When I upload a file (e.g. into a post here) using the browser (Fennec F-Droid in my case), first there will be a choice of Apps displayed which can select a file, the choice being camera Apps and Files (the stock file manager App).
I can install and use other file managers without a problem (tested with Amaze, Dir, Ghost Commander and Total Commander), but they never show up as a choice for uploading a file in the browser.
Does anybody know why that is?
I looked into permissions but I saw nothing helpful there, and there’s no Standard App entry you could set for “choosing files” or similar.
Same here with different device (FP2), different OS (/e/) and different browsers (lightning, Firefox, /e/-Browser).
Just in LineageOS 17 it seems to work different: it seems to open the integrated file manager which then offers to search for files in other apps (as e.g. a different file manager). EDIT: depending on the Browser I may have to select the integrated file manager and then I get:
Yeah, I’ve noticed the same behavior after the A9 → A10 update as well. It looks like Android 10 tightened some access permissions around file management, which might explain the changes in how LOS handles storage.
As for removing the integrated file manager — I haven’t tried uninstalling it completely, but I did disable it via ADB on another device just to test. The system didn’t break, but certain apps that rely on the default file picker started acting oddly or crashing when trying to open/save files.
Would definitely be curious to hear if anyone’s fully removed it and what the longer-term impact was. Especially for apps that need scoped storage access, it might be more problematic than expected.
