Read shared preference of another android application

Question

I need to access the Shared Preference file of another application. ( The device is rooted! ) Currently I seem to be facing a permission issues. Here is the current code that I run:

Context con = createPackageContext("com.sam.sample", CONTEXT_IGNORE_SECURITY);
SharedPreferences sharedPref = con.getSharedPreferences("namefile", MODE_PRIVATE);
Map data = sharedPref.getString("name", "");
Log.d("Name", "name:" + name);

When I run this code I get the following error:

Attempt to read preferences file /data/data/com.sam.sample/shared_prefs/namefile.xml without permission

I have also tried to run su command but I dont want the user to be notified that I want to get read access with chmod 775 on the XML file.

Any help is appreciated.

Answer 1

To do this when creating SharedPreference in "com.sam.sample" it should be created using Context.MODE_WORLD_READABLE mode. So if you have code of "com.sam.sample" application, it should look something like below

SharedPreferences prefs = getSharedPreferences("namefile",
                Context.MODE_WORLD_READABLE);
        SharedPreferences.Editor editor = prefs.edit();
        editor.putString("name", strShareValue);
        editor.commit();

Also note that changing the mode to Context.MODE_WORLD_READABLE is not recommended as it may lead to security holes. As of NOS this will throw SecurityException. More info:-

https://developer.android.com/reference/android/content/Context.html#MODE_WORLD_READABLE

Ideally ContentProvider should be used.

For example query function of your ContentProvider can be

MatrixCursor cursor = new MatrixCursor(new String[] { "name" }, 1); cursor.addRow(new Object[] { readSharedPreference() }); return cursor;