[mellandroid]

I have noticed with a couple podcast apps that when I disable the permission for "storage" on my PIE android the app is still able to download podcast.

Why does this occur ? I would expect the app to stop or have failed download attempts.

[Wbutchart1]

It could likely be due to the requirement to download is pretty much the point of the app? A streaming app that couldn't write to memory at all couldn't even open!

You seem to be very uneasy with this phone, have you considered an iPhone where it's less user intensive and you might be more relaxed with it?

[B. Diddy]

I think the Storage permission is for the app to access the user-accessible storage. For example, there's a well-known peculiarity with the Google app wherein its Storage permission is off by default. In this situation, if you download an image using the Google app, that image file gets saved to a protected system directory called /document that is only accessible by the Google app -- the user can't access the file using a file manager app. If you turn the Storage permission on, then downloads go to the standard user-accessible /Download directory.

[mellandroid]

The files are in user accesible area and this is a Pie OS. Are you saying that the permissions don't work for Pie if the storage is disabled?

What would be a test for the storage permission?

[B. Diddy]

If you turn off the Storage permission for the podcast app and then download a podcast, can you find the podcast file in a user-accessible directory? If not, then try turning the permission on and download another podcast -- can this one be located in a user-accessible directory? If so, then that would confirm my theory.

[mellandroid]

The permission for storage is only functional for external memory or SD card. It does not apply to the internal memory.

Can Android Pie prevent any internal access to memory if desired?

[mellandroid]

I think the storage permission once activated is overridden on a request to turn off. So If you allow permission initially and then chencge the permission to disable it will not acknowledge.