock button next to the component name. If you have enabled instant component blocking in Settings, disable it first as Remove rules option will not be visible when it is enabled.

2.8.1.6 Extras

Extras are the key-value pairs used for supplying additional information to the destination component. You can add extras using the plus button next to the title.

2.8.1.7 URI

Represents the entire Intent as a URI (e.g. intent://). Some data cannot be converted to string, and as a result, they might not appear here.

2.8.2 Matching Activities

List all the activity components that matches the Intent. This is internally determined by the system (rather than AM). The launch button next to each component can be used to launch them directly from AM.

4.2.1 Do I have to enable ADB over TCP everytime I restart?

Unfortunately, yes. However, as of v2.5.13, you don’t need to keep AoT enabled all the time as it now uses a server-client mechanism to interact with the system, but you do have to keep the Developer options as well as USB debugging enabled. To do that, enable ADB over TCP and open App Manager. You should see working on ADB mode toast message in the bottom. If you see it, you can safely stop the server. For Lineage OS or its derivative OS, you can toggle AoT without any PC or Mac by simply toggling the ADB over network option located just below the USB debugging, but the server can’t be stopped for the latter case.

4.2.2 Cannot enable USB debugging. What to do?

See §3.1.2 in Chapter 3.

2.9 Shared Preferences Editor Page

Shared preferences can be edited in this page. Clicking any item on the list opens the edit dialog where the item can be edited. The floating action button on the bottom-right corner can be used to add a new item. To save or delete the file, or to discard current changes, the respective options in the menu can be used.

Chapter 3
Guides

3.1 ADB over TCP

Most of the features supported by ADB mode are enabled by default once ADB support is detected by AM. These include disable, force-stop, clear data, grant/revoke app ops and permissions. You can also install applications without any prompt and view running apps/processes.

Root users. If superuser permission has been granted to App Manager, it can already execute privileged code without any problem. Therefore, root users don’t need to enable ADB over TCP. If you still want to use ADB over TCP, you must revoke superuser permission for App Manager and restart your device. You may see working on ADB mode message without restarting but this isn’t entirely true. The server (used as an interface between system and App Manager) is still running in root mode. This is a known issue and will be fixed in a future version of App Manager.

See also: FAQ: ADB over TCP

4.3.2 Why does AM have the INTERNET permission when it doesn’t connect to the Internet?

3.1.1.1 Location of developer options

Developer options is located in Android Settings, either directly near the bottom of the page (in most ROMs) or under some other settings such as System (Lineage OS, Asus Zenfone 8.0+), System > Advanced (Google Pixel), Additional Settings (Xiaomi MIUI, Oppo ColorOS), More Settings (Vivo FuntouchOS), More (ZTE Nubia). Unlike other options, it is not visible until explicitly enabled by the user. If developer options is enabled, you can use the search box in Android Settings to locate it as well.

3.1.1.2 How to enable developer options

This option is available within Android Settings as well but like the location of the developer options, it also differs from device to device. But in general, you have to find Build number (or MIUI version for MIUI ROMs and Software version for Vivo FuntouchOS, Version for Oppo ColorOS) and tap it at least 7 (seven) times until you finally get a message saying You are now a developer (you may be prompted to insert pin/password/pattern or solve captchas at this point). In most devices, it is located at the bottom of the settings page, inside About Phone. But the best way to find it is to use the search box.

4.3.4 Any plans for Shizuku?

App Manager’s use of hidden API and privileged code execution is now much more complex and cannot be integrated with other third party apps such as Shizuku. Here are some reasons for not considering Shizuku (which now has Apache 2.0 license) for App Manager:

3.1.2.1 Xiaomi (MIUI)

Enable USB debugging (security settings) as well.

3.1.2.2 Huawei (EMUI)

Enable Allow ADB debugging in charge only mode as well. When connecting to your PC or Mac, you may get a prompt saying Allow access to device data? in which case click YES, ALLOW ACCESS.

Notice. Often the USB debugging mode could be disabled automatically by the system. If that’s the case, repeat the above procedure.

3.1.2.3 LG

Make sure you have USB tethering enabled.

3.1.2.4 Troubleshooting

In case USB Debugging is greyed out, you can do the following:

  1. Make sure you enabled USB debugging before connecting your phone to the PC or Mac via USB cable
  2. Enable USB tethering after connecting to PC or Mac via USB cable
  3. (For Samsung) If your device is running KNOX, you may have to follow some additional steps. See official documentations or consult support for further assistant

3.1.3 Setup ADB on PC or Mac

In order to enable ADB over TCP, you have to set up ADB in your PC or Mac. Lineage OS users can skip to §3.1.4.1.

