App Manager v3.2.0-alpha01

What's New

• New logo for App Manager!

• Added a dedicated page for debloating the phone
  ^{Debloating profiles were available as “Presets” in the Profiles page which has now been replaced with the Debloater page which can be accessed from the three-dots menu in the Main page.}

  ^{The list is taken from UAD project and kept intact for now.}

  <sup>Colour codes for the list:
  - Dark cyan: The app is safe to remove. It does not necessarily mean that the app should be removed as it is always up to the preferences of the user
  - Sand colour: The app is safe to remove, but removing it might break one or more features
  - Orange: The app may or may not be safe to remove
  - Red: The app is not safe to remove. It is not clear as to why these apps are listed in the UAD list.</sup>

  <sup>Batch operations:
  - Uninstallation
  - Enable/disable
  - Save APK
  - Create new profile
  - Add to profile.</sup>

  <sup>In addition to the typical search option, there are several filtering options available in this page:
  1. Categories: AOSP, OEM, Carrier/ISP, Google, Miscellany and Pending
  2. Types: Safe (i.e. safe to remove), Replace (i.e. should be replaced with alternatives), Caution (i.e. generally safe to remove but no guarantees), Unsafe (may cause bootloop)
  3. Other: User apps, System apps (mutually exclusive), Installed apps and Uninstalled apps (mutually exclusive).</sup>

• Integrated code editor within App Manager
  ^{Manifest viewer, code viewer, etc. have been replaced with this new editor.}

  ^{Among other regular features, the editor includes proper syntax highlighting, advanced searching options.}

• Added options for runtime optimization in Android 7 or later
  ^{This option is available for all apps in the 1-click ops page and individual app in the three-dots menu in the app info tab.}

  <sup>Features:
  - Set Compile filters such as speed-profile or everything-profile
  - Compile layout resources
  - Immediate optimization of DEX, i.e. somewhat similar to pm force-dex-opt</sup>

• [Main page] Replaced log viewer, sys config, Termux, etc. with Labs
  ^{Labs is a new page where various handy tools are listed. They include Sys Config, Log Viewer, Terminal (experimental), File Manager (experimental), UI Tracker, Interceptor and Code Editor.}

• [Backup/restore] Enable experimental support for Zstandard (ZSTD) compression
  ^{This option should only be used for testing purposes.}

• [App Info tab] New tag: Open links
  ^{“Open links” is displayed for apps capable of opening links from the verified domains without any user intervention. This feature, added in Android 12, has raised privacy as well as usability concerns, because it promotes tracking and reduce user's freedom of choice. Therefore, in active state, that is, when the app is able to open the links directly, this tag will have a “red” background (otherwise, it will have a “green” background).}

  ^{On clicking the tag, a list of supported domains will be displayed in a dialog (although not all domains can be opened by default). If the user has enough permissions, an option to enable/disable the behaviour will be displayed. Otherwise, an option to open the app details page in the Android Settings app will be displayed.}

• [App Info tab] New tag: Static shared library
  ^{The tag is displayed for static shared libraries, that is, the apps with static-library tag in their manifest files, requires root or ADB. Clicking on the tag displays a dialog with a list of libraries installed under the same package name, and offer the user to uninstall the selected libraries.}

• [Installer] Added the option to align APK files before signing
  ^{When APK signing is enabled, enabling this option will ensure that the contents of the APK are aligned properly before the APK is signed. Since it doesn't modify the contents of the APK, the option is enabled by default.}

• [1-Click Ops page] Added option to uninstall apps that were previously uninstalled without clearing data.

1-Click Ops

• Replace “Block components…” with “Block/unblock components…”
  ^{From now on, components can also be unblocked using the option.}

App Info tab

• Split APKs are no longer displayed in “Paths & Directories” section
  ^{Split APK info are already displayed in the corresponding tags above this section. There is no reason to display them again in this section.}

App Ops

• Prevented crashes in Samsung devices running Android 6.0.1

Code Viewer

• Enabled Smali to Java conversion feature in Android Nougat and earlier

Explorer page

• Fixed opening files with external editor/viewer

Freeze/unfreeze

• Prevented the app from crashing if a shortcut icon is immutable

Installer

• Fixed displaying re-installation prompt for apps that were uninstalled without clearing data

