App Manager

영어

사용자 매뉴얼

v3.1.0

24 3월 2023

Copyright © 2020–2022 Muntashir Al-Islam

> “현명하고 신중해라. 빨리 달리면 넘어지게 마련이다.” — 수도사 로렌스, 로미오와 줄리엣

# 1 소개

App Manager는 안드로이드용 고급 패키지 매니저입니다. 수많은 기능을 갖추고 있어 사용자를 지원하기 위한 사용자 매뉴얼이 필요합니다. 이 문서는 App Manager가 제공하는 모든 기능을 설명하는 것을 목적으로 하며 App Manager 의 사용자 매뉴얼로 기능합니다. 또한 이 문서는 App Manager의 공식 가이드라인으로 볼 수도 있고 App Manager가 원하는 동작을 나타내기도 합니다. 번역에 의해 이 문서(영어로 쓰여저 있다)가 오해 받을 가능성이 있습니다. 따라서, 모든 유능한 사용자는 App Manager를 최대한 활용하기 위해 영문 문서를 읽어야 합니다. 블로그 기사, 비디오, 채팅 그룹 등 다른 비공식 또는 서드파티의 자원 역시 존재할 수 있습니다. 이러한 리소스는 많은 사람들에게 유용할 수 있지만 App Manager의 최신 버전을 지원하지 않을 수 있습니다. App Manager에서 해당 문서에서 일탈이 검출되면 App Manager의 App Manager 이슈 트래커에서 보고해야 합니다.

## 1.1 용어

- AM — 앱관리자의 약칭.

- Block/Unblock — 구성 요소 차단 또는 차단 해제에 사용됩니다. 구성 요소가 차단되는 방법은 사용자 기본 설정에 따라 다릅니다.

- IFW — 의도된 방화벽의 약식입니다.

- Ops — 의도된 방화벽의 단축형 작업 이름(예: apps, 배치 ops, 원클릭 ops)

- SSAID — `Settings.Secure.ANDROID_ID`의 짧은 형식이다. 각 앱(안드로이드 오레오 이상)에 할당된 장치 식별자이다. 앱의 서명 인증서와 패키지 `android`에 대한 SSAID 세트의 조합에서 생성된다. 결과적으로, 사용자가 장치를 포맷하도록 선택하지 않는 한 앱에서도 동일할 것으로 보장된다. 그것은 추적에 널리 사용된다.

- Tracker — scanner page를 제외하고 문서 전체와 장치 관리자에서 추적기 구성 요소를 나타냅니다. 추적기에는 충돌 리포터, 분석, 자료 수집, 식별, 광고, 위치 등의 라이브러리가 포함된다. 따라서, 그들은 기능 면에서 같지 않다. 추적을 촉진하는 오픈 소스 라이브러리와 클로즈드 소스 라이브러리 사이에는 차이나 편견이 없다.

## 1.2 지원되는 버전

현재 지원되는 버젼은 v3.0.0 – v3.0.3 (안정), v3.1.0 (알파 & 디버그 릴리즈)입니다. App Manager의 이전 버전에는 보안 취약점이 있을 수 있으므로 사용하지 마십시오.

## 1.3 공식 출처

### 1.3.1 이진 배포 소스

App Manager는 다음 소스들을기반으로 배포하고 있습니다. 비공식 소스들은 App Manager의 변형된 버전을 배포할 수 있으며, 이러한 배포 버전을 사용했을 경우 모든 책임은 귀하에게 있습니다.

1. 공식 F-Droid Repository.1
   Link: https://f-droid.org/packages/io.github.muntashirakon.AppManager

2. GitHub repository.
   Normal releases: https://github.com/MuntashirAkon/AppManager/releases
   Debug releases: https://github.com/MuntashirAkon/AppManager/actions

3. 텔레그램.
   Normal releases: https://t.me/AppManagerChannel
   Debug releases: https://t.me/AppManagerDebug

### 1.3.2 소스 코드 링크

GitHub를 제외한 모두 미러 링크입니다. 태그는 항상 최신 상태이지만, 마스터 브랜치는 최신 상태를 보장할 수 없습니다. 마스터 브랜치를 복제(clone)하는 것이 목적이면, 다른 링크 대신 GitHub 링크를 사용하십시오.

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 번역

App Manager는 직접적인 pull/merge 요청의 번역은 수락하지 않습니다. 번역은 Weblate를 통해서 자동으로 관리됩니다. 번역에 참여하고 싶으시면, https://hosted.weblate.org/engage/app-manager/로 가십시오.

## 1.4 기여

사용자가 기여할 수 있는 여러 방법이 있습니다. 예를 들어 유용한 문제를 제기, 토론에 참여, 문서화 및 번역을 개선, 인식되지 않은 라이브러리와 트래커 추가, 소스 코드 검토 및 보안 취약성 보고하기 등이 있습니다.

### 1.4.1 빌드 설명

빌드 지침은 소스의 루트 디렉터리에 있는 BUILDING 파일에서 찾을 수 있습니다.

### 1.4.2 패치 제출

GitHub 이외의 사이트에 위치한 repository는 현재 미러로 간주되며, 미러 사이트에서 pull/merge 요청은 받아들여지지 않을 것입니다. 2 대신, 패치(`.patch` 파일 형식)들은 이메일 첨부 파일로 제출할 수 있습니다. Signing-off 서명은 필수입니다. 자세한 내용은 소스의 루트 디렉토리에 CONTRIBUTING 파일은 참고하십시오.

Notice.

이메일로 패치 제출, 향후 대화 전체를 공개적으로 접근할 수도 있습니다 . 그러므로 이름과 이메일 주소 외에는 개인 식별 정보(PII)는 포함하지 마십시오.

## 1.5 기부 & 자금

기부금이나 구매는 App Manager사용을 위한 필수 조건이 아닙니다. App Manager 어떤 구매도 지원하지 않지만, Open Source Collective를 통해 기부금을 보낼 수 있습니다.

Open Source Collective는 오픈소스 프로젝트들의 재정 관리를 도와주는 Open Collective 플랫폼의 재정 호스트입니다. 현재는 계좌 이체, 페이팔, 신용카드나 암호화폐를 통한 결제를 지원하고 있습니다.

링: https://opencollective.com/muntashir.

기부금을 보내는 사람들은 자신들이 요청하는 기능이 우선적으로 추가되도록 요구하는 지렛대가 되도록 기부금을 사용해서는 안 된다는 데 동의한다. 기능 요청은 어떠한 현상금이나 기부도 필요하지 않으며, 개발자의 선호도에 따라 우선순위가 정해집니다.

App Manager는 모든 지원금이나 보조금을 제안을 수락합니 . 관심있는 조직들의 대표자분들은 §1.6에 주어진 옵션을 통해 소유자에게 직접 연락을 취할 수 있습니다.

## 1.6 연락처

Muntashir Al-Islam3
이메일: muntashirakon [at] riseup [dot] net
Key 지문: `7bad37c2981e41f8f6abea7f58f0b4f26c346fce`
GitHub: https://github.com/MuntashirAkon
트위터: https://twitter.com/Muntashir

# 2 페이지

## 2.1 메인 페이지

메인 페이지에는 설치, 제거 또는 백업된 모든 앱이 나열됩니다. 설치된 앱 항복을 클릭하면 해당되는 앱 세부정보 페이지를 엽니다. 제거된 시스템 앱의 경우, 앱을 다시 설치할 수 있는 대화 상자 프롬프트가 표시됩니다. 목록 옵션에서 정렬 옵션을 사용하면, 앱 항목들을 다양한 방법으로 정렬하고 종료 시 저장할 수 있습니다. 목록 옵션에서 filter 옵션을 사용해서 항목을 필터링할 수도 있습니다. 정규식을 추가적으로 지원하는 검색창을 통해서도 필터링이 가능합니다.

Figure 1: 메인 페이지의 앱 목록 항목

### 2.1.1 일괄 작업

여러 앱에서의 배치 작업 혹은 작업도 이 페이지에서 가능합니다. 앱 아이콘을 클릭하거나 목록의 항목을 길게 클릭하여 다중 선택 모드를 활성화할 수 있습니다. 활성화 후, 목록 항목을 클릭하면 앱 세부 정보 페이지를 여는 대신 해당 항목이 선택됩니다. 이 모드에서, 배치 작업은 페이지 하단의 다중 선택 메뉴에 있습니다. 포함된 작업은:

- 선택된 앱을 프로필에 추가하기

- 앱을 백업, 복구 혹은 삭제

- 앱에서의 트래커를 차단하기

- 앱에서 데이터 혹은 캐시 삭제하기

- 앱을 활성화/비활성화/강제종료/제거하기

- App Manager에 저장된 블록킹 규칙을 내보내기

- 앱의 백그라운드 실행을 방지하기 (안드로이드 7부터)

- APK 파일을 `AppManager/apks`에 저장하기

- 네트워크 정책 설정하기

Accessibility.

다중 선택 모드 활성화 후, 키보드 혹은 리모컨의 좌우 버튼을 사용해서 다중 선택 영역 탐색이 가능합니다.

### 2.1.2 색상 코드

- Light greyish orange (day) / dark blue (night) – The application is selected for batch operation

- Light red (day) / dark red (night) – Disabled app

- Yellow Star – Debuggable application

- Orange Date – 이 앱은 시스템 로그 접근 권한이 있습니다

- Orange UID – 사용자 ID가 여러 앱에서 공유되고 있습니다

- Orange SDK – 이 앱은 클리어텍스트를 사용할 수도 있습니다 (i.e. HTTP)

- Red package name – 이 앱은 데이터 삭제를 허용하지 않습니다

- Red backup – 제거된 앱이 App Manager에 하나 이상의 백업을 가지고 있습니다

- Orange backup – 오래된 백업, 즉 기존 백업이 설치된 앱의 구 버전을 포함하고 있습니다

- Dark cyan backup – 최신 백업, 즉 기존 백입이 설치된 앱과 동일하거나 상위 버전을 포함하고 있습니다.

- Dark cyan package name – 강제종료된 앱

- Dark cyan version – 비활성화 앱

- Magenta – 자동실행 앱 i.e. 항상 실행 중인 앱.

### 2.1.3 앱 종류

앱은 다음 접미사를 가지는 사용자 혹은 시스템 앱일 수 있습니다:

- `X` – 다수의 아키텍쳐 지원

- `0` – 앱에 dex 파일이 존재하지 않습니다

- `°` – 일시정지된 앱

- `#` – 앱이 시스템에 큰 힙 할당을 요청했습니다 (i.e. 큰 런타임 메모리)

- `?` – 앱이 가상 머신이 안전 모드에 있도록 요청했습니다.

### 2.1.4 버전 정보

버전 이름 뒤에는 아래의 접두사가 붙습니다:

- `_` – 하드웨어 가속 없음(앱 내 애니메이션 또는 투명도 저하)

- `~` – 테스트 전용 앱

- `debug` – 디버깅 가능 앱

### 2.1.5 옵션 메뉴

옵션 메뉴는 나열된 앱을 정렬 및 필터링하고 App Manager 내부 또는 외부의 다른 페이지로 이동하는 데 사용할 수 있는 여러가지 옵션을 제공합니다.