3.1.3.1 Windows
  1. Download the latest version of Android SDK Platform-Tools for Windows
  2. Extract the contents of the zip file into any directory (such as C:\adb) and navigate to that directory using Explorer
  3. Open Command Prompt or PowerShell from this directory. You can do it manually from the start menu or by holding Shift and Right clicking within the directory in File Explorer and then clicking either on Open command window here or on Open PowerShell window here (depending on what you have installed). You can now access ADB by typing adb (Command Prompt) or ./adb (PowerShell). Do not close this window yet
3.1.3.2 macOS
  1. Download the latest version of Android SDK Platform-Tools for macOS
  2. Extract the contents of the zip file into a directory by clicking on it. After that, navigate to that directory using Finder and locate adb
  3. Open Terminal using Launchpad or Spotlight and drag-and-drop adb from the Finder window into the Terminal window. Do not close the Terminal window yet

Tip. If you are not afraid to use command line, here’s a one liner:

cd ~/Downloads && curl -o platform-tools.zip -L
https://dl.google.com/android/repository/platform-tools-latest-darwin.zip &&
unzip platform-tools.zip && rm platform-tools.zip && cd platform-tools

After that, you can simply type ./adb in the in same Terminal window to access ADB.

3.1.3.3 Linux
  1. Open your favourite terminal emulator. In most GUI-distros, you can open it by holding Control, Alter and T at the same time
  2. Run the following command:
    cd ~/Downloads && curl -o platform-tools.zip -L
    https://dl.google.com/android/repository/platform-tools-latest-linux.zip &&
    unzip platform-tools.zip && rm platform-tools.zip && cd platform-tools
  3. If it is successful, you can simply type ./adb in the in same terminal emulator window or type ~/Downloads/platform-tools/adb in any terminal emulator to access ADB.

3.1.4 Configure ADB over TCP

3.1.4.1 Lineage OS

Lineage OS (or its derivatives) users can directly enable ADB over TCP using the developer options. To enable that, go to the Developer options, scroll down until you find ADB over Network. Now, use the toggle button on the right-hand side to enable it and skip to §3.1.4.3.

3.1.4.2 Enable ADB over TCP via PC or Mac

For other ROMs, you can do this using the command prompt/PowerShell/terminal emulator that you’ve opened in the step 3 of the previous section. In this section, I will use adb to denote ./adb, adb or any other command that you needed to use based on your platform and software in the previous section.

  1. Connect your device to your PC or Mac using a USB cable. For some devices, it is necessary to turn on File transfer mode (MTP) as well
  2. To confirm that everything is working as expected, type adb devices in your terminal. If your device is connected successfully, you will see something like this:
        List of devices attached
    xxxxxxxx device

    Notice. In some Android phones, an alert prompt will be appeared with a message Allow USB Debugging in which case, check Always allow from this computer and click Allow.

  3. Finally, run the following command to enable ADB over TCP:
    adb tcpip 5555

Danger. You cannot disable developer options or USB debugging after enabling ADB over TCP.

3.1.4.3 Enable ADB mode on App Manager

After enabling ADB over TCP (in the previous subsections), open App Manager (AM). You should see working on ADB mode toast message at the bottom. If not, remove AM from the recents and open AM again from the launcher. If you see the toast message, you can safely stop ADB over TCP.

Notice. In some Android phones, the USB cable is needed to be disconnected from the PC in order for it to work.

Warning. ADB over TCP will be disabled after a restart. In that case, you have to follow §3.1.4.2 again.

3.1.4.4 Stop ADB over TCP

In order to ensure device security, you should stop ADB over TCP right after AM detects it. To do that, connect your device to your PC or Mac and run the following command:

adb kill-server

Replace adb with ./adb or any other command that you had to use in previous steps.

Lineage OS users. You can turn off ADB over Network in developer options, but turning off this option will also stop App Manager’s remote server. So, turn it off only when you’re not going to use App Manager in ADB over TCP mode.

3.1.5 References

  1. How to Install ADB on Windows, macOS, and Linux
  2. Android Debug Bridge (adb)
  3. How to fix USB debugging greyed out?

3.2 Backup/Restore

App Manager has a modern, advanced and easy-to-use backup/restore system implemented from the scratch. This is probably the only app that has the ability to restore not only the app or its data but also permissions and rules that you’ve configured within App Manager. You can also choose to back up an app multiple times (with custom names) or for all users.

Notice. Backup/Restore is completely different from Backup APK which is also a part of the batch operations.

