When do apps need storage permission? I thought that each app can always freely manage its directory in /Android folder. AFAIK code is in app/ and data in obb/ folders.
But many apps (e.g. games) display a message about needing local storage permission to download additional data.
Why do many apps need to ask for the generic storage permission - the one that says Files, folders, photo, video?
Are there some restrictions on the data an app can use without asking permission?
Just to clarify: I am NOT asking about file/photo manager apps, for them it is understandable that they need to see the whole filesystem.
Btw i found 2 possible duplicates, but their answers seem to contradict each other: 1 2
Does the storage permission allow reading the whole Internal storage? Or only the FAT-formatted external SD card?
Storage permission is needed by apps that will read/write files onto the storage especially files accessible by the user.