#### 2.1.5.1 옵션 나열

List options 는 메인 페이지의 리스트 정렬 및 필터링을 하는 옵션이 있습니다.

##### 2.1.5.1.1 정렬

메인 페이지에 나열된 앱은 다음과 같은 방법으로 정렬될 수 있습니다:

- 사용자 앱 우선. 사용자 앱을 위에 표시

- 앱 이름. 앱 라벨에 따라 오름차순으로 정렬 (앱 라벨이란 앱 이름). 이것이 정렬 기본값입니다.

- 패키지 이름. 패키지 이름에 따라 오름차순으로 정렬

- 마지막 업데이트. 마지막 업데이트 된 날짜를 기준으로 내림차순 정렬

- 공유 사용자 ID. 공유 사용자의 커널 User ID에 따라 내림차순 정렬

- 목표 SDK. 목표 SDK에 따라 오름차순 정렬

- 서명. 서명 정보에 따라 오름차순 정렬

- 비활성화 우선. 비활성화 앱을 위에 표시

- 차단 우션. 각 앱의 차단된 구성 요소 개수에 따라 내림차순 정렬

- 백업 완료 우선. 백업이 된 앱을 위에 표시

- 트래커. 각 앱의 트래커 요소 개수에 따라 내림차순 정렬

- 마지막 활동. App Manager 내부 앱에 활동한 가장 최근 날짜와 시각에 따라 내림차순 정렬

추가적으로, 목록을 역순으로 정렬하는 데 사용할 수 있는 반대로 옵션이 있습니다. 정렬 설정에 상관없이 앱은 임의의 정렬 결과를 생성하지 않도록 처음에는 알파벳 순으로 정렬됩니다.

##### 2.1.5.1.2 필터

메인 페이지에 나열된 앱은 다음과 같이 필터링을 할 수 있습니다:

- 사용자 앱. 사용자 앱만 표시

- 시스템 앱. 시스템 앱만 표시

- 비활성화 앱. 비활성화 앱만 표시

- 규칙 보유 앱. 하나 이상의 블로킹 규칙이 있는 앱 표시

- 활성화 앱. 하나 이상의 활동 기록이 있는 앱 표시

- 백앱 된 앱. 하나 이상의 백업이 있는 앱 표시

- 실행 중 앱. 현재 실행 중인 앱 표시

- 분기 앱. 하나 이상의 분기 APK 파일이 있는 앱 표시

- 설치된 앱. 설치된 앱만 표시

- 제거된 앱. 제거된 앱만 표시

- 백업 없는 앱. 백업이 존재하지 않는 앱 표시

정렬과 달리 두 개 이상의 필터링 옵션을 동시에 적용할 수 있습니다. 예를 들어, 사용자 앱 및 비활성화 앱 옵션을 둘 다 선택하여 사용하지 않도록 설정된 사용자 애플리케이션을 나열할 수 있습니다. 이는 특정 작업을 안전하게 수행하기 위해 사용자 앱을 필터링할 필요가 있는 배치 작업에 특히 유용할 수 있다.

##### 2.1.5.1.3 프로필 이름

프로필에만 존재하는 앱을 나열할 수도 있습니다. 이는 프로필 페이지에서 할 수 없는 특정 작업을 프로필에서 실행하는데 유용할 수 있습니다 (예를 들어, 해당 프로필의 앱을 전부 제거하기).

#### 2.1.5.2 지침

Instructions 를 클릭하면 App Manager 사용 설명서의 오프라인 버전이 열립니다. 해당 분할 기능 (i.e. `feat_docs`)이 설치되어 있지 않거나,설명서를 로드할 WebView가 시스템에 존재하지 않을 경우 온라인 버전이 열릴 수 있습니다.

#### 2.1.5.3 1-Click Ops

1-Click Ops stands for the single-click operations. It opens the corresponding page in a new activity.

#### 2.1.5.4 앱 사용량

App usage statistics such as screen time, data usage (both mobile and Wi-Fi), the number of times an app was opened can be accessed by clicking on the App Usage option in the menu. However, it requires the Usage Access permission. This menu item will not be listed if the usage access feature is disabled in settings.

#### 2.1.5.5 시스템 구성

이 메뉴 항목은 OEM, 공급업체, AOSP 또는 Magisk 모듈에 의해 Android에 포함된 다양한 시스템 구성, 블랙리스트/화이트리스트가 표시되는 새 페이지를 엽니다. 이를 위해 루팅(rooting)이 필요합니다. 따라서 App Manager에서 루트(root)권한을 사용할 수 없는 경우 이 메뉴 항목이 표시되지 않습니다.

#### 2.1.5.6 실행 중인 앱

이 메뉴 항목은 실행 중인 앱 또는 프로세스 목록이 표시되는 새 페이지를 엽니다. 추가적으로 현재 메모리 및 캐시 사용량(있을 경우)도 표시합니다. root 또는 ADB를 App Manager에서 사용할 수 없는 경우 안드로이드 최신 버전에서만 표시됩니다. 실행 중인 앱 또는 프로세스는 해당 페이지 내에서 강제종료되거나 종료될 수도 있습니다 .각 프로세스 ID(PID)에 대한 로그는 log viewer에서도 볼 수 있습니다. 추가적으로, 아이콘을 클릭하거나 항목을 길게 클릭하여 배치 작업을 수행할 수도 있습니다. 항목을 그냥 클릭하면 세부정보가 표시되는 대화창이 열립니다.

#### 2.1.5.7 프로필

This menu item opens the profiles page. Profiles are a way to configure regularly used tasks. They can also be invoked via shortcuts.

#### 2.1.5.8 로그 뷰어

This menu item opens the log viewer page which can display and manage logs using the `logcat` command. By default, this page can only display the activities of App Manager. However, it can display logs from all the processes if `android.permission.READ_LOGS` is granted. This permission granted automatically if the current mode of operation is either root or ADB.

#### 2.1.5.9 APK 업데이터

If the app APK Updater is installed in the system, it can be opened directly via this menu item. The option remains hidden if the app is not present in the system.

#### 2.1.5.10 Termux

If the app Termux is installed in the system, the running session (or a new session) can be opened directly via this menu item. The option remains hidden if the app is not present in the system.

#### 2.1.5.11 설정

This menu item opens the in-app Settings page.

## 2.2 앱 세부정보 페이지

앱 세부정보 페이지는11 (십일)개의 탭으로 구성되있습니다. Manifest의 모든 속성, 앱 작업, 서명 정보, 라이브러리 등을 포함하여 앱이 가질 수 있는 거의 모든 정보를 설명합니다.

### 2.2.1 색상 코드

이 페이지에 사용된 색상과, 각 색상의 의미:

- Red (day) / dark red (night) – 위험 플래그가 있는 앱 권한 혹은 앱 관리자 내에서 차단된 구성 요소를 나타냅니다.

- Light red (day) / very dark red (night) – App Manager 외부에서는 비활성화 되는 구성 요소를 나타냅니다.

  Note.

  구성 요소가 비활성화로 표시된 경우 항상 사용자에 의해 비활성화된 것은 아닙니다. 시스템에서 비활성화하거나 Manifest에서 비활성화로 표시될 수도 있습니다. 비활성화된 앱의 구성 요소도 시스템(및 App Manager)에 의해 비활성화된 것으로 간주됩니다.

- Vivid orange (day) / very dark orange (night) – 트래커 구성 요소를 나타냅니다.

- Soft magenta (day) / very dark violet (night) – 실행 중인 서비스를 나타냅니다.

### 2.2.2 앱 정보 탭

앱 정보 탭에는 앱에 대한 일반 정보가 포함되어 있습니다. 또한 이 탭에서 수행할 수 있는 여러 작업도 나열됩니다.

#### 2.2.2.1 일반 정보

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

- Application Icon. The application icon. If the application does not have an icon, the system default icon will be displayed. It is also possible to verify the APK signature via SHA or MD5 sums stored in the clipboard by simply clicking on it.

- Application Label. The application label or the name of the application.

- Package Name. The name of the application package. Clicking on the name stores it in the clipboard.

- Version. The application version is divided into two parts. The first part is called version name. The format of this part varies but often consists of multiple integers separated by dots. The second part is called version code. It is enclosed by the first brackets. The version code is an integer used to differentiate between application versions (since a version name can be unreadable to a machine). In general, a new version of an application has higher version code than the old ones. For example, if `123` and `125` are two version codes of an application, we can say that the latter is more updated than the former because the version code of the latter is higher. Applications that serve different APK files for the same version on different platforms (mobile, tabs, desktops, etc.) or architectures (32/64 bit, ARM or Intel), the version numbers can be misleading as they often add prefixes for each platform.

- Tags. (Also known as tag clouds) Tags include the most basic, concise and useful information of an application. See §2.2.2.2 for a complete list of tags shown here.

- Horizontal Action Panel. An action panel consisting of various actions that can be carried out for the application. See §2.2.2.3 for a complete list of actions available here. Additional actions are available in the options menu.

- Paths & Directories. Contains various information regarding application paths including app directory (where the APK files reside), data directories (internal, device protected and externals), split APK directories (along with the split names), and native JNI library (if present). JNI libraries are used to invoke native codes usually written in C/C++. Use of native library can make the application run faster or help an application use third-party libraries written using languages other than Java like in most games. The directories can be opened via third-party file managers provided they support it and have the necessary permissions by clicking on the launch button on the right-hand side of each directory item.

- Data Usage. Amount of data used by the application as reported by the operating system. Depending on Android version, this may require a wide range of permissions including Usage Access and Telephony permissions.

- Storage & Cache. Displays information regarding the size of the application (APK files, optimised files), data and cache. In older devices, size of external data, cache, media and OBB folders are also displayed. This part remains hidden ifUsage Access permission is not granted in newer devices.

- More Info. Displays other information such as–

  - SDK. Displays information related to the Android SDK. There are two (one in old devices) values: Max denotes the target SDK and Min denotes the minimum SDK (the latter is not available in old devices). It is best practice to use applications with maximum SDK that the platform currently supports in order to ensure that the application is not running in the compatibility mode in order to use privacy-evading features. SDK is also known as API Level.

    See also: Android Version History

  - Flags. The application flags used at the time of building the application. For a complete list of flags and what they do, visit the official documentation.

  - Date Installed. The date when the application was first installed.

  - Date Updated. The date when the application was last updated. This is the same as Date Installed if the application hasn’t been updated.

  - Installer App. The application that installed this application. Not all application supply the information used by the package manager to register the installer application. Therefore, this value should not be taken for granted.

  - User ID. The unique user ID set by the Android system to the application. For shared applications, same user ID is assigned to multiple applications that have the same Shared User ID.

  - Shared User ID. Applicable for applications that are shared together. The shared application must have the same signatures.

  - Primary ABI. Architecture supported by this platform for this application.

  - Zygote preload name. Responsible for preloading application code and data shared across all the isolated services that uses app zygote.

  - Hidden API enforcement policy. Since Android 9, many methods and classes in Android framework have been made inaccessible to the third-party applications through hidden API enforcement policy. It has the following options:

    - Default. Based on the type of application. For system applications, it should be disabled, and for others, it should be enforced.

    - None/disabled. The application has full access to the hidden API as it used to be before Android 9.