Interceptor page

• Prevented crashes if the shortcut icon is invalid

Main page

• Display static libraries in privileged mode
  ^{Static libraries such as Trichrome Library are only visible to system, shell, root and the apps which depend on it. Using privileged mode, it is possible to list them in the Main as well as perform typical operations on them.}

  ^{For non-rooted users, these libraries are only visible in the “Shared Libs” tab (in App Details page) of the apps that depend on them.}

• Display a prompt to fully uninstall apps that were uninstalled without clearing data

• Prevented crashes when the installer feature is disabled

Profile page

• Fixed a crash due to lifecycle issue

Settings page

• Renamed “Layout orientation” to “Layout direction”

Others

• Improved security of the shortcuts created within App Manager
  ^{Earlier, opening the shortcuts of exportable activities did not require any authentication. From now on, authentication is required for opening any new shortcuts.}
• Fixed parsing the manifest of some apps
• Fixed opening certain shortcuts in Android 13
• Fixed various security issues related to JADX

Full Changelog: v3.1.0...v3.2.0-alpha01

App Manager v3.1.0 Stable

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

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.

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

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.

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.

Elliptic Curve Crypography (ECC)
App Manager now fully supports encrypting backups using ECC in addition to offering AES, RSA and OpenPGP.

New languages
Two new languages are added: Korean and Romanian.

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.

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.

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 present 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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

Device-specific fixes
Graphene OS: Explicitly handle the Internet permission which is a runtime permission in the OS.
MIUI: Fixed permission denied issues in the installer due to a framework issue introduced in MIUI 12.5.
Motorola: Fixed crashes in the Interceptor page due to a framework issue introduced in Android 11.

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

Full Changelog: v3.0.0...v3.1.0

App Manager v3.1.0 Release Candidate № 03

• Display app distribution source if available in the signatures tab
  ^{Currently, the only known source is Google Play.}

• Re-enabled searching in the permissions tabs

• Prevented a crash in the log viewer page

• Fixed extracting backups if the directory to be created already exists

• Fixed applying custom language and appearance in Android 9 and earlier.

Full Changelog: v3.1.0-rc02...v3.1.0-rc03

App Manager v3.1.0 Release Candidate № 02

Installer

• Added workarounds for permission denied issues in MIUI 12.5 and later
  ^{The workaround may not always work as expected and require more testing.}
• Prevented the installer from crashing if the activity Intent can't be opened

ADB

• Fixed checking for permission limits in ADB mode
• Fixed connecting to ADB immediately after pairing

App Info tab

• Fixed issues with setting a custom SSAID
• Fixed permission toggles in the uses permissions tab

Others

• Fixed the startup progress dialog from displaying indefinitely
• Prevented the app from crashing on attempting to grant GET_APP_OPS_STATS permission

Full Changelog: v3.1.0-rc01...v3.1.0-rc02

App Manager v3.1.0 Release Candidate № 01

• Updated documentations
• Ensure the existence of shared cache directory before launching App Manager
  ^{Shared cache directory must exist in all Android devices. If it does not, the ROM is likely broken.}
• Added more directories to look for systemless installations in Magisk
• Avoided caching non-existing files
• Fixed setting default log level in log viewer preferences

Full Changelog: v3.1.0-beta02...v3.1.0-rc01

App Manager v3.1.0-beta02

What's New

• Target Android 13
• Added monochrome icon for Android 13

App Info

• Improved the loading time of the App Info tab
  ^{At startup, App Manager attempts to invalidate backup data which can take more than half a minute if there are a lot of backups. Hence, during this period, if one tries to browse the app info tab, the whole tab will not be loaded as it is waiting for the previous process to complete. This issue is fixed by using the cached backup data stored in a previous attempt. This cached data is also validated to ensure that they actually exist.}

App Ops

• Ensured forward-compatibility in app ops
  ^{App Manager now handles vendor-specific app ops, newly added app ops in the AOSP, etc. automatically to prevent random crashes.}

Backup/restore

• Fixed restoring backups for other users
• Fixed scrolling issues in backup/restore dialog
• Prevented backing up the android package
  ^{This particular package is the heart of Android and shouldn't be backed up or restored.}

Others

• Fixed issues with bottom sheet dialogs
• Fixed various theming issues
• Use /data/media instead of /storage/emulated for other users
  ^{In the newer versions of Android, /storage/emulated directories belonging to another user (say, a work profile) cannot be accessed even with root. However, /data/media is only accessible with root. Therefore, the later directory is used instead.}

