com.android.documentsui Copy

DocumentsUI, the Android Open Source Project (AOSP) component that the AOSP documentation describes as controlling access to specific files for components that handle document permissions, such as attaching a file to an email. The AOSP manifest for this package name registers a picker activity for the OPEN_DOCUMENT, CREATE_DOCUMENT, GET_CONTENT and OPEN_DOCUMENT_TREE intents, plus a launcher entry in the Files app category. On this site its English label is "Files" on most observations, with "Downloads" and "DownloadsUI" on some and localised equivalents in other locales. Where this site holds signer data for it, each recorded key also signs the Android framework, a platform-level key. Version note: the AOSP documentation describes DocumentsUI as an updatable module, delivered as an APK and available for devices running Android 10 or higher, and states that starting in Android 12 file browsing through DocumentsUI is disabled. The same page says the Files launcher icon is controlled by is_launcher_enabled in Android 10 and by a component-override entry in Android 11 or higher, and that the icon is enabled by default. This site records the package on API levels 27 to 36, so the sample includes builds older than Android 10; the cited page does not describe those builds, and its statements should not be read back onto them. This site also records a separately named package, com.google.android.documentsui; the sources cited here do not set out how the two names relate on a given device. For Android Enterprise, EMM and kiosk use, treat it with caution. Disabling it would remove this package's handlers for the document intents listed above; whether another package on a given device also handles them could not be established from the sources cited here, so apps that open, save or attach files through those intents may be affected. The AOSP manifest marks the application as cross-profile and requests INTERACT_ACROSS_USERS and MODIFY_QUIET_MODE; no enrolment or management role is identified in the sources cited here. Test the file flows of the apps in use before disabling it on a managed device.

• DocumentsUI - Android Open Source Project →
• DocumentsUI AndroidManifest.xml (main branch) - Git at Google →
• Package provenance for com.android.documentsui - Android System App Database →
• Package provenance for com.google.android.documentsui - Android System App Database →

• Signed by Google's own signing key (the same key Google uses across devices), so it is a Google-provided preinstall that updates independently of the system image, though 6 different Google signing keys appear across the fleet. It also signs the Android framework, so it is a platform-level key on its device(s). This certificate spans 2 device makes - the hallmark of a globally distributed Google key.
• Its largest observed manifest declares 21 permissions: 1 runtime (user-granted), 11 signature or system-level, 7 install-time and 2 vendor or uncatalogued. The signature/system share marks it as a privileged component, not an ordinary app.
• APK size ranges from 1.4 MB to 7.4 MB across the reporting device profiles, so the build differs substantially between them.