    - Warn. Same as above, except that warnings will be logged each time the application accesses the hidden API. This is mostly unused.

    - Enforce. The application cannot access hidden API, either dark-grey list or blacklist, or both of them. This is the default option for the third-party applications in Android 9 and later unless the application is whitelisted by the OEM or the vendor.

      Warning.

      Hidden API enforcement policy is not properly implemented in Android and can be bypassed by the application. As a result, this value should not be trusted.

  - SELinux. Mandatory access control (MAC) policy set by the operating system via SELinux.

  - Main Activity. The main entry point to the application. This is only visible if the application has activities and any of those are openable from the Launcher. There’s also a launch button on the right-hand side which can be used to launch this activity.

#### 2.2.2.2 Tags

- Tracker info. Number of tracker components in the application (e.g., 5 trackers) The colour of the tag appears orange if the trackers are unblocked and dark cyan if they are blocked in App Manager. Clicking on the tag opens a dialog containing the list of tracker components which can be blocked or unblocked if App Manager has sufficient privileges.

- Application type. User application or system application. If it is a system application, whether the application is an updated version of the system application or if the application is installed systemless-ly via Magisk.

- Split APK info. Number of splits in the APK excluding the base APK (e.g., 5 splits). Clicking on the tag opens a dialog containing the split APK information such as type and size.

- Debuggable. The application can be debugged over ADB. Debuggable applications can enjoy certain functions unavailable to a regular application. The data of the application might be accessible via ADB (e.g. using `run-as` command) without any additional permissions.

- Test only. The application is a test-only application. Test-only applications can enjoy certain functions unavailable to a regular application. The data of the application might be accessible via ADB (e.g. using `run-as` command) without any additional permissions.

- Large heap. The application has requested large heap size i.e. more space in memory (RAM) is requested for dynamic allocation. It is still up to the operating system to decide whether to allocate large space for the application. App Manager, for example, requests large heap size because it needs to load an entire APK into memory while scanning an APK before Android 8.

- No code. The application does not have any code associated with it i.e. DEX files aren’t present. In some system applications, the actual code might be located in another place.

- Running. One or more services of the application is currently running in the background. Clicking on the tag opens a dialog containing the list of running services. Clicking on any services opens it in the log viewer provided the log viewer feature is enabled. There’s also an option to force-stop the application.

- Stopped. The application is force stopped. This may not prevent it from running automatically later.

- Disabled. Denotes that the application is disabled (hidden from the launcher).

- Suspended. Denotes that the application is suspended (grayed out in the launcher).

- Hidden. Denotes that the application is hidden (hidden from the launcher).

- MagiskHide. MagiskHide is enabled. Clicking on the tag opens a dialog containing the list of processes within the application that can be added or removed from the MagiskHide list.

- MagiskDenyList. The application is present in MagiskDenyList. Clicking on the tag opens a dialog containing the list of processes within the application that can be added or removed from MagiskDenyList.

- WX. The app violates “W^X policy” and is capable of writing and executing in the same directory or in the same portion of memory. This allows the execution of arbitrary executables either by the modification of executables embedded within the app or by downloading them from the Internet.

  See also: W^X in Wikipedia

- KeyStore. The application has items in the Android KeyStore. Clicking on the tag opens a dialog containing all the KeyStore files that belong to the application.

- Backup. The application was backed up using App Manager at least once. Clicking on the tag opens a dialog containing all the available backups along with metadata.

- No battery optimisation. Battery optimisation is disabled for the application. It is possible to re-enable battery optimisation by clicking on the tag.

- Net policy. Network policy (e.g., background data usage) is configured for the application. Clicking on the tag displays a dialog containing the supported policies for the platform along with the options to configure them.

- SSAID. Clicking on the tag opens a dialog containing the current SSAID assigned to the application. It is also possible to reset/regenerate the SSAID if needed.

- SAF. Denotes that the application has been granted to access one or more storage locations or files i.e. URIs via Storage Access Framework (SAF). Clicking on the tag opens a dialog containing the list of granted URIs.

- Play App Signing. Indicates that the application might be signed by Google.

#### 2.2.2.3 Horizontal Action Panel

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

- Launch. Launch the application provided it has a launcher activity.

- Freeze. Freeze the application. This button is not displayed if it is already frozen or the user does not have enough privileges. After the application is frozen, it may be hidden from the app drawer depending on how it was configured. Shortcuts configured by the application may also be removed. The application may only be unfrozen via App Manager, `pm` command or any other tools that offer such a feature. Long clicking on the button opens a dialog where a shortcut can be configured to quickly freeze or unfreeze the application.

- Uninstall. Uninstall the application with a prompt. In the dialog prompt, it is possible to uninstall updates of a system application, or if App Manager has enough privileges or the operating system supports it, it is possible to uninstall the application without clearing its data and signature. For the latter case, the installed application must match the signature with the previously installed application if it is installed again.

  Tips.

  A better way to reinstall an application with a different signature would be to back up its data using App Manager and restore it again after installing the application instead of opting to preserving data and signature of the application during uninstallation as this option may cause undefined behaviour in the future.

- Unfreeze. Unfreeze the application. This button is not displayed if it is already enabled or the user does not have enough privileges. Similar to the Freeze button, long clicking on the button opens a dialog where a shortcut can be configured to quickly freeze or unfreeze the application.

- Force Stop. Force-stop the application.

- Clear Data. Clear data from the application. This includes any information stored in the internal and, recently, the external directories, including accounts (if set by the application), cache, etc. Clearing data from App Manager, for example, removes all the rules (the blocking is not removed though) saved within the application (Which is why you should always take backups of your rules). This button is not displayed if the user does not have enough privileges.

- Clear Cache. Clear the application cache. If the application is running during the operation, the cache may not be cleared as expected.

- Install. Action to install an application opened via a third-party application. This button is only displayed if the application hasn’t been already installed.

- What’s New. This button is displayed for an external application if it’s already been installed. Clicking on this button displays a dialog consisting of differences between the opened version and the installed version in a version control manner. The information it displays include version, trackers, permissions, components, signatures (checksum changes), features, shared libraries and SDK.

- Update. Displayed if the application has a higher version code than the installed application.

- Reinstall. Displayed if the application has the same version code as the installed application.

- Downgrade. Displayed if the application has a lower version code than the installed application.

- Manifest. Clicking on this button displays the application’s manifest file in a separate page. The manifest file can be wrapped or unwrapped using the corresponding toggle button (on the top-right side) or can be exported using the save button.

- Scanner. Scan the application in order to list potential trackers and libraries. It also scans the file using VirusTotal if configured.

  See also: Scanner page

- Shared Prefs. Clicking on this button displays a list of shared preferences used by the application. Clicking on a preference item in the list opens the Shared Preferences Editor page. This option is only visible if the user has the required privileges.

- Databases. Clicking on this button displays a list of databases used by the application. Clicking on an item opens a list of activities that can open the database. This option is only visible if the user has the required privileges.

- F-Droid. Open the application in the selected F-Droid client.

- Store. Open the application in Aurora Store. The option is only visible if Aurora Store is installed.

#### 2.2.2.4 옵션 메뉴

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

- Share. Share button can be used to share the APK or (if the application is has multiple splits, OBB files or any dependencies) APKS file extracted from the application.

- Refresh. Refresh the App Info tab.

- View in Settings. Open the application in Android Settings.

- Backup/restore. Open the backup/restore dialog.

- Export blocking rules. Export rules configured for the application within App Manager.

- Open in Termux. Open the application in Termux. This actually runs `su - user_id` where `user_id` denotes the application’s kernel user ID (described in §2.2.2.1). This option is only visible to the root users. See §2.2.2.5 to learn how to configure Termux to run commands from third-party applications.

- Run in Termux. Open the application via `run-as package_name` in Termux. This is only applicable to the debuggable applications and works for both root and ADB users. See §2.2.2.5 to learn how to configure Termux to run commands from third-party applications.

- MagiskHide. Open a dialog containing the list of processes within the application that can be added or removed from the MagiskHide list.

- Magisk DenyList. Open a dialog containing the list of processes within the application that can be added or removed from Magisk DenyList.

- Battery optimisation. Enable/disable battery optimisation.

- Net policy. Configure network policy (e.g., background data usage) for the application.

- Extract Icon. Extract and save the application’s icon in the shared storage.

- Add to profile. Add the application to one of the configured profiles.

- Install for…. Install the application for another user and/or in the work profile if configured.

#### 2.2.2.5 Configuring Termux

By default, Termux does not allow running commands from third-party applications. To use this option, Termux v0.96 or later is required and `allow-external-apps=true` must be added in `~/.termux/termux.properties`.

Info.

Enabling this option does not weaken Termux’ security. The third-party applications still need to ask the user to allow running arbitrary commands in Termux.

### 2.2.3 구성 요소 탭

Activities, Services, Receivers (i.e. broadcast receivers) and Providers (i.e. content providers) are collectively known as the application components. This is because they share similar features in many ways. For example, they all have a name, a label, an icon and are executed via Intent. Application components are the building blocks of an application and must be 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 the application by reading the metadata.

Colours used in these tabs are explained in §2.2.1. It is also possible to sort the list of components to display blocked or tracker components on top of the list via the Sort option located in the overflow menu.

#### 2.2.3.1 Activities

Activities are the windows or pages that can be uniquely identified by the Android operating system (e.g., Main page and App Details page are two activities). Each activity can have multiple UI components known as widgets or fragments, and each component can be nested or placed on top of each other. The developer can also choose to open external files, links, etc. within an activity using a method called intent filters. For example, when you open a file using your file manager, either your file manager or operating system scans the intent filters via PackageManager to find the activities capable of opening the file and offers you to open the file with these activities.

Activities which are exportable can usually be opened by any third-party applications. Some activities require permissions, and if that is the case, only an application having those permissions can open them. In the Activities tab, activities can be launched via the Launch button. If it is necessary to supply additional information such as Intent extras, data or action, long clicking on the Launch button opens the Activity Interceptor page which provides such features.

Notice.

If you are unable to open any activity, chances are it has certain dependencies which are not met, e.g. you cannot open App Details page because it requires you to, at least, supply a package name. Since these dependencies cannot be inferred programmatically, these activities may not be opened via App Manager by default.

It is also possible to create shortcuts of the activities via the Create shortcut button.

Caution.

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

#### 2.2.3.2 서비스

Unlike activities that users can see, Services handle background tasks. For example, if you’re 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 an activity is closed or removed from the Recents section, it may be destroyed immediately depending on many factors such as how much free memory the phone has. But services can be run indefinitely if desired. If more services are run in background, the phone may become slower due to the shortage of memory and/or processing power, and the phone’s battery will be drained more quickly. Newer Android versions have a battery optimisation feature enabled by default for all applications. With this feature enabled, the system can randomly terminate any service. However, foreground services (i.e. services that run with a fixed notification such as music player) are not typically terminated unless the system is low on resources (memory, battery, etc.). Vendor-specific stock ROMs can offer more aggressive optimisation. MIUI, for example, has a very aggressive optimisation feature known as MIUI optimisation.

Both activities and services are run in the same looper called the main looper, which means the services are not really run in the background. It is the task of the developer to ensure this. How do the application communicate with the service? It uses broadcast receiver or Binder.