Full Changelog: v3.1.0-beta01...v3.1.0-beta02

App Manager v3.1.0-beta01

• New language: Korean
• Improved Java to Smali conversion
  ^{Now all the Smali files related to the current file (inner classes, for example) are also converted into Java to make it easier to understand the code.}
• [Batch Ops] Remove removed items from the selection list after a previous operation is finished.
• Avoid scanning nested classes to improve the performance of the scanner
• Disabled wireless debugging, not ADB over TCP in API < 30
• Fixed restoring backed up apps in no-root mode

Freeze/unfreeze

• Display a prompt instead of freezing directly
  ^{When “open after unfreezing” flag is enabled and the app isn't frozen, clicking on the freeze shortcut opens a dialog asking whether to freeze or open the app instead of performing a freeze.}
• Display a warning in no-root mode on clicking a shortcut
• Fixed drawing over the transparent pixels of an app icon

Installer

• Enabled batch uninstaller in no-root mode
• Enabled installing an existing package without requiring a complete re-installation. Requires root/ADB
• [App Info tab] Added option to install an existing app in another profile
  ^{A new menu item, namely “Install for…” is added in the three-dots menu which allows a privileged user to quickly install the same app in another profile without performing a complete installation.}
• Use PackageManager API instead of the pm command to uninstall updates of a system app
• Fixed installing app for all users when “all users” option is selected

Full Changelog: v3.1.0-alpha03...v3.1.0-beta01

App Manager v3.1.0-alpha03

New features

• Added an option to export app list in the batch operations
  ^{App list can be exported in either XML or Markdown format, making it easier to store or share. List exported in XML format may be also imported to App Manager in the future.}
• Added notice for the funding campaign
• Fixed loading/storing URI grants (SAF) in Android 12 and later
• Fixed SSAID not working in Android 12 and later
• New filtering options in the Main page: apps using Android KeyStore, apps using SAF (Storage Access Framework), apps with SSAID.
• New sorting options in the Main page: data usage, launch count, screen time, last usage time
• Set an expiry date for each release
  ^{To ensure the safety of the users, App Manager is set to expire several months after it is published. A warning shall be issued for a certain period before the expiry date. After that, App Manager shall completely stop responding to any requests and prompt user to update or uninstall the application. However, for stable releases, it will still be possible to use the application but the warning shall be displayed every time the application is launched.}

App Details page

• New tag: WX
  ^{WX tag 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.}
• Hide tips forever if close button is clicked
• Try vacuum-ing the databases before displaying the open with dialog
  ^{To improve speed, databases are often stored in multiple files. Therefore, simply opening the main database may not cover all the data in the database. By vacuum-ing the database, all the files are merged into a single database file, thereby, preventing any consistency issues.}
• Used monospace font in SSAID fields
• Disabled launch buttons in the component tabs if the app is frozen
• Fixed links not working in Play App Signing dialog

Explorer page

• Added list options containing various sorting and folder options
• Allowed opening jar and dex files

Installer

• Prevented installer from running forever in no-root mode due to the mismanagement of installer queue

Interceptor

• Fixed crashing in Motorola devices

Main page

• Improve updating the list of applications
• Fixed searching issues in non-virtual keyboard
• Fixed crashing on clicking items in list options

Running Apps page

• Fixed /proc/$PID/stat parsing bug

Others

• Enabled searching in various selection dialogs
• Handle incomplete USB debugging
  ^{On certain devices, enabling USB debugging may not be enough to use ADB. In such cases, App Manager will report incomplete USB debugging along with a potential way to solve the issue.}
• Fixed cropping the banner icon in Android TV
• Improved cache management in the app by periodically cleaning the obsolete files from the cache
• Removed the necessity of .tmp directory
• Replaced “Instructions” with “User Manual”
• Resolve OID names of the X509 certificates
• Fixed crashes by avoiding the deletion of channels of the ongoing notifications
• Fixed crashing if the resource string to be parsed is ill-formatted
• Fixed retrieving usage stats in no-root mode
• Fixed some broken features (e.g. MagiskHide, DenyList) due to I/O errors in libsu
• Fixed various memory leaks.

