How to get current wallpaper on Android 13?

Question

Seems like getDrawable() of WallpaperManager is useless on Android 13 since users can't get READ_EXTERNAL_STORAGE permission for it.

Is there any way to get current wallpaper on API level 33? I mean without lowering targetSdk level, etc.

Genip

Try to open an issue on issuetracker – Wolfe

It's opened already - issuetracker.google.com/issues/237124750 I thought maybe someone knows how to bypass this issue at the moment. Or maybe there's another api which I don't know about. – Genip

And also android devs don't hurry to fix that. – Genip

Answer 1

For my tiny live wallpaper app (here), I offer to import previous wallpaper, so I need this too. I also need a similar function getWallpaperFile which also needs storage permission.

Currently the only workaround I've found is to use MANAGE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE permission.

However, when I tried to publish my app with this permission, the policy team rejected it. I'm trying to send an appeal after an appeal, and so far it doesn't help.

I hope Google will solve it, or I will have to prepare an app that this is its whole purpose, as a companion to my own app.

You could target API 32 , before this change, but of course this won't be an option when Google will force developers to target API 33...

I also tried to reach the files themselves ( they are on "/data/system/users/0" , named "wallpaper" and "wallpaper_lock"), but sadly I failed to read them without the permission I've mentioned. I could do it with root access, but that's not the same at all...

Because of these terrible changes on Android 13, I've created a new request to have a new permission just to get the current wallpaper information (be it an image from lock/home or a live wallpaper ), here:

https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/263721379

Please consider starring.

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EDIT: as the Play Policy was against this, I created a new app, called Backup+ . It uses the same approach, just with extra features related to backup.

Oversell

Answer 2

In the issue: https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/237124750

They commented that:

#60: Status: Won't Fix (Intended Behavior) We discussed the behavior with our product and engineering team and they were supportive of keeping the API only accessible to privileged system apps.

So we cannot get the wallpaper drawable anymore unless we were system app

Act