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Comment by lathiat | Hacker News Reader

This is a mistake I see on iOS a lot. You can use a 'system picker' for some things without a permission - photos is the most common one - many apps request full photo library access which I never want to grant when they could just use the system photo picker instead.

In a similar way you could (in iOS) for this same feature just popup the share sheet to send a message. Though I am not familiar with the Android analog.

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I believe in recent OS versions, whenever an app requests full library access, the OS asks you if you want to grant it, deny it, or grant a subset of photos which it fakes as the "full library" to the app.

I believe Android does this too, letting users pick a specific directory they want the app to have access to

Now, Android does this and only this, which is insane. It won't let you grant access to the main storage, Downloads or any other standard folder even if you explicitly navigate to it and select it.

Afaik access to main storage can only be granted if the app declares the "all files" permission. I'm not sure what's the deal with the downloads folder though

You could definitely use the share modal on Android. Clicking to invite would pop it up, let you choose which app to use, and then which contact.

But it's not good UI for sharing app. It should have Contact Picker API like photo.

True, but the share modal is terribly broken. It changes every version, the order of icons is different every time you open it, sometimes icons and app names are mixed up...

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