Full Changelog: v3.1.0-alpha02...v3.1.0-alpha03

App Manager v3.0.4

What's New

• Added notice for the funding campaign

App Details page

• Display invalid native libraries (e.g. zip/APK files)
• Hide tips forever if close button is clicked
• Replaced block/unblock button with material switch
• Fixed links not working in Play App Signing dialog

Others

• Replaced “Instructions” with “User Manual”
• Replaced SLF4J dependency with Android compatible classes
• Used monospace font in SSAID fields
• Prevented installer from running forever in no-root mode due to the mismanagement of installer queue
• Fixed crashes by avoiding the deletion of channels of the ongoing notifications
• Fixed crashing if the resource string to be parsed is ill-formatted
• Fixed crashing if no backup is selected but restore is clicked
• Fixed retrieving usage stats in no-root mode
• Fixed some broken features (e.g. MagiskHide, DenyList) due to I/O errors in libsu

Full Changelog: v3.0.3...v3.0.4

App Manager v3.1.0-alpha02

New features

• Added support for v3.1 signing scheme
• Export APKS using the new APKS specification. This is still in pre-alpha stage.
• New language: Romanian
• Replaced enable/disable with freeze/unfreeze
  ^{Freeze/unfreeze can be customised to disable, suspend or hide the applications instead of only disabling it. The colour codes used for disabling is used for freezing.}
• Added freeze/unfreeze toggle shortcut in the App Info tab
  <sup>Long clicking on the freeze or unfreeze buttons in the App Info tab opens a dialog where how the shortcut shall work apart from freezing/unfreezing can be configured. If a shortcut already exists, the existing shortcut shall be updated.
  It offers the following options:
  1. Open application after unfreezing it
  2. Open application (requires 1 to be enabled) but without an entry in Recents
  3. Refreeze the application when the phone is locked.</sup>

Backup

• Backup metadata version updated to 4
• Use 128 bit tag size for AES encryption
• Fixed encryption/decryption for AES 128
• Fixed a crash if no backup is selected but restore is clicked
• Fixed an issue with saving the PGP encrypted files
• Fixed crashing if a storage media does not have a label

App Details page

• Display invalid native libraries in the Shared libs tab
• Replaced block/unblock button with material switch
• Display failure message instead of crashing if a service cannot be launched from the Services tab
• Fixed a crash on specifying an invalid icon resource in the edit shortcut dialog
• Fixed crashes in the Shared Libs tab
• Fixed shortcut creation issues in some launchers
• Prevented a crash in the ADB mode which used to occur on attempting to fetch application data size

Installer page

• Ensured all the installation confirmation notifications are different in no-root mode
• Fixed a rare crash used to occur due to the accidental closing of the installer page

Main page

• Fixed sorting when a profile is selected in the list options
• Fixed displaying backup volume unavailable messages when /sdcard/AppManager was inaccessible or unavailable

Running Apps page

• Added searching by package name
• Enabled advanced searching
• Fixed double scrollbars
• Fixed crashes in no-root mode while checking for RUN_IN_BACKGROUND

UI

• Migrated to Material 3-style preferences
• Prevented closing multi-selection panel after starting an operation
• Replaced MD2 (Material Design 2) switches with M3 (Material 3) switches
• Fixed icon theming issues in Android 12
• Fixed loading dynamic colours in the splash screen
• Fixed applying the pure black theme on some devices

Others

• Check whether Binder transaction is supported in root mode before initiating a connection
  ^{Certain superuser implementations did not enable communications through Binder (that, is binder transactions) from user applications. A check has been added to ensure that the currently used superuser supports such communications before attempting to create a remote service.}
• Display inferred mode of operation in the crash logs
• Handle multiple users including work profile in no-root mode
  ^{Apps in the work profile can be opened in the App Details page. They can also be launched, uninstalled, and the corresponding settings page can also be opened in no-root mode.}
• Fall back to ADB if root mode is not supported
  ^{If App Manager cannot connect using root, root itself is used to start ADB over TCP and connect to it. This is also useful for certain rooting solutions which do not support Binder transactions.}
• Fall back to root mode while reading the APK file
  ^{Some applications erroneously provide private files that aren't accessible to any installer other than the system ones. Therefore, root mode is used to read those files if available.}
• Handled the Internet permission in Graphene OS
• Removed dark theme hacks for the WebView in the help page
• Replaced SLF4J dependency with Android compatible classes
• Updated trackers and libraries
• Prevented a nasty crash used to occur when an activity is needed to be recreated
• [Profile page] Fixed crashes in the log viewer tab
• [Scanner page] Fixed a rare crash used to occur when the activity is accidentally closed

Full Changelog: v3.1.0-alpha01...v3.1.0-alpha02