Behavior changes: Apps targeting Android 14 or higher

Like earlier releases, Android 14 includes behavior changes that may affect your app. The following behavior changes apply exclusively to apps that are targeting Android 14 or higher. If your app is targeting Android 14 or higher, you should modify your app to support these behaviors properly, where applicable.

Be sure to also review the list of behavior changes that affect all apps running on Android 14 regardless of the app's targetSdkVersion.

Core functionality

Foreground service types are required

If your app targets Android 14, it must specify at least one foreground service type for each foreground service within your app. You should choose a foreground service type that represents your app's use case. The system expects foreground services that have a particular type to satisfy a particular use case.

If a use case in your app isn't associated with any of these types, it's strongly recommended that you migrate your logic to use WorkManager or user-initiated data transfer jobs.

Security

Restrictions to implicit and pending intents

For apps targeting Android 14, Android restricts apps from sending implicit intents to internal app components in the following ways:

• Implicit intents are only delivered to exported components. Apps must either use an explicit intent to deliver to unexported components, or mark the component as exported.
• If an app creates a mutable pending intent with an intent that doesn't specify a component or package, the system now throws an exception.

These changes prevent malicious apps from intercepting implicit intents that are intended for use by an app's internal components.

For example, here is an intent filter that could be declared in your app's manifest file:

<activity
    android:name=".AppActivity"
    android:exported="false">
    <intent-filter>
        <action android:name="com.example.action.APP_ACTION" />
        <category android:name="android.intent.category.DEFAULT" />
    </intent-filter>
</activity>

If your app tried to launch this activity using an implicit intent, an exception would be thrown:

// Throws an exception when targeting Android 14.
context.startActivity(Intent("com.example.action.APP_ACTION"))

// Throws an exception when targeting Android 14.
context.startActivity(new Intent("com.example.action.APP_ACTION"));

To launch the non-exported activity, your app should use an explicit intent instead:

// This makes the intent explicit.
val explicitIntent =
        Intent("com.example.action.APP_ACTION")
explicitIntent.apply {
    package = context.packageName
}
context.startActivity(explicitIntent)

// This makes the intent explicit.
Intent explicitIntent =
        new Intent("com.example.action.APP_ACTION")
explicitIntent.setPackage(context.getPackageName());
context.startActivity(explicitIntent);

Runtime-registered broadcasts receivers must specify export behavior

Apps and services that target Android 14 and use context-registered receivers are required to specify a flag to indicate whether or not the receiver should be exported to all other apps on the device: either RECEIVER_EXPORTED or RECEIVER_NOT_EXPORTED, respectively. This requirement helps protect apps from security vulnerabilities by leveraging the features for these receivers introduced in Android 13.

Exception for receivers that receive only system broadcasts

If your app is registering a receiver only for system broadcasts through Context#registerReceiver methods, such as Context#registerReceiver(), then it shouldn't specify a flag when registering the receiver.

Safer dynamic code loading

If your app targets Android 14 and uses Dynamic Code Loading (DCL), all dynamically-loaded files must be marked as read-only. Otherwise, the system throws an exception. We recommend that apps avoid dynamically loading code whenever possible, as doing so greatly increases the risk that an app can be compromised by code injection or code tampering.

If you must dynamically load code, use the following approach to set the dynamically-loaded file (such as a DEX, JAR, or APK file) as read-only as soon as the file is opened and before any content is written:

val jar = File("DYNAMICALLY_LOADED_FILE.jar")
val os = FileOutputStream(jar)
os.use {
    // Set the file to read-only first to prevent race conditions
    jar.setReadOnly()
    // Then write the actual file content
}
val cl = PathClassLoader(jar, parentClassLoader)

File jar = new File("DYNAMICALLY_LOADED_FILE.jar");
try (FileOutputStream os = new FileOutputStream(jar)) {
    // Set the file to read-only first to prevent race conditions
    jar.setReadOnly();
    // Then write the actual file content
} catch (IOException e) { ... }
PathClassLoader cl = new PathClassLoader(jar, parentClassLoader);

Handle dynamically-loaded files that already exist

To prevent exceptions from being thrown for existing dynamically-loaded files, we recommend deleting and recreating the files before you try to dynamically load them again in your app. As you recreate the files, follow the preceding guidance for marking the files read-only at write time. Alternatively, you can re-label the existing files as read-only, but in this case, we strongly recommend that you verify the integrity of the files first (for example, by checking the file's signature against a trusted value), to help protect your app from malicious actions.

Additional restrictions on starting activities from the background

For apps targeting Android 14, the system further restricts when apps are allowed to start activities from the background:

• When an app sends a PendingIntent using PendingIntent#send() or similar methods, the app must now opt in if it wants to grant its own background activity launch privileges to start the pending intent. To opt in, the app should pass an ActivityOptions bundle with setPendingIntentBackgroundActivityStartMode(MODE_BACKGROUND_ACTIVITY_START_ALLOWED).
• When a visible app binds a service of another app that's in the background using the bindService() method, the visible app must now opt in if it wants to grant its own background activity launch privileges to the bound service. To opt in, the app should include the BIND_ALLOW_ACTIVITY_STARTS flag when calling the bindService() method.

These changes expand the existing set of restrictions to protect users by preventing malicious apps from abusing APIs to start disruptive activities from the background.

Updated non-SDK restrictions

Android 14 includes updated lists of restricted non-SDK interfaces based on collaboration with Android developers and the latest internal testing. Whenever possible, we make sure that public alternatives are available before we restrict non-SDK interfaces.

If your app does not target Android 14, some of these changes might not immediately affect you. However, while you can currently use some non-SDK interfaces (depending on your app's target API level), using any non-SDK method or field always carries a high risk of breaking your app.

If you are unsure if your app uses non-SDK interfaces, you can test your app to find out. If your app relies on non-SDK interfaces, you should begin planning a migration to SDK alternatives. Nevertheless, we understand that some apps have valid use cases for using non-SDK interfaces. If you cannot find an alternative to using a non-SDK interface for a feature in your app, you should request a new public API.

To learn more about the changes in this release of Android, see Updates to non-SDK interface restrictions in Android 14. To learn more about non-SDK interfaces generally, see Restrictions on non-SDK interfaces.