Warning. As of v2.5.22, backup/restore is a beta feature (previously, it was an alpha feature). Support for old backups are removed as a result. From now on, backward compatibility will be provided.

3.2.1 Location

Backup/restore is a part of batch operations. It is also located inside the options menu in the App Info tab. Clicking on Backup/Restore opens the Backup Options. The backups are currently located at /sdcard/AppManager.

Note. If one or more selected apps don’t have any backup, the Restore and Delete Backup options will not be displayed.

3.2.2 Backup Options

Backup options (internally known as backup flags) let you customise the backups on the fly. However, the customisations will not be remembered for the future backups. If you want to customise this dialog, use Backup Options in the Settings page.

A complete description of backup options is given below:

3.2.3 Backup

Backup respects all the backup options except Skip signature checks. If base backups (i.e., backups that don’t have the Backup Multiple option) already exist, you will get a warning as the backups will be overwritten. If Backup Multiple is set, you have an option to input the backup name, or you can leave it blank to use the current date-time.

3.2.4 Restore

Restore respects all the backup options and will fail if Source option is set, but the backup doesn’t contain any source backups or in other cases, if the app isn’t installed. When restoring backups for multiple packages, you can only restore the base backups (see backup section for an explanation). However, when restoring backups for a single package, you have the option to select which backup to restore. If All users option is set, AM will restore the selected backup for all users in the latter case but in the former case, it will restore base backups for the respective users.

Notice. Apps that use storage access framework (SAF), SSAID or Android KeyStore works properly only after an immediate restart.

3.2.5 Delete Backup

Delete backup only respects All users option and when it is selected, only the base backups for all users will be deleted with a prompt. When deleting backups for a single package, another dialog will be displayed where you can select the backups to delete.

3.2.6 Encryption

App Manager currently supports OpenPGP encryption. To enable it, you need to install an OpenPGP provider such as OpenKeychain. To configure OpenPGP provider, go to the Settings page.

Chapter 4
Frequently Asked Questions

4.1 App Components

4.1.1 What are the app components?

Activities, services, broadcast receivers (also known as receivers) and content providers (also known as providers) are jointly called app components. More technically, they all inherit the ComponentInfo class.

B.3.3 Remove All Blocking Rules

In the Settings page, a new option is added which can be used to remove all blocking rules configured within App Manager.

Even IFW has some limitations which are primarily applicable for the system apps:

4.1.3 Why are the components blocked by AM not detected by other related apps?

It is because of the blocking method I’m using. This method is called Intent Firewall (IFW) and is compatible with Watt and Blocker. MyAndroidTool (MAT) supports IFW, but it uses a different format. Therefore, Watt can detect blocked components by default but Blocker can only detect them if you enable IFW in its settings page. MAT cannot detect AM’s blocking rules since the format is different. AM cannot detect MAT’s rules if IFW is enabled in MAT. In that case, you can still import them from the settings page. MAT has an export option, but it’s not supported due to its non-free nature.

4.1.4 Does app components blocked by other tools retained in AM?

No. But components blocked by the Android System or any other tools are displayed in the App Details page (within the component tabs). In v2.5.12 and onwards, you can import these rules in Settings. But since there is no way to distinguish between components blocked by third-party apps and components blocked by the System, you should be very careful when choosing app.

4.1.5 What happened to the components blocked by AM which are also blocked by other tools?

AM blocks the components again using Intent Firewall (IFW). They are not unblocked (if blocked using pm or Shizuku method) and blocked again. But if you unblock a component in the App Details page, it will be reverted back to default state —- blocked or unblocked as described in the corresponding app manifest —- using both IFW and pm method. However, components blocked by MyAndroidTools (MAT) with IFW method will not be unblocked by AM. To solve this issue, you can first import the corresponding configuration to AM in Settings in which case MAT’s configurations will be removed. But this option is only available from v2.5.12.

B.3.8 Batch Ops

When you block a component in the App Details page, the blocking is not applied by default. It is only applied when you apply blocking using the Apply rules option in the top-right menu. If you enable instant component blocking, blocking will be applied as soon as you block a component. If you choose to block tracker components, however, blocking is applied automatically regardless of this setting. You can also remove blocking for an app by simply clicking on Remove rules in the same menu in the App Details page. Since the default behaviour gives you more control over apps, it is better to keep instant component blocking option disabled.

4.1.7 Tracker classes versus tracker components

All app components are classes but not all classes are components. In fact, only a few of the classes are components. That being said, scanner page displays a list of trackers along with the number of classes, not just the components. In all other pages, trackers and tracker components are used synonymously to denote tracker components, i.e. blocking tracker means blocking tracker components, not tracker classes.

