FilePicker missing permission on Android 13 (Pixel 7)

Question

While I have no problem on past Android, on Android 13 (actually my Pixel 7) I get the following exception:

PlatformException (PlatformException(read_external_storage_denied, User did not allow reading external storage, null, null))

While running my code as follows:

  final result = await FilePicker.platform.pickFiles(
                                type: Platform.isAndroid
                                    ? FileType.any
                                    : FileType.custom,
                                allowedExtensions: Platform.isAndroid
                                    ? null
                                    : ['bin', 'nano']);

I guess something has changed to the permission system.

I added the following permission to the app/src/main/AndroidManifest.xml without success:

<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.READ_EXTERNAL_STORAGE"/>

Any idea?

Answer 1

Yes, there is an issue for storage with Android 13 and you can read the discussion here https://github.com/Baseflow/flutter-permission-handler/issues/907

And the last comment and this Comment contains solution.

As SdkVersion 33 is for android 13 , changing it to 31 (android 12) .

so, may be it changing to 31 works as backward compatibility.

defaultConfig {

    applicationId "com.example.example"
    minSdkVersion 28
    targetSdkVersion 31
    versionCode flutterVersionCode.toInteger()
    versionName flutterVersionName
    multiDexEnabled true
}

for permission

 var status = await Permission.storage.status;
debugPrint("storage permission " + status.toString());
if (await Permission.storage.isDenied) {

  debugPrint("sorage permission ===" + status.toString());
 
  await Permission.storage.request();
} else {
  debugPrint("permission storage " + status.toString());
 // do something with storage like file picker
}