#### 2.2.3.3 수신자

Receivers (also called broadcast receivers) can be used to trigger execution of certain tasks when certain events occur. These components are called broadcast receivers because they are executed as soon as a broadcast message is received. These broadcast messages are sent using a method called Intent. Intent is a special feature in Android that can be used to open applications (i.e. activities), run services and send broadcast messages. Therefore, like activities, broadcast receivers use intent filters to receive the desired broadcast messages. Broadcast messages can be sent by the system or the application itself. When a broadcast message is sent, the corresponding receivers are activated by the system so that they can execute tasks. For example, if your phone is low on resources, it may freeze or experience lags for a moment after you enable mobile data or connect it to the Wi-Fi. This is because broadcast receivers that can receive `android.net.conn.CONNECTIVITY_CHANGE` are activated by the system as soon as the data connection is enabled. Since many applications typically use this intent filter, they are all activated almost immediately by the system which causes the freezing or lags.

Receivers can also be used for inter-process communication (IPC), i.e. it can be used to communicate acrosss multiple applications or even different components of a single application.

#### 2.2.3.4 공급자

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 `.fm.FmProvider` to save the APK or export the rules. There are many content providers, including the ones provided by the system, 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 the application in the entire Android ecosystem just as the package name.

#### 2.2.3.5 루팅된 폰을 위한 추가 기능

Unlike the no-root users who are mostly spectators in these tabs, root users can perform various operations.

##### 2.2.3.5.1 블로킹 구성 요소

On the right-most side of each component item, there is a switch which can be used to toggle the blocking status of that particular component. If Instant Component Blocking is not enabled or blocking is never applied to the application before, it is required to apply the changes using the Apply rules option in three-dots menu. It is also possible to remove the already-applied rules using the same option (which would be read as Remove rules this time).

It is also possible to block the component using one of the several methods by long clicking on the button.

See also: FAQ: App Components

##### 2.2.3.5.2 Blocking Trackers

It is possible to 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 application 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 권한 탭

App Ops, Uses Permissions and Permissions tabs are related to permissions. In Android communication across applications or processes which do not have the same identity (known as shared ID) often require permissions. 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 to control many system permissions. Each app op has a unique number associated with it which is displayed along with the private name of the operation in the App Ops tab. Some app ops also have a public name. A large number of app ops are also associated with permissions. In this tab, an app op is considered dangerous if its associated permission is marked as dangerous. Other information such as flags, permission name, permission description, package name, group are also taken from the associated permission. Others may include the following:

- Mode. It describes the current authorisation status which can be allow, deny (a rather misnomer, it simply means error), ignore (it actually means deny), default (inferred from a list of defaults set internally by the vendor or the AOSP), foreground (in newer Android versions, it means the app op can only be used when the application is running in foreground), and some custom modes set by the vendors (MIUI uses ask, for example).

- Duration. The amount of time this application op has been used (there can be negative durations whose use cases are currently unknown to me).

- Accept Time. Last time the app op was accepted.

- Reject Time. Last time the app op was rejected.

Info.

Contents of this tab are visible to no-root users if `android.permission.GET_APP_OPS_STATS` is granted via ADB.

There is a toggle button next to each app op item which can be used to allow or deny (ignore) it. Other supported modes can also be set by long clicking on the toggle button. If the desired app op is not listed in the tab, Set custom app op option in the menu can be used instead. It is also possible to reset the changes using the Reset to default option, or deny all the dangerous app ops using the corresponding option in the menu. Due to the nature how app ops work, the system may take some time to apply them.

Tip.

Denying certain app ops may cause the application to misbehave. If all attempts fail, reset to default option can be used as the last resort.

It is possible to sort the list in ascending order by app op names and the associated unique numbers (or values), or list the denied app ops first using the corresponding sorting options.

See also: Appendix: App Ops

#### 2.2.4.2 권한 사용함

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

Privileged users can grant or revoke the dangerous and development permissions via the toggle button on the right side of each permission item. It is also possible revoke dangerous permissions all at once using the corresponding option in the menu. Only these two types of permissions can be revoked because Android does not allow the modification of normal permissions (which most of them are). It might still be possible to revoke them by editing `runtime-permissions.xml` itself, but whether this is a possibility is still being investigated.

Info.

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

It is possible to sort the permissions by their 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 권한

권한은 보통 앱 내에서 정의된 커스텀 권한입니다. 이러한 종류의 권한은 내부 권한으로 표시됩니다. 다른 앱에서도 선언되고 외부 권한으로 표시된 권한도 포함됩니다. 외부 권한은 앱 구성 요소에서 종속적인 권한으로 지정됩니다. 즉, 앱은 지정된 권한을 직접 보유하는 경우에만 구성 요소를 호출할 수 있습니다. 다음은 표시되는 각 항목에 대한 전체 설명입니다.

- 이름. 각 권한은 `android.permission.INTERNET`와 같은 고유한 이름이 있지만 여러 앱이 동일한 권한을 요청할 수 있습니다.

- 아이콘. 각 권한은 커스텀 아이콘을 가질 수 있습니다. 다른 권한 탭들은 앱 manifest에 아이콘이 없기 때문에, 아이콘이 없습니다.

- 설명. 이 선택 필드는 권한을 설명합니다. 권한과 관련된 설명이 없으면 이 필드가 표시되지 않습니다.

- 플래그. (Uses the flag symbol or Protection Level name) normal, development, dangerous, instant, granted, revoked, signature, privileged, 등과 같은 다양한 권한 플래그를 설명합니다.

- 패키지 이름. 권한과 연결된 패키지 이름을 나타냅니다 (권한을 정의한 패키지 이름)

- 그룹. 권한과 관련된 그룹 이름(있을 경우). 서로 연관된 여러 권한이 그룹으로 묶일 수 있습니다.

### 2.2.5 서명 탭

Signatures are actually called signing information. An application is signed using one or more signing certificates by the application developers before publishing it. The integrity of an application i.e. whether the application is from the actual developer and isn’t modified by other people can be checked using the signing information; because when an application is modified by an unauthorised entity, the application cannot be signed using the original certificates again because the signing information are kept private by the actual developer. Signing information can be verified using checksums. Checksums are generated from the certificates themselves. If the developer supplies the checksums for the signing certificates, they can be matched against the checksums generated in the Signatures tab to verify the application. For example, if you have downloaded App Manager from GitHub or Telegram Channel, you can verify whether the application is actually released by me by simply matching the following SHA256 checksum with the one displayed in this tab:

    320c0c0fe8cef873f2b554cb88c837f1512589dcced50c5b25c43c04596760ab

Several hashing algorithms are used to generate checksums in this tab. They include MD5, SHA1, SHA256 and SHA512.

Caution.

Signing information should be verified using a reliable hashing algorithm such as SHA256. DO NOT rely on MD5 or SHA1 checksums as they are known to generate the same checksums for multiple certificates.

### 2.2.6 공유 라이브러리 탭

Shared libraries tab lists all the legacy JAR dependencies as well as JNI (Java native interface) libraries. For JNI libraries, it specifies platform (x86/x86_64/ARM/AArch64), architecture (32/64 bit), object type (shared object or executable), etc.

### 2.2.7 기타 탭

Other tabs list android manifest components such as features and configurations. A complete description about these tabs may be available in the future.

## 2.3 1-Click Ops Page

This page is displayed on selecting the 1-Click Ops option in the main menu.

### 2.3.1 Block/Unblock Trackers

This option can be used to block or unblock the ad/tracker components from the installed applications. On selecting this option, App Manager will ask if it should list trackers from all the applications or only from the user applications. Novice users should avoid blocking trackers from the system applications in order to avoid bad consequences. After that, a multi-choice dialog box will appear where it is possible to exclude one or more applications from this operation. The changes are applied immediately on pressing the block or unblock button.

Notice.

Certain applications may not function as expected after blocking their trackers. If that is the case, remove the blocking rules all at once or one by one in the component tabs of the App Details page for the corresponding application.

See also: App Details Page: Blocking Trackers

### 2.3.2 Block Components…

This option can be used to block certain application components as specified by their signatures. A signature of a component is the full name or partial name of the component. For safety, it is recommended to add a `.` (dot) at the end of each partial signature, because the underlying algorithm searches and matches the components in a greedy manner. It is also possible to insert more than one signature in which case all the signatures have to be separated by white spaces. Similar to the option above, there is also an option to apply blocking to the system applications.

Caution.

If you are not aware of the consequences of blocking applcations components by their signatures, you should avoid using this option as it may result in bootloop or soft brick, and you may have to apply factory reset as a result.

### 2.3.3 Set Mode for App Ops…

This option can be used to configure certain applcation operations of all or selected applications. There are two fields. The first field can be used to insert more than one app op constants (either names or values) separated by white 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. Desired app op constant can be found in the App Ops tab located in the App Details page. The second field can be used to insert or select one of the modes that will be set against the specified app ops.

Caution.

Unless you are well-informed about app ops and the consequences of blocking them, you should avoid using this option.

### 2.3.4 Back up

1-Click options for back up. As a precaution, it lists the affected backups before performing any operation.

##### 2.3.4.0.1 Back up all apps.

Back up all the installed applications.

##### 2.3.4.0.2 Redo existing backups.

Back up all the installed applications that have a previous backup.

##### 2.3.4.0.3 Back up apps without backups.

Back up all the installed applications without a previous backup.

##### 2.3.4.0.4 Verify and redo backups.

Verify the recently made backups of the installed applications and redo backup if necessary.

##### 2.3.4.0.5 Back up apps with changes.

If an app has changed since the last backup, redo its backup. It checks a number of indices including application version, last update date, last launch date, integrity and file hashes. Directory hashes are taken during the backup process and are stored in a database. On running this operation, new hashes are taken and compared with the ones kept in the database.

### 2.3.5 Restore

1-Click options for restore. As a precaution, it lists the affected backups before performing any operation.

##### 2.3.5.0.1 Restore all apps.

Restore base backup of all the backed up applications.

##### 2.3.5.0.2 Restore not installed apps.

Restore base backup of all the backed up applications that are not currently installed.

##### 2.3.5.0.3 Restore latest backups.

Restore base backup of already installed applications whose version codes are higher than the installed version code.

### 2.3.6 Trim Caches in All Apps

Delete caches from all applications, including Android system. During this operation, caches of all the running applications may not be cleared as expected.

## 2.4 Profiles Page

Profiles page can be accessed from the options-menu in the main page. It primarily displays a list of configured profiles along with the typical options to perform operations on them. New profiles can also be added using the plus button in the bottom-right corner as well as can be imported, duplicated, or created from one of the presets. Clicking on any profile item opens its profile page.

### 2.4.1 Options Menu

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

- Presets. This option lists a number of built-in profiles that can be used as a starting point. The profiles are generated from the project Universal Android Debloater.

  See also: FAQ: What are bloatware and how to remove them?

- Import. This option can be used to import an existing profile that was previously exported from App Manager.

Long clicking on any profile item brings up another options-menu. It offers the following options:

- Apply now…. This option can be used to apply the profile directly. When clicked, a dialog will be displayed where it is possible to select a profile state. On selecting one of the options, the profile will be applied immediately.