Info. Tracker classes cannot be blocked. They can only be removed by editing the app itself.

B.3.10 App Data Backup

Install app only for the current user at the time of restoring backups. Support for split apks is also added.

If you have Google Play Services (com.google.android.gms) installed, unblocking the following services may fix certain crashes:

  1. Ad Request Broker Service .ads.AdRequestBrokerService
  2. Cache Broker Service .ads.cache.CacheBrokerService
  3. Gservices Value Broker Service .ads.GservicesValueBrokerService
  4. Advertising Id Notification Service .ads.identifier.service.AdvertisingIdNotificationService
  5. Advertising Id Service .ads.identifier.service.AdvertisingIdService

4.2 ADB over TCP

4.2.1 Do I have to enable ADB over TCP everytime I restart?

Figure C.0 describes the process of changing and processing permission. AppOpsManager can be used to manage permissions in Settings app. AppOpsManager is also useful in determining if a certain permission (or operation) is granted to the application. Most of the methods of AppOpsManager are accessible to the user app but unlike a system app, it can only be used to check permissions for any app or for the app itself and start or terminating certain operations. Moreover, not all operations are actually accessible from this Java class. AppOpsManager holds all the necessary constants such as OP_*, OPSTR_*, MODE_* which describes operation code, operation string and mode of operations respectively. It also holds necessary data structures such as PackageOps and OpEntry. PackageOps holds OpEntry for a package, and OpEntry, as the name suggests, describes each operation.

4.2.2 Cannot enable USB debugging. What to do?

See also: AppOpsManager documentation

C.3.1 OP_* Constants

OP_* are the integer constants starting from 0. OP_NONE implies that no operations are specified whereas _NUM_OP denotes the number of operations defined in OP_* prefix. While they denote each operation, the operations are not necessarily unique. In fact, there are many operations that are actually a single operation denoted by multiple OP_* constant (possibly for future use). Vendors may define their own op based on their requirements. MIUI is one of the vendors who are known to do that.

4.2.4 Which features can be used in ADB mode?

Most of the features supported by ADB mode are enabled by default once ADB support is detected by AM. These include disable, force-stop, clear data, grant/revoke app ops and permissions. You can also install applications without any prompt and view running apps/processes.

4.3 Miscellanea

4.3.1 I don’t use root/ADB. Am I completely safe from any harms?

Yes. AM cannot modify any system settings without root or ADB over TCP.

C.3.2 MODE_* Constants

MODE_* constants also integer constants starting from 0. These constants are assigned to each operation describing whether an app is authorised to perform that operation. These modes usually have associated names such as allow for MODE_ALLOWED, ignore for MODE_IGNORED, deny for MODE_ERRORED (a rather misnomer), default for MODE_DEFAULT and foreground for MODE_FOREGROUND.

  1. To provide ADB over TCP support for the non-root users. ADB over TCP is a custom network protocol that usually runs on port 5555. Therefore, to connect to this port via localhost, AM needs this permission.
  2. MODE_ALLOWED. The app is allowed to perform the given operation

4.3.3 How are the trackers and libraries are updated?

Trackers and libraries are updated manually before making a new release.

C.3.3 PackageOps

AppOpsManager.PackageOps is a data structure to store all the OpEntry for a package. In simple terms, it stores all the customised operations for a package.

  1. Shizuku was initially non-free which led me to use a similar approach for App Manager to support both root and ADB
  2. App Manager already supports both ADB and root which in some cases is more capable than Shizuku
  3. Relying on a third-party app for the major functionalities is not a good design choice
  4. Integration of Shizuku will increase the complexity of App Manager.

4.3.5 What are bloatware and how to remove them?

Bloatware are the unnecessary apps supplied by the vendor or OEM and are usually system apps. These apps are often used to track users and collect user data which they might sell for profits. System apps do not need to request any permission in order to access device info, contacts and messaging data, and other usage info such as your phone usage habits and everything you store on your shared storage(s).

The bloatware may also include Google apps (such as Google Play Services, Google Play Store, Gmail, Google, Messages, Dialer, Contacts), Facebook apps (the Facebook app consists of four or five apps), Facebook Messenger, Instagram, Twitter and many other apps which can also track users and/or collect user data without consent given that they all are system apps. You can disable a few permissions from the Android settings but be aware that Android settings hides almost every permission any security specialist would call potentially dangerous.

If the bloatware were user apps, you could easily uninstall them either from Android settings or AM. Uninstalling system apps is not possible without root permission. You can also uninstall system apps using ADB, but it may not work for all apps. AM can uninstall system apps with root or ADB (the latter with certain limitations, of course), but these methods cannot remove the system apps completely as they are located in the system partition which is a read-only partition. If you have root, you can remount this partition to manually purge these apps but this will break Over the Air (OTA) updates since data in the system partition has been modified. There are two kind of updates, delta (small-size, consisting of only the changes between two versions) and full updates. You can still apply full updates, but the bloatware will be installed again, and consequently, you have to delete them all over again. Besides, not all vendors provide full updates.

Here:

From v2.5.19, AM has a new feature called profiles. The profiles page has an option to create new profiles from one of the presets. The presets consist of debloating profiles which can be used as a starting point to monitor, disable, and remove the bloatware from a proprietary Android operating system.

Note. In most cases, you cannot completely debloat your device. Therefore, it is recommended that you use a custom ROM free from bloatware such as Graphene OS, Lineage OS or their derivatives.

Appendix A
Specifications

A.1 Rules Specification

A.1.1 Background

AM currently supports blocking activities, broadcast receivers, content providers, services, app ops and permissions, and in future I may add more blocking options. In order to add more portability, it is necessary to import/export all these data.

TODO

A.1.2 Rules File Format

A.1.2.1 Internal

The instruction below follows the exact order given above:

    <name> <type> <mode>|<component_status>|<is_granted>

Here:

A.1.2.2 External

External format is used for importing or exporting rules in App Manager.

    <package_name> <component_name> <type> <mode>|<component_status>|<is_granted>

This the format is essentially the same as above except for the first item which is the name of the package.

Caution. The exported rules have a different format than the internal one and should not be copied directly to the conf folder.

Appendix B
Changelogs

B.1 v2.5.20 (375)

B.1.1 Introducing Profiles

Profiles finally closes the related issue. Profiles can be used to execute certain tasks repeatedly without doing everything manually. A profile can be applied (or invoked) either from the Profiles page or from the home screen by creating shortcuts. There are also some presets which consist of debloating profiles taken from Universal Android Debloater.

Known limitations

B.1.2 The Interceptor

Intent Intercept works as a man-in-the-middle between source and destination, that is, when you open a file or URL with another app, you can see what is being shared by opening it with Interceptor first. You can also add or modify the intents before sending them to the destination. Additionally, you can double-click on any exportable activities in the Activities tab in the App Details page to open them in the Interceptor to add more configurations.

Known limitation Editing extras is not currently possible.

B.1.3 UnAPKM: DeDRM the APKM files

When I released a small tool called UnAPKM, I promised that similar feature will be available in App Manager. I am proud to announce that you can open APKM files directly in the App Info page or convert them to APKS or install them directly.

B.1.4 Multiple user

App manager now supports multiple users! For now, this requires root or ADB. But no-root support is also being considered. If you have multiple users enabled and click on an app installed in multiple profiles, an alert prompt will be displayed where you can select the user.

B.1.5 Vive la France!

Thanks to the contributors, we have one more addition to the language club: French. You can add more languages or improve existing translations at Weblate.

B.1.6 Report crashes

If App Manager crashes, you can now easily report the crash from the notifications which opens the share options. Crashes are not reported by App Manager, it only redirects you to your favourite Email client.

B.1.7 Android 11

Added support for Android 11. Not everything may work as expected though.

B.1.8 App Installer Improvements

B.1.8.1 Set installation locations

In settings page, you can set install locations such as auto (default), internal only and prefer external.

B.1.8.2 Set APK installer

In settings page, you can also set default APK installer (root/ADB only) instead of App Manager.

B.1.8.3 Multiple users

In settings page, you can allow App Manager to display multiple users during APK installation.

B.1.8.4 Signing APK files

In settings page, you can choose to sign APK files before installing them. You can also select which signature scheme to use in the APK signing option in settings.

Known limitation Currently, only a generic key is used to sign APK files

B.2 v2.5.17 (368)

B.2.1 App Installer

As promised, it is now possible to select splits. AM also provides recommendations based on device configurations. If the app is already installed, recommendations are provided based on the installed app. It is also possible to downgrade to a lower version without data loss if the device has root or ADB. But it should be noted that not all app can be downgraded. Installer is also improved to speed up the installation process, especially, for root users. If the app has already been installed and the new (x)apk(s) is newer or older or the same version with a different signature, AM will display a list of changes similar to What’s New before prompting the user to install the app. This is useful if the app has introduced tracker components, new permissions, etc.