- Delete. Clicking on delete will remove the profile immediately without any warning.

- Duplicate. This option can be used to duplicate the profile. When clicked, a dialog will be displayed where it is possible to set a name for the new profile. On clicking “OK”, profile page will be loaded by duplicating all the configurations that this profile have. However, the profile will not be saved until it is saved manually.

- Export. Export the profile to an external storage. Profile exported this way can be imported via the import option as mentioned above.

- Create shortcut. This option can be used to create a shortcut for the profile. When clicked, there will be two options: Simple and Advanced. When configured with the latter option, it prompts the user to select a profile state when the shortcut is invoked. The former option, on the other hand, always uses the default state that was configured when the profile was last saved.

## 2.5 Profile Page

Profile page displays the configurations for a profile. It also offers the options to edit them.

### 2.5.1 Options Menu

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

- Apply. This option can be used to apply the profile. When clicked, a dialog will be displayed where you can select a profile state. On selecting one of the options, the profile will be applied immediately.

  Notice.

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

- Save. Save changes to the profile.

  Notice.

  Changes are never saved automatically. You have to save them manually from here.

- Discard. Discard any modifications made since the last save operation.

- Delete. Clicking on delete will remove the profile immediately without any warning.

- Duplicate. This option can be used to duplicate the profile. When clicked, a dialog will be displayed where it is possible to set a name for the new profile. On clicking “OK”, this page will be reloaded by duplicating all the configurations that this profile have. However, the profile will not be saved until it is saved manually.

- Create shortcut. This option can be used to create a shortcut for the profile. When clicked, there will be two options: Simple and Advanced. When configured with the latter option, it prompts the user to select a profile state when the shortcut is invoked. The former option, on the other hand, always uses the default state that was configured when the profile was last saved.

### 2.5.2 Apps Tab

Apps tab lists the packages configured in 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.

#### 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

Denotes how certain configured options will behave by default. For instance, if disable option is turned on, the applications will be disabled if the state is on and will be enabled if the state is off. Currently, it only supports on and off values.

#### 2.5.3.3 Users

Select users for which is the profile will be applied. All users are selected by default.

#### 2.5.3.4 Components

This behaves the same way as the Block Components… option does in the 1-Click Ops page. However, the blocking here is only applied to 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: What are the app components?

#### 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, the operation here is only applied to the selected packages. If the state is on, the app ops will be denied (i.e. 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 disable button in 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 white 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 disable button in the input dialog.

#### 2.5.3.7 Backup/Restore

This option can be used to take a backup of the selected applications and its data or restore them. Two options are available here: Backup options and backup name.

- Backup options. Same as the backup options of the backup/restore feature. If not set, the default options will be used.

- Backup name. Set a custom name for the backup. If the backup name is set, each time a backup is made, it will be given a unique name with backup-name as the suffix. This behaviour will be fixed in a future release. Leave this field empty for regular “base” backups (also, make sure not to enable backup multiple in the backup options).

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 disable button in the input dialog.

#### 2.5.3.8 Export Blocking Rules

Danger.

This option is not yet implemented.

#### 2.5.3.9 Disable

Allow enabling or disabling the selected packages depending on the value of 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

Allow the selected packages to be force-stopped.

#### 2.5.3.11 Clear Cache

Enable clearing cache for the selected packages.

#### 2.5.3.12 Clear Data

Enable clearing data for the selected packages.

#### 2.5.3.13 Block Trackers

Enable blocking or unblocking of the tracker components from the selected packages depending on the value of 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 Save APK

Enable saving APK files at `AppManager/apks` (or in the directory selected in the settings page) of the selected packages.

## 2.6 Settings Page

Settings page can be used to customise the behaviour of App Manager.

### 2.6.1 Language

Configure in-app language. App Manager currently supports 22 (twenty-two) languages.

### 2.6.2 Appearance

#### 2.6.2.1 App Theme

Configure in-app theme.

#### 2.6.2.2 Layout Direction

Change layout direction, either left to right or right to left. This is usually set using the selected language but not everybody prefers the same direction.

#### 2.6.2.3 Enable/Disable Features

Enable or disable certain features in App Manager, such as

- Interceptor

- Manifest viewer

- Scanner

- Package installer

- Usage access. With this feature turned off, App Manager will never ask for the Usage Access permission.

- Log viewer

- App explorer. The “Explore” option will not be available while trying to open an APK file.

- App info. The “App info” option displayed while trying to open an APK file.

- Use the internet. All the Internet features are disabled if this feature is turned off. Currently, the only Internet feature is fetching scanning reports via VirusTotal.

### 2.6.3 Privacy

#### 2.6.3.1 Screen Lock

Lock App Manager using Android screen lock provided a screen lock is configured.

Warning.

If screen lock is disabled in Android after enabling this setting, App Manager will not open until it is enabled again.

### 2.6.4 Mode of Operation

Mode of operation defines how App Manager works as a whole. It has the following options:

- Auto. Let App Manager decide the suitable option. Although this is the default option, non-rooted users should use the no-root mode.

- Root. Operate App Manager in root mode. App Manager will fall back to no-root mode if root is not detected, or in rare cases when Binder communication through root is disabled (e.g. in Phh SuperUser).

- ADB over TCP. Operate App Manager in ADB mode via ADB over TCP. App Manager will fall back to no-root mode if ADB over TCP is not enabled.

- Wireless debugging. Enable ADB via Wireless Debugging. It will try to connect to the configured port automatically at first. On failure, it will ask the user to either pair or connect to the ADB daemon manually. App Manager will fall back to no-root mode if it fails to connect to the ADB daemon this way.

  Info.

  This option is only displayed in devices running Android 11 or later as Wireless Debugging was introduced in Android 11.

- No-root. Operate App Manager in no-root mode. While App Manager performs better in this mode, all the root- or ADB-specific features will be disabled.

It also displays the currently inferred mode of operation. The actual mode of operations are root, ABD and no-root.

### 2.6.5 APK Signing

#### 2.6.5.1 Signature Schemes

Configure the signature schemes to be used when APK signing is enabled. v1 and v2 signature schemes are enabled by default, but v3 should also be enabled to ensure proper security in Android 9 or later.

#### 2.6.5.2 Signing Key

Configure the signing key for signing APK files. Keys from an existing KeyStore can be imported to App Manager, or a new key can be generated.

Tip.

If you need to use the key in the future, it is recommended that you create a KeyStore yourself and import the key here. Keys generated within App Manager is at the risk of being deleted without a proper backup.

### 2.6.6 Installer

#### 2.6.6.1 Show users in installer

When enabled, a list of users will be displayed before installing the application. The application will be installed only for the specified users.

#### 2.6.6.2 Sign APK

Whether to sign the APK files before installing the application. A signing key has to be added or generated before this option can be enabled. This can be done in the APK signing page.

#### 2.6.6.3 Install Location

Define APK installation location. This can be one of auto, internal only and prefer external. In newer Android versions, selecting the last option does not guarantee that the application will be installed in the external storage.

#### 2.6.6.4 Installer App

Select the installer application. This is useful for applications that explicitly checks the installer as a way to verify if the application is installed legitimately. This only works for root or ADB users.

Notice.

While checking for the installer might seem a legitimate concern for an application, the Android framework already deals with this during the installation. Checking for the installer is simply the wrong way to prove the legitimacy of the source of an application.

#### 2.6.6.5 Block Trackers

Whether to block the tracking components immediately after installing the application.

#### 2.6.6.6 Display Changes

Whether to display changes in version, trackers, components, permissions, signatures, SDK, etc. in a version controlled style before installing the application if the application has already been installed.

#### 2.6.6.7 Install in the Background

Whether to always install applications in the background. A notification will be issued once the installation is finished.

### 2.6.7 Back up/Restore

Settings related to back up/restore.

#### 2.6.7.1 Compression method

Set the 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 restoring of an existing backup.

#### 2.6.7.2 Backup Options

Customise the back up/restore dialog displayed while taking a backup.

See also: Backup options

#### 2.6.7.3 Backup apps with Android KeyStore

Allow backup of applications that has entries in the Android KeyStore. This option is disabled by default because a few apps (such as Signal) may crash if restored.

#### 2.6.7.4 Encryption

Set an encryption method for the backups. App Manager currently supports OpenPGP (via OpenKeyChain), AES, RSA and ECC. Like APK signing, The AES, RSA and ECC keys are stored in the KeyStore and can be imported from other KeyStores.

Danger.

For your own safety, it is not recommended generating RSA and ECC keys inside App Manager. Instead, they should be imported from a KeyStore stored in a secure place.
In case of AES, the generated key should be stored in a secure place, such as using a password manager.

#### 2.6.7.5 Backup Volume

Select the storage where the backups will be stored. This is also where logs and exported APK files are saved.

Notice.

The backup volume only specifies the storage, not the path. Backups are traditionally stored in the `AppManager` folder inside the storage path. But when the path is selected using Storage Access Framework (SAF), the selected path or directory is used directly.

#### 2.6.7.6 Import Backups

Import backups from old and discontinued projects such as Titanium Backup, OAndBackup, and Swift Backup (version 3.0 to 3.2). The backups are not deleted after importing to prevent data loss in case the imported backups cannot be restored properly.

### 2.6.8 Rules

#### 2.6.8.1 Instant Component Blocking

By default, blocking rules are not applied unless they are applied explicitly in the App Details page for any application. After enabling this option, all (old and new) rules are applied immediately for all applications without explicitly enabling blocking for an application.

See also: FAQ: What is instant component blocking?

#### 2.6.8.2 Import/Export Blocking Rules

It is possible to import or export blocking rules within App Manager for all applications. The types of rules (components, app ops or permissions) that should be imported or exported can also be selected. It is also possible to import blocking rules from Blocker and Watt. If it is necessary to export blocking rules for a single application, the corresponding App Details page can be used to export rules, or for multiple apps, batch operations can be used.

See also: Rules Specification

##### 2.6.8.2.1 Export

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

##### 2.6.8.2.2 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.

##### 2.6.8.2.3 Import Existing Rules

Add components disabled by other applications to App Manager. App Manager only keeps track of the components disabled within App Manager. If application components are blocked or disabled by other tools or applications, this option can be utilised to import them. On clicking this option, App Manager will find the components potentially disabled by other applications or tools and list only the name of the applications along with the number of matched components. For safety, all the applications are unselected by default. They have to be selected manually, and the blocking has to be re-applied via App Manager.

Caution.

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

##### 2.6.8.2.4 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`

##### 2.6.8.2.5 Import from Blocker

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

#### 2.6.8.3 Remove all rules

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.

### 2.6.9 Advanced

#### 2.6.9.1 Selected Users

This option lets you control the users App Manager should operate on. App Manager operates on all users in root or ADB mode by default.

#### 2.6.9.2 Saved APK Name Format

Defines the format of the APK name to be used while saving it via batch operations or through profiles. App Manager offers some special keywords enclosed inside `%` (percentage) signs and available below the input box. These keywords are:

- `label`. Denotes the name or label of the application. This can be localised to the configured language depending on the app.

- `package_name`. Denotes the name of the package or application ID, the unique identifier that each application has.

- `version`. Denotes the current version of the application extracted from its manifest.