Known Limitations

B.2.2 Scanner: Replacement for Exodus Page

Exodus page is now replaced with scanner page. Scanner page contains not only a list of trackers but also a list of used libraries. This is just a start. In the future, this page will contain more in depth analysis of the app.

B.2.3 Introducing System Config

System Config lists various system configurations and whitelists/blacklists included in Android by either OEM/vendor, AOSP or even some Magisk modules. Root users can access this option from the overflow menu in the main page. There isn’t any official documentation for these options therefore it’s difficult to write a complete documentation for this page. I will gradually add documentations using my own knowledge. However, some functions should be understandable by their name.

B.2.4 More Languages

Thanks to the contributors, AM now has more than 12 languages. New languages include Bengali, Hindi, Norwegian, Polish, Russian, Simplified Chinese, Turkish and Ukrainian.

B.2.5 App Info Tab

More tags are added in the app info tab such as KeyStore (apps with KeyStore items), Systemless app (apps installed via Magisk), Running (apps that are running). For external apk, two more options are added namely Reinstall and Downgrade. Now it is possible to share an apk via Bluetooth. For system apps, it is possible to uninstall updates for root/ADB users. But like the similar option in the system settings, this operation will clear all app data. As stated above, exodus has been replaced with scanner.

B.2.6 Navigation Improvements

It’s now relatively easy to navigate to various UI components using keyboard. You can use up/down button to navigate between list items and tab button to navigate to UI components inside an item.

B.2.7 Running Apps Page

It is now possible to sort and filter processes in this tab. Also, the three big buttons are replaced with an easy-to-use three dot menu. Previously the memory usage was wrong which is fixed in this version.

B.2.8 Built-in Toybox

Toybox (an alternative to busybox) is bundled with AM. Although Android has this utility built-in from API 23, toybox is bundled in order to prevent buggy implementations and to support API < 23.

B.2.9 Component Blocker Improvements

Component blocker seemed to be problematic in the previous version, especially when global component blocking is enabled. The issues are mostly fixed now.

Caution. The component blocking mechanism is no longer compatible with v2.5.6 due to various security issues. If you have this version, upgrade to v2.5.13 or earlier versions first. After that, enable global component blocking and disable it again.

B.2.10 Improvements in the App Details Page

Value of various app ops depend on their parent app ops. Therefore, when you allow/deny an app op, the parent of the app op gets modified. This fixes the issues some users have been complaining regarding some app ops that couldn’t be changed.

If an app has the target API 23 or less, its permissions cannot be modified using the pm grant command. Therefore, for such apps, option to toggle permission has been disabled.

The signature tab is improved to support localization. It also displays multiple checksums for a signature.

B.2.11 App Manifest

Manifest no longer crashes if the size of the manifest is too long. Generated manifest are now more accurate than before.

B.3 v2.5.13 (348)

B.3.1 Bundled App (Split APK)

Bundled app formats such as apks and xapk are now supported. You can install these apps using the regular installation buttons. For root and adb users, apps are installed using shell, and for non-root users, the platform default method is used.

Known Limitations

B.3.2 Direct Install Support

You can now install APK, APKS or XAPK directly from your favourite browser or file manager. For apps that need updates, a What’s New dialog is displayed showing the changes in the new version.

Known Limitations

B.3.3 Remove All Blocking Rules

In the Settings page, a new option is added which can be used to remove all blocking rules configured within App Manager.

B.3.4 App Ops

Known Limitation Often the App Ops tab may not be responsive. If that’s the case, restart App Manager.

B.3.5 Enhanced ADB Support

ADB shell commands are now executed using a technique similar to AppOpsX (This is the free alternative of AppOps by Rikka.). This should dramatically increase the execution time.

Known Limitation AM can often crash or become not responsive. If that’s the case, restart App Manager.

B.3.6 Filtering in Main Page

Add an option to filter apps that has at least one activity.

B.3.7 Apk Backup/Sharing

Apk files are now saved as app name_version.extension instead of package.name.extension.

B.3.8 Batch Ops

B.3.9 Translations

Added German and Portuguese (Brazilian) translations.

Known Limitation Not all translations are verified yet.

B.3.10 App Data Backup

Install app only for the current user at the time of restoring backups. Support for split apks is also added.

Data backup feature is now considered unstable. If you encounter any problem, please report to me without hesitation.

Appendix C
App Ops

C.1 Background

App Ops (short hand for Application Operations) are used by Android system (since Android 4.3) to control application permissions. The user can control some permissions, but only the permissions that are considered dangerous (and Google thinks knowing your phone number isn’t a dangerous thing). So, app ops seems to be the one we need if we want to install apps like Facebook and it’s Messenger (the latter literary records everything if you live outside the EU) and still want some privacy and/or security. Although certain features of app ops were available in Settings and later in hidden settings in older version of Android, it’s completely hidden in newer versions of Android and is continued to be kept hidden. Now, any app with android.Manifest.permission.GET_APP_OPS_STATS permission can get the app ops information for other applications but this permission is hidden from users and can only be enabled using ADB or root. Still, the app with this permission cannot grant or revoke permissions (actually mode of operation) for apps other than itself (with limited capacity, of course). To modify the ops of other app, the app needs android.Manifest.permission.UPDATE_APP_OPS_STATS permissions which isn’t accessible via pm command. So, you cannot grant it via root or ADB, the permission is only granted to the system apps. There are very few apps who support disabling permissions via app ops. The best one to my knowledge is AppOpsX. The main (visible) difference between my app (AppManager) and this app is that the latter also provides you the ability to revoke internet permissions (by writing ip tables). One crucial problem that I faced during the development of the app ops API is the lack of documentation in English language.

C.2 Introduction to App Ops

PIC

Figure C.0:How app ops work

Figure C.0 describes the process of changing and processing permission. AppOpsManager can be used to manage permissions in Settings app. AppOpsManager is also useful in determining if a certain permission (or operation) is granted to the application. Most of the methods of AppOpsManager are accessible to the user app but unlike a system app, it can only be used to check permissions for any app or for the app itself and start or terminating certain operations. Moreover, not all operations are actually accessible from this Java class. AppOpsManager holds all the necessary constants such as OP_*, OPSTR_*, MODE_* which describes operation code, operation string and mode of operations respectively. It also holds necessary data structures such as PackageOps and OpEntry. PackageOps holds OpEntry for a package, and OpEntry, as the name suggests, describes each operation.

AppOpService is completely hidden from a user application but accessible to the system applications. As it can be seen in Figure C.0, this is the class that does the actual management stuff. It contains data structures such as Ops to store basic package info and Op which is similar to OpEntry of AppOpsManager. It also has Shell which is actually the source code of the appops command line tool. It writes configurations to or read configurations from /data/system/appops.xml. System services calls AppOpsService to find out what an application is allowed and what is not allowed to perform, and AppOpsService determines these permissions by parsing /data/system/appops.xml. If no custom values are present in appops.xml, it returns the default mode available in AppOpsManager.

C.3 AppOpsManager

AppOpsManager stands for application operations manager. It consists of various constants and classes to modify app operations.

See also: AppOpsManager documentation

C.3.1 OP_* Constants

OP_* are the integer constants starting from 0. OP_NONE implies that no operations are specified whereas _NUM_OP denotes the number of operations defined in OP_* prefix. While they denote each operation, the operations are not necessarily unique. In fact, there are many operations that are actually a single operation denoted by multiple OP_* constant (possibly for future use). Vendors may define their own op based on their requirements. MIUI is one of the vendors who are known to do that.

public static final int OP_NONE = -1;
public static final int OP_COARSE_LOCATION = 0;
public static final int OP_FINE_LOCATION = 1;
public static final int OP_GPS = 2;
public static final int OP_VIBRATE = 3;
...
public static final int OP_READ_DEVICE_IDENTIFIERS = 89;
public static final int OP_ACCESS_MEDIA_LOCATION = 90;
public static final int OP_ACTIVATE_PLATFORM_VPN = 91;
public static final int _NUM_OP = 92;
Listing 1:Sneak-peek of OP_*

Whether an operation is unique is defined by sOpToSwitch. It maps each operation to another operation or to itself (if it’s a unique operation). For instance, OP_FINE_LOCATION and OP_GPS are mapped to OP_COARSE_LOCATION.

Each operation has a private name which are described by sOpNames. These names are usually the same names as the constants without the OP_ prefix. Some operations have public names as well which are described by sOpToString. For instance, OP_COARSE_LOCATION has the public name android:coarse_location.

As a gradual process of moving permissions to app ops, there are already many permissions that are defined under some operations. These permissions are mapped in sOpPerms. For example, the permission android.Manifest.permission.ACCESS_COARSE_LOCATION is mapped to OP_COARSE_LOCATION. Some operations may not have any associated permissions which have null values.

As described in the previous section, operations that are configured for an app are stored at /data/system/appops.xml. If an operation is not configured, then whether system will allow that operation is determined from sOpDefaultMode. It lists the default mode for each operation.