- `version_code`. Denotes the current version code of the application that can be used to separate two versions of the same application.

- `min_sdk`. Denotes the minimum SDK (i.e. Android framework version) that the application can operate on. This data is only available since Android 7 (Nougat).

- `target_sdk`. Denotes the SDK that this application targets. The application can operate on higher SDK but only in the compatibility mode.

- `datetime`. Denotes the time and date when the APK is exported.

#### 2.6.9.3 Import/Export Keystore

Import or export the KeyStore used by App Manager. This is a Bouncy Castle KeyStore with `bks` extension. Therefore, other KeyStore such as Java KeyStore (JKS) or PKCS #12 are not supported. If a key is needed to be imported from such a KeyStore, the relevant options should be should as specified above.

### 2.6.10 About the device

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 certificates. If VirusTotal is configured in the settings, it also attempts to retrieve reports from VirusTotal, or uploads the APK file if it is not in the database.

Disclaimer.

App Manager only scans an application statically without prejudice. The application may provide the options for opting out, or in some cases, certain features of the tracker may not be used at all by the application (e.g. F-Droid), or some applications 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 application. 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. In Android 8 (Oreo) and later, this includes the whole SMALI version of the class, and can be converted into Java using the corresponding option.

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).

The second item lists the number of trackers along with their names. Clicking on the item displays a dialog containing the name of trackers, matched signatures, and the number of classes against each signature. Some tracker names may have 2 prefix which indicates that the trackers are in the ETIP stand-by list i.e. whether they are actual trackers is still being investigated.

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, other users should ignore it.

## 2.8 Interceptor Page

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

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

#### 2.8.1.2 Data

Data is originally known as URI (Uniform Resource Identifier) defined in RFC 2396. It can be web links, file location, or a special feature called content. Contents are an Android feature managed by the content providers. Data are often associated with a MIME type.

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 application 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

Flags are useful in determining how system should behave during the launch or after the launch of an activity. This should not be touched as it requires some technical background. The plus button next to the title can be used to add one or more flags.

#### 2.8.1.6 Extras

Extras are the key-value pairs used for supplying additional information to the destination component. More extras can be added 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 App Manager). The launch button next to each component can be used to launch them directly from App Manager.

### 2.8.3 Reset to Default

Reset the Intent to its initial state.

### 2.8.4 Send Edited Intent

Resend the edited Intent to the destination application. This may open a list of applications where the desired application is needed to be selected. The result received from the target application will be sent to the source application. As a result, the source application will not know if there was a man-in-the-middle.

## 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 in 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.

# 3 Guides

## 3.1 ADB over TCP

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.

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

### 3.1.1 Enable developer options

#### 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.

### 3.1.2 Enable USB debugging

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:

#### 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 Realme

Depending on the device and the version of operating system, you have to enable Disable Permission Monitoring, or USB debugging (Security settings) along with Install via USB.

#### 3.1.2.4 LG

Make sure you have USB tethering enabled.

#### 3.1.2.5 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 17.1 and Earlier

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 in App Manager

After enabling ADB over TCP, relaunch App Manager. App Manager should detect ADB mode automatically. If it cannot, you can change the mode of operation to ADB over TCP in the settings page. There, you can also verify whether App Manager has correctly detected ADB as indicated by the inferred mode.

Notice.

In some Android devices, the USB cable is needed to be disconnected from the PC before connecting to App Manager.

Warning.

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

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 Wireless Debugging

If you are running Android 11 or later and capable of connecting to a Wi-Fi network for, at least, a few moments, Wireless Debugging is the recommended approach as it offers more protection than ADB over TCP. It requires two steps:

1. ADB pairing. The initial and a bit complex step for a novice user. Fortunately, this step is not required all the time.

2. Connecting to ADB. The final step which needs to be carried out every time you reboot your phone.

### 3.2.1 Enable developer options and USB Debugging

See §3.1.1 and §3.1.2.

### 3.2.2 Enable Wireless Debugging

In the Developer options page, find Wireless debugging and click to open it. In the new page, turn on Use wireless debugging. Depending on your configuration, you might see a dialog prompt asking you to verify your decision. If that is the case, click Allow.

Tip.

For an easy access, you might want to add Wireless debugging in the notification tiles section. To do this, find Quick settings developer tiles in the Developer options page and click to open it. In the new window, enable Wireless debugging. However, this option is unavailable in most operating systems.

### 3.2.3 Pair ADB with App Manager

Keeping the Wireless debugging page open, go to the Recents page either by swiping up or by using the dedicated navigation button, and click on the Settings logo to enable Split screen. It will wait for you to select or launch another application: Launch or select App Manager.

Now, in App Manager and navigate to Settings and then enable Wireless debugging in Mode of operation. After a few moments, App Manager will ask you to either connect or pair ADB. Select pair.

In the Wireless debugging page (now should be on top among the splits), select Pair device with pairing code. At this, a dialog prompt will be displayed. Note down the pairing code but DO NOT close the dialog prompt or the window.

Finally, in App Manager, insert the pairing code and click pair. The port number should be detected automatically. If it cannot, you have to insert the port number as well.

If the pairing is successful, it will display a successful message at the bottom, and the dialog prompt in the Wireless debugging page will be dismissed automatically, and you will be able to see App Manager listed as an ADB client.

Notice.

If you do not use App Manager in ADB mode for a while (depending on devices), App Manager might be removed from the list. In that case, you have to repeat the above procedure.

### 3.2.4 Connect App Manager to ADB

App Manager should be able to connect to ADB automatically if the mode of operation is set to auto, ADB over TCP or Wireless debugging. If that is not the case, select Wireless debugging in the settings page. If App Manager fails to detect or connect to ADB, it will display a dialog prompt to connect or pair ADB. Select connect.

Now, navigate to the Wireless debugging page in Android settings, and note down the port number displayed in the page. In App Manager’s dialog prompt, replace the port number with the one that you have noted earlier, and click connect.

Once a connection has been established, you can safely disable Wireless debugging in Android settings.

Caution.

Never disable USB Debugging or any other additional options described in §3.2.1. If you do this, the remote server used by App Manager will be stopped, and you may have to start all over again.

## 3.3 Back up/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.

See also:

- 1-Click Ops: Back up

- 1-Click Ops: Restore

### 3.3.1 Location

Back up/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. Backups are located at `/storage/emulated/0/AppManager` by default. You can configure custom backup location in the settings page in which case the backups will be located at the `AppManager` folder in the selected volume.

Note.

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

### 3.3.2 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 the backup options is given below:

- APK files. Whether to back up the APK files. This includes the base APK file along with the `split APK` files if they exist.

- Internal data. Whether to back up the internal data directories. These directories are located at `/data/user/<user_id>` and (for Android N or later) `/data/user_de/<user_id>`.

- External data. Whether to back up data directories located in the internal memory as well as SD Card (if exists). External data directories often contain non-essential app data or media files (instead of using the dedicated media folder) and may increase the backup size. However, it might be essential for some apps. Although it isn’t checked by default (as it might dramatically increase the size of the backups), you may have to check it in order to ensure a smooth restore of your backups.

  Caution.

  Internal data folders should always be backed up if you are going to back up the external data folders. However, it could be useful to back up only the external folders if the app in question downloads a lot of assets from the Internet.

- OBB and media. Whether to back up or restore the OBB and the media directories located in the external storage or the SD Card. This is useful for games and the graphical software which actually use these folders.

- Cache. Android apps have multiple cache directories located at every data directories (both internal and external). There are two types of cache: cache and code cache. Enabling this option excludes both cache directories from all the data directories. It is generally advised to exclude cache directories since most apps do not clear the cache regularly (for some reason, the only way an app can clear its cache is by deleting the entire cache directory) and usually handled by the OS itself. Apps such as Telegram may use a very large cache (depending on the storage space) which may dramatically increase the backup size. When it is disabled, AM also ignores the no_backup directories.

- Extras. Backup/restore app permissions, net policy, battery optimization, SSAID, etc., enabled by default. Note that, blocking rules are applied after applying the extras. So, if an item is present in both places, it will be overwritten (i.e., the one from the blocking rules will be used).

- Rules. This option lets you back up blocking rules configured within App Manager. This might come in handy if you have customised permissions or block some components using App Manager as they will also be backed up or restored when you enable this option.

- Backup Multiple. Whether this is a multiple backup. By default, backups are saved using their user ID. Enabling this option allows you to create additional backups. These backups use the current date-time as the default backup name, but you can also specify custom backup name using the input field displayed when you click on the Backup button.

- Custom users. Backup or restore for the selected users instead of only the current user. This option is only displayed if the system has more than one user.

- Skip signature checks. When taking a backup, checksum of every file (as well as the signing certificate(s) of the base APK file) is generated and stored in the `checksums.txt` file. When you restore the backup, the checksums are generated again and are matched with the checksums stored in the said file. Enabling this option will disable the signature checks. This option is applied only when you restore a backup. During backup, the checksums are generated regardless of this option.

  Caution.

  You should always disable this option to ensure that your backups are not modified by any third-party applications. However, this would only work if you enabled encryption.

See also: Settings: Encryption

### 3.3.3 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.

### 3.3.4 Restore

Restore respects all the backup options and will fail if APK files option is set, but the backup doesn’t contain such 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.

### 3.3.5 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.

## 3.4 Automating Tasks

It is possible to trigger profiles configured inside App Manager via third-party applications such as Automation or Tasker. Traditionally, `Intent`s are used to trigger such operations.

### 3.4.1 Generating authorization key

In order to ensure proper security, an authorization key is required. To generate a authorization key, go to Settings page and then click Authorization Manager at the bottom. If an authorization key has not been generated, it will be generated automatically. The key can be regenerated as required.

Caution.

Regenerating the authorization key can have some side effects such as invalidation of all the previously configured Intents.

### 3.4.2 Configuring tasks

The activity `io.github.muntashirakon.AppManager.crypto.auth.AuthFeatureDemultiplexer` is responsible for handling all the automations. Sending an intent to the activity lets App Manager perform the designated operation by redirecting the `Intent` to the designated activity or service.

#### 3.4.2.1 Required extras

It has two primary extras required in all conditions. The key names, data types are all follows:

1. `auth`. (String value) The authorization key as described in the earlier section.

2. `feature`. (String value) Name of the feature. Supported features are described in the next section.

### 3.4.3 Features

App Manager current support a single feature, namely `profile`.

### 3.4.4 Triggering a profile

In order to trigger a profile, `feature` must have the value `profile`. In addition, the following extras can be included:

1. `prof`. (String value – required) The name of the profile as displayed in the Profiles page.

2. `state`. (String value – optional) State of the profile – currently `on` or `off` – as specified in the documentation. If this extra is not set, App Manager will display a prompt where a state must be selected. Therefore, for complete automation, this option should be set.

## 3.5 Net Policy

Short for Network policy or network policies. It is usually located in the Android settings under Mobile data & Wifi section in the app info page of an app. Not all policies are guaranteed to be included in this page (e.g. Samsung), and not all settings are well-understood due to lack of documentation. App Manager can display all the net policies declared in the NetworkPolicyManager. Policies unknown to App Manager will have a Unknown prefix along with the policy constant name and number in the hexadecimal format. Unknown policies should be reported to App Manager for inclusion.