C.3.2 MODE_* Constants

MODE_* constants also integer constants starting from 0. These constants are assigned to each operation describing whether an app is authorised to perform that operation. These modes usually have associated names such as allow for MODE_ALLOWED, ignore for MODE_IGNORED, deny for MODE_ERRORED (a rather misnomer), default for MODE_DEFAULT and foreground for MODE_FOREGROUND.

  1. MODE_ALLOWED. The app is allowed to perform the given operation
  2. MODE_IGNORED. The app is not allowed to perform the given operation, and any attempt to perform the operation should silently fail, i.e. it should not cause the app to crash
  3. MODE_ERRORED. The app is not allowed to perform the given operation, and this attempt should cause it to have a fatal error, typically a SecurityException
  4. MODE_DEFAULT. The app should use its default security check, specified in AppOpsManager
  5. MODE_FOREGROUND. Special mode that means “allow only when app is in foreground.” This mode was added in Android 10
  6. MODE_ASK. This is a custom mode used by MIUI whose uses are unknown.

C.3.3 PackageOps

AppOpsManager.PackageOps is a data structure to store all the OpEntry for a package. In simple terms, it stores all the customised operations for a package.

public static class PackageOps implements Parcelable {
private final String mPackageName;
private final int mUid;
private final List<OpEntry> mEntries;
...
}
Listing 2:Class PackageOps

As can be seen in Listing 2, it stores all OpEntry for a package as well as the corresponding package name and its kernel user ID.

C.3.4 OpEntry

AppOpsManager.OpEntry is a data structure that stores a single operation for any package.

public static final class OpEntry implements Parcelable {
private final int mOp;
private final boolean mRunning;
private final @Mode int mMode;
private final @Nullable LongSparseLongArray mAccessTimes;
private final @Nullable LongSparseLongArray mRejectTimes;
private final @Nullable LongSparseLongArray mDurations;
private final @Nullable LongSparseLongArray mProxyUids;
private final @Nullable LongSparseArray<String> mProxyPackageNames;
...
}
Listing 3:Class OpEntry

Here:

C.3.5 Usage

TODO

C.4 AppOpsService

TODO

C.5 appops.xml

Latest appops.xml has the following format: (This DTD is made by me and by no means perfect, has compatibility issues.)

<!DOCTYPE app-ops [

<!ELEMENT app-ops (uid|pkg)*>
<!ATTLIST app-ops v CDATA #IMPLIED>

<!ELEMENT uid (op)*>
<!ATTLIST uid n CDATA #REQUIRED>

<!ELEMENT pkg (uid)*>
<!ATTLIST pkg n CDATA #REQUIRED>

<!ELEMENT uid (op)*>
<!ATTLIST uid
n CDATA #REQUIRED
p CDATA #IMPLIED>

<!ELEMENT op (st)*>
<!ATTLIST op
n CDATA #REQUIRED
m CDATA #REQUIRED>

<!ELEMENT st EMPTY>
<!ATTLIST st
n CDATA #REQUIRED
t CDATA #IMPLIED
r CDATA #IMPLIED
d CDATA #IMPLIED
pp CDATA #IMPLIED
pu CDATA #IMPLIED>

]>

The instruction below follows the exact order given above:

This definition can be found at AppOpsService.

C.6 Command Line Interface

appops or cmd appops (on latest versions) can be accessible via ADB or root. This is an easier method to get or update any operation for a package (provided the package name is known). The help page of this command is self-explanatory:

AppOps service (appops) commands:
help
Print this help text.
start [--user <USER_ID>] <PACKAGE | UID> <OP>
Starts a given operation for a particular application.
stop [--user <USER_ID>] <PACKAGE | UID> <OP>
Stops a given operation for a particular application.
set [--user <USER_ID>] <[--uid] PACKAGE | UID> <OP> <MODE>
Set the mode for a particular application and operation.
get [--user <USER_ID>] <PACKAGE | UID> [<OP>]
Return the mode for a particular application and optional operation.
query-op [--user <USER_ID>] <OP> [<MODE>]
Print all packages that currently have the given op in the given mode.
reset [--user <USER_ID>] [<PACKAGE>]
Reset the given application or all applications to default modes.
write-settings
Immediately write pending changes to storage.
read-settings
Read the last written settings, replacing current state in RAM.
options:
<PACKAGE> an Android package name or its UID if prefixed by --uid
<OP> an AppOps operation.
<MODE> one of allow, ignore, deny, or default
<USER_ID> the user id under which the package is installed. If --user is not
specified, the current user is assumed.

1For distributing stable releases only

2For distributing pre-releases only

3You can also address me as “Muntashir Akon”