Net policy allows a user to configure certain networking behaviour of an app without modifying the ip tables directly and/or running a firewall app. However, the features it offers largely depend on Android version and ROM. A list of known net policies are listed below:

1. None or `POLICY_NONE`: (AOSP) No specific network policy is set. System can still assign rules depending on the nature of the app.

2. Reject background data or `POLICY_REJECT_METERED_BACKGROUND`: (AOSP) Reject network usage on metered networks when the application is in background.

3. Allow background data when Data Saver is on or `POLICY_ALLOW_METERED_BACKGROUND`: (AOSP) Allow metered network use in the background even when data saving mode is enabled.

4. Reject cellular data or `POLICY_REJECT_CELLULAR` (Android 11+) or `POLICY_REJECT_ON_DATA` (up to Android 10): (Lineage OS) Reject mobile/cellular data. Signals network unavailable to the configured app as if the mobile data is inactive.

5. Reject VPN data or `POLICY_REJECT_VPN` (Android 11+) or `POLICY_REJECT_ON_VPN` (up to Android 10): (Lineage OS) Reject VPN data. Signals network unavailable to the configured app as if the VPN is inactive.

6. Reject Wi-Fi data or `POLICY_REJECT_WIFI` (Android 11+) or `POLICY_REJECT_ON_WLAN` (up to Android 10): (Lineage OS) Reject Wi-Fi data. Signals network unavailable to the configured app as if the device is not connected to a Wi-Fi network.

7. Disable network access or `POLICY_REJECT_ALL` (Android 11+) or `POLICY_NETWORK_ISOLATED` (up to Android 10): (Lineage OS) Reject network access in all circumstances. This is not the same as enforcing the other three policies above, and is the recommended policy for dodgy apps. If this policy is enforced, there is no need to enforce the other policies.

8. `POLICY_ALLOW_METERED_IN_ROAMING`: (Samsung) Possibly allow metered network use during roaming. Exact meaning is currently unknown.

9. `POLICY_ALLOW_WHITELIST_IN_ROAMING`: (Samsung) Possibly allow network use during roaming. Exact meaning is currently unknown.

Note.

Corresponding Lineage OS patches are as follows:

1. fw/b: Squash of app fw restriction commits

2. fw/b: Add support for per app network isolation

# 4 Frequently Asked Questions

## 4.1 App Components

### 4.1.1 What are the application components?

Activities, services, broadcast receivers (or only receivers) and content providers (or only providers) are jointly called application components. More technically, they all inherit the ComponentInfo class and can be launched via Intent.

### 4.1.2 How are the tracker and other components blocked in App Manager? What are its limitations?

App Manager typically blocks application components (or tracker components) using a method called Intent Firewall (IFW), it is superior to other methods such as pm (PackageManager), Shizuku or any other method that uses the package manager to enable or disable the components. If a component is disabled by the latter methods, the application itself can detect that the component is being blocked and can re-enable it as it has full access to its own components. (Many deceptive applications actually do this in order to keep the tracker components unblocked.) On the other hand, IFW is a true firewall and the application cannot detect if its components are being blocked. App Manager uses the term block rather than disable for this reason.

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

- The application in question is whitelisted by the system i.e. the system cannot function properly without these applications and may cause random crashes. These applications include but not limited to Android System, System UI, Phone Services. They will continue to work even if they are disabled or blocked.

- Another system application or system process has activated a specific component of the application in question via interprocess communication (IPC). In this case, the component will be activated regardless of blocking status or even if the entire application is disabled. If there is such a system application that is not needed, the only way to prevent it from running is by getting rid of it.

### 4.1.3 Does app components blocked by other tools retained in App Manager?

No. But the application components blocked by the system or any other tools are displayed in the component tabs. These rules can be imported from Settings. However, it is not possible for App Manager to distinguish the components blocked by the third-party tools and components blocked by the system. Therefore, the applications listed in the import page should be selected with care.

### 4.1.4 What happens to the components blocked by App Manager which were previously blocked by other tools?

App Manager blocks the components again if requested. In case of unblocking, they will be reverted to the default state as specified in the manifest of the application. But if the components were blocked by MyAndroidTools (MAT) with IFW method, they will not be unblocked by App Manager as it uses a different format. To fix this issue, the rules have to be imported from Settings at first, in which case MAT’s configurations will be permanently removed.

### 4.1.5 What is instant component blocking?

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 application by simply clicking on Remove rules in the same menu in the App Details page. Since the default behaviour gives you more control over applications, it is better to keep instant component blocking option disabled.

### 4.1.6 Tracker classes versus tracker components

All application 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 that are not components cannot be blocked. They can only be removed by editing the application itself.

## 4.2 ADB over TCP

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

Unfortunately, yes. This is because the ADB daemon, the process responsible for ADB connection, is also restarted after a reboot, and it does not re-enable ADB over TCP.

### 4.2.2 Cannot enable USB debugging. What to do?

See §3.1.2 in Chapter 3.

### 4.2.3 Can I block tracker or any other application components using ADB over TCP?

ADB has limited number of permissions and controlling application components is not one of them. However, the components of a test-only app can be controlled via ADB. If App Manager detects such an application, it enables the blocking options automatically.

### 4.2.4 Which features can be used in ADB mode?

Supported features are enabled automatically in the ADB mode. Supported features include disabling, force-stopping, clearing application data, granting or revoking app ops and permissions, and so on. It is also possible to install or uninstall applications without any prompt from the system.

## 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.

### 4.3.2 How are the trackers and libraries are updated?

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

### 4.3.3 Are APKs deleted after installed?

No, APKs aren’t deleted by App Manager after they are installed.

### 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:

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.

Another solution is to disable these apps either from Android settings (no-root) or AM, but certain services can still run in the background as they can be started by other system apps using Inter-process Communication (IPC). One possible solution is to disable all bloatware until the service has finally stopped (after a restart). However, due to heavy modifications of the Android frameworks by the vendors, removing or disabling certain bloatware may cause the System UI to crash or even cause bootloop, thus, (soft) bricking your device. You may search the web or consult the fellow users to find out more about how to debloat your device.

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.

# 5 Specifications

## 5.1 Rules Specification

### 5.1.1 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.

Maintaining a database should be the best choice when it comes to storing data. For now, several `tsv` files with each file having the name of the package and a `.tsv` extension. The file/database will be queried/processed by the `RulesStorageManager` class. Due to this abstraction, it should be easier to switch to database or encrypted database systems in future without changing the design of the entire project. Currently, All configuration files are stored at `/data/data/io.github.muntashirakon.AppManager/Files/conf`.

### 5.1.2 Rules File Format

#### 5.1.2.1 Internal

The format below is used internally within App Manager and is not compatible with the external format.

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

Here:

- `<name>` – Component/permission/app op name (in case of app op, it could be string or integer)

- `<type>` – One of the `ACTIVITY`, `RECEIVER`, `PROVIDER`, `SERVICE`, `APP_OP`, `PERMISSION`

- `<mode>` – (For app ops) The associated mode constant

- `<component_status>` – (For components) Component status

  - `true` – Component has been applied (`true` value is kept for compatibility)

  - `false` – Component hasn’t been applied yet, but will be applied in future (`false` value is kept for compatibility)

  - `unblocked` – Component is scheduled to be unblocked

- `<is_granted>` – (For permissions) Whether the permission is granted or revoked

#### 5.1.2.2 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.

# 6 Changelogs

## 6.1 v3.1.0 (423)

App Manager v3.1.0 comes with a few new features and a lot of improvements. Visit Settings > About > Version/Changelog for details.

### 6.1.1 Android 13 support

App Manager now targets Android 13 which means most issues in Android 12 and 13 has been addressed, including SSAID and SAF issues as well as monochrome icons and other theming issues.

##### 6.1.1.0.1 Known issue

KeyStore backup/restore not working in Android 12 and later.

### 6.1.2 Introducing freeze/unfreeze

Enable/disable is replaced with freeze/unfreeze to allow greater control on the behaviours of an app. It supports suspend, disable and hide functionalities which can be controlled at Settings > Rules > Default freezing method. In order to make it easy to freeze or unfreeze an app, shortcuts can also be created from the App Info tab by long clicking on the freeze or unfreeze button.

### 6.1.3 Export app list

In the Main page, it is now possible to export the list of apps in either XML or Markdown format using batch operations. In the future, the XML file may also be imported to App Manager.

### 6.1.4 Elliptic Curve Crypography (ECC)

App Manager now fully supports encrypting backups using ECC in addition to offering AES, RSA and OpenPGP.

### 6.1.5 New languages

Two new languages are added: Korean and Romanian.

### 6.1.6 More list options

In the main page, more sorting and filtering options are added. Sorting options include sorting the apps by total size, total data usage, launch count, screen time and last usage time. Filtering options include filtering the apps having at least one item in the Android KeyStore, filtering apps with URIs granted via SAF, and filtering apps with SSAID.

### 6.1.7 Improved handling of mode of operation

Fixed various issues with ADB pairing, handled incomplete USB debugging. Some rooting methods cannot allow interprocess communication via Binder. In those cases, ADB mode is used as a fallback method by enabling it automatically if possible.

### 6.1.8 Handling multiple users

When possible, App Manager will be able to display apps from work profile in no-root mode in addition to allowing basic operations such as launching the app or navigating to the system settings. For backups, it is now possible to restore backups for other users, but for work profile, some apps may only work properly after re-enabling the work profile. In the installer page, selecting All users will now install the app for all users instead of only the current user. Finally, in the app info tab, current app can be installed in another profile using the Install for… option available in the three-dots menu. This is analogous to the `pm install-existing` command, thereby, making the installation process a lot faster.

### 6.1.9 Explorer enhancements

Explorer can now open DEX and JAR files in addition to APK files. Several sorting options as well as folder options are also added as the list options.

### 6.1.10 New tag: WX

In app info tab, a new tag called WX is added. It is displayed in Android 10 and later if the application targets Android 9 or earlier. It indicates W^X violation which allows the app to execute arbitrary executable files either by the modification of executables embedded within the app or by downloading them from the Internet.

### 6.1.11 App ops management

App ops are now managed automatically to avoid various app ops related crashes in various platforms. This will also lessen the amount of crashes in an unsupported operating system.

### 6.1.12 Batch uninstallation

In the Main page, enabled batch uninstallation in no-root mode.

### 6.1.13 Running apps

Enabled advanced searching. Searching now matches not only app labels but also package names.

### 6.1.14 Interceptor

Copy the intercepted Intent as am command which can be run from either an ADB shell or a terminal using root with the same effectiveness.

### 6.1.15 Device-specific changes

##### 6.1.15.0.1 Graphene OS

Explicitly handle the Internet permission which is a runtime permission in the OS.

##### 6.1.15.0.2 MIUI

Fixed permission denied issues in the installer due to a framework issue introduced in MIUI 12.5.

##### 6.1.15.0.3 Motorola

Fixed crashes in the Interceptor page due to a framework issue introduced in Android 11.

### 6.1.16 Others

- Improved Java-Smali conversion by including all the subclasses during conversion

- Improved scanning performance in the Scanner page

- Improved updating the list of apps in the Main page

- Scan all the available paths to detect systemless-ly installed system apps

- `vacuum` SQLite database before opening it for viewing or editing.

## 6.2 v3.0.0 (410)

App Manager v3.0.0 comes with a lot of features and improvements. See Settings > Changelog to see a more detailed changelog.

### 6.2.1 Material 3 and More

Material 3, somewhat similar to Material You, is a significant improvement over Material Design 2 with support for dynamic colours in Android 12 and later. In addition, many design changes have been made in App Manager without any significant changes in the overall user experience.

##### 6.2.1.0.1 Known issue

Switches are still based on Material Design 2 which will be fixed in a future release.

### 6.2.2 Wireless Debugging

Wireless debugging support has been fully implemented. Head over to §3.2 for instructions on how to configure wireless debugging.

No-root users.

Due to auto-detection feature, startup time might be large for no-root users when the mode of operation is set to auto. Instead, no-root users should select no-root instead of auto.

### 6.2.3 Languages

App Manager is fully translated into Indonesian and Italian languages and can be enabled in settings. Bengali is removed due to lack of translators.

### 6.2.4 Introducing App Explorer

App Explorer can be used to browse the contents of an application. This includes binary XML files, DEX contents or any other media files. DEX contents can only be explored in Android Oreo (Android 8) and later. It’s also possible to convert an `.smali` file into `.java` for a better understanding of the reversed code. This feature, if not needed, can be disabled in Settings > Enable/disable features.

### 6.2.5 Import Backups from Other Applications

It is possible to import backups from discontinued or obsolete applications such as Titanium Backup, OAndBackup and Swift Backup (version 3.0 to 3.2). Go to Setting > Backup/restore to find this option.

### 6.2.6 VirusTotal

VirusTotal is a widely used tool to scan files and URLs for viruses. In the scanner page and in the running apps page, an option to scan files with VirusTotal has been added. But the option is hidden by default. To enable the option, it is necessary to obtain an API key from VirusTotal. Go to Settings > VirusTotal API Key for more information.

Internet feature.

This is currently the only feature which require an Internet connection. If you wish to use any Internet feature that might also be added in the future, enable Use the Internet in Settings > Enable/disable features.

### 6.2.7 Trigger Profiles from the Automation Software

As the implementation of routine operations is being delayed, an option to trigger profiles from the external automation software is added. See §3.4 for instructions on how to configure profile automation.

### 6.2.8 Improved Application Installer

Application installer includes several improvements including the ability to downgrade applications in no-root mode, installing multiple applications at once and blocking trackers after installation. In Android 12 and later, no-root users can update applications without any user interactions.

### 6.2.9 Component Blocking

It is now possible to configure how App Manager should block a component. Visit Settings > Rules > Default blocking method for more information. In the components tab, long clicking the block/unblock button opens a context menu which allows per-component blocking in a similar manner. ADB users can also block the components of a Test only app.

### 6.2.10 Advanced Searching

In some pages, the search bar supports additional searching which includes searching via prefix, suffix or even regular expressions. In the main page, it is also possible to search for applications using the first letters of each word, e.g. App Manager can be listed by searching for am.

### 6.2.11 Shared Libraries

Shared libraries tab has received a significant improvements. It can display three types of libraries, such as native, jar and APK files.

### 6.2.12 Make the Best Use of Interceptor

Activity interceptor can be opened directly from the activities tab by long clicking on the launch button, and similarly, activities can be launched from the activity interceptor page with or without root, for any users.

Notice.

Currently, activities opened via root cannot send the results back to the original applications.

### 6.2.13 Widget: Screen Time

Screen time widget is quite similar to Digital Wellbeing’s widget by the same name. It displays the total screen time for the day along with the top three apps from all users.

### 6.2.14 Widget: Clear Cache

Clear cache widget can be to clear cache from all the applications directly from the home screen.

## 6.3 v2.6.0 (385)

### 6.3.1 Introducing Backups

Back up/restore feature is now finally out of beta! Read the corresponding guide to understand how it works.

### 6.3.2 Introducing Log Viewer

Log viewer is essentially a front-end for `logcat`. It can be used to filter logs by tag or pid (process ID), or even by custom filters. Log levels AKA verbosity can also be configured. You can also save, share and manage logs.

### 6.3.3 Lock App Manager

Lock App Manager with the screen lock configured for your device.

### 6.3.4 Extended Modes for App Ops

You can set any mode for any app ops that your device supports, either from the 1-click ops page or from the app ops tab.

### 6.3.5 New Batch Ops: Add to Profile

You can now easily add selected apps to an existing profile using the batch operations.

### 6.3.6 App Info: Improved

App info tab now has many options, including the ability to change SSAID, network policy (i.e. background network usage), battery optimization, etc. Most of the tags used in this tab are also clickable, and if you click on them, you will be able to look at the current state or configure them right away.

### 6.3.7 Advanced Sort and Filtering Options in the Main Page

Sort and filter options are now replaced by List Options which is highly configurable, including the ability to filter using profiles.

### 6.3.8 About This Device

Interested in knowing about your device in just one page? Go to the bottom of the settings page.

### 6.3.9 Enable/disable Features

Not interested in all the features that AM offers? You can disable some features in settings.

### 6.3.10 New Languages

AM now has more than 19 languages! New languages include Farsi, Japanese and Traditional Chinese.

### 6.3.11 Signing the APK Files

You can now import external signing keys in AM! For security, App Manager has its own encrypted KeyStore which can also be imported or exported.

### 6.3.12 New Extension: UnAPKM

Since APKMirror has removed encryption from their APKM files, it’s no longer necessary to decrypt them. As a result, the option to decrypt APKM files has been removed. Instead, this option is now provided by the UnAPKM extension which you can grab from F-Droid. So, if you have an encrypted APKM file and have this extension installed, you can open the file directly in AM.

## 6.4 v2.5.20 (375)

### 6.4.1 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.

##### 6.4.1.0.1 Known limitations

- Exporting rules and applying permissions are not currently working.

- Profiles are applied for all users.

### 6.4.2 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.

##### 6.4.2.0.1 Known limitation

Editing extras is not currently possible.

### 6.4.3 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.

### 6.4.4 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.

### 6.4.5 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.

### 6.4.6 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.

### 6.4.7 Android 11

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

### 6.4.8 App Installer Improvements

#### 6.4.8.1 Set installation locations

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

#### 6.4.8.2 Set APK installer

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

#### 6.4.8.3 Multiple users

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

#### 6.4.8.4 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.

##### 6.4.8.4.1 Known limitation

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

## 6.5 v2.5.17 (368)

### 6.5.1 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.

##### 6.5.1.0.1 Known Limitations

- Large app can take a long time to fetch app info, and therefore, it may take a long time display the installation prompt.

- If the apk is not located in the internal storage, the app has to be cached first which might also take a long time depending on the size of the apk.

### 6.5.2 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.

### 6.5.3 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.

### 6.5.4 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.

### 6.5.5 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.

### 6.5.6 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.

### 6.5.7 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.

### 6.5.8 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.

### 6.5.9 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.

### 6.5.10 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.

### 6.5.11 App Manifest

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

## 6.6 v2.5.13 (348)

### 6.6.1 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.

##### 6.6.1.0.1 Known Limitations

- Currently all splits apks are installed. But this behaviour is going to change in the next release. If you only need a few splits instead of all, extract the APKS or XAPK file, and then, create a new zip file with your desired split apks and replace the ZIP extension with APKS. Now, open it with AM.

- There is no progress dialog to display the installation progress.

### 6.6.2 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.

##### 6.6.2.0.1 Known Limitations

- Downgrade is not yet possible.

- There is no progress dialog to display the installation progress. If you cannot interact with the current page, wait until the installation is finished.

### 6.6.3 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.

### 6.6.4 App Ops

- App Ops are now generated using a technique similar to AppOpsX. This should decrease the loading time significantly in the App Ops tab.

- In the App Ops tab, a menu item is added which can be used to list only active app ops without including the default app ops. The preference is saved in the shared preferences.

##### 6.6.4.0.1 Known Limitation

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

### 6.6.5 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.

##### 6.6.5.0.1 Known Limitation

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

### 6.6.6 Filtering in Main Page

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

### 6.6.7 Apk Backup/Sharing

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

### 6.6.8 Batch Ops

- Added a foreground service to run batch operations. The result of the operation is displayed in a notification. If an operation has failed for some packages, clicking on the notification will open a dialog box listing the failed packages. There is also a Try Again button on the bottom which can be used to perform the operation again for the failed packages.

- Replaced Linux kill with force-stop.

### 6.6.9 Translations

Added German and Portuguese (Brazilian) translations.

##### 6.6.9.0.1 Known Limitation

Not all translations are verified yet.

### 6.6.10 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.

# 7 App Ops

## 7.1 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.

## 7.2 Introduction to App Ops

Figure 2: How app ops work

Figure 1 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 1, 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.

## 7.3 AppOpsManager

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

See also: AppOpsManager documentation

### 7.3.1 `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;

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.

### 7.3.2 `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.

### 7.3.3 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;
        ...
    }

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.

### 7.3.4 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;
        ...
    }

Here:

- `mOp`: Denotes one of the `OP_*` constants

- `mRunning`: Whether the operation is in progress (i.e. the operation has started but not finished yet). Not all operations can be started or finished this way

- `mMOde`: One of the `MODE_*` constants

- `mAccessTimes`: Stores all the available access times

- `mRejectTimes`: Stores all the available reject times

- `mDurations`: All available access durations, checking this with `mRunning` will tell you for how long the app is performing a certain app operation

- `mProxyUids`: No documentation found

- `mProxyPackageNames:` No documentation found

### 7.3.5 Usage

TODO

## 7.4 AppOpsService

TODO

## 7.5 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:

- `app-ops`: The root element. It can contain any number of `pkg` or package `uid`

  - `v`: (optional, integer) The version number (default: `NO_VERSION` or `-1`)

- `pkg`: Stores package info. It can contain any number of `uid`

  - `n`: (required, string) Name of the package

- Package `uid`: Stores package or packages info

  - `n`: (required, integer) The user ID

- `uid`: The package user ID. It can contain any number of `op`

  - `n`: (required, integer) The user ID

  - `p`: (optional, boolean) Is the app is a private/system app

- `op`: The operation, can contain `st` or nothing at all

  - `n`: (required, integer) The op name in integer, i.e. AppOpsManager.OP_*

  - `m`: (required, integer) The op mode, i.e. AppOpsManager.MODE_*

- `st`: State of operation: whether the operation is accessed, rejected or running (not available on old versions)

  - `n`: (required, long) Key containing flags and uid

  - `t`: (optional, long) Access time (default: `0`)

  - `r`: (optional, long) Reject time (default: `0`)

  - `d`: (optional, long) Access duration (default: `0`)

  - `pp`: (optional, string) Proxy package name

  - `pu`: (optional, integer) Proxy package uid

This definition can be found at AppOpsService.

## 7.6 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.

1. For distributing normal releases only↩︎

2. GitHub pull 요청은 해당되는 패치를 통해 수동으로 merge됩니다. 그 결과로, GitHub에 merged대신 closed로 잘못 표기될 수 있습니다.↩︎

3. “Muntashir Akon” 이라고 불러도 됩니다↩︎