Create a content provider

A content provider manages access to a central repository of data. You implement a provider as one or more classes in an Android application, along with elements in the manifest file. One of your classes implements a subclass of ContentProvider, which is the interface between your provider and other applications.

Although content providers are meant to make data available to other applications, you can have activities in your application that let the user query and modify the data managed by your provider.

This page contains the basic process for building a content provider and a list of APIs to use.

Before you start building

Before you start building a provider, consider the following:

Decide whether you need a content provider. You need to build a content provider if you want to provide one or more of the following features:
- You want to offer complex data or files to other applications.
- You want to let users copy complex data from your app into other apps.
- You want to provide custom search suggestions using the search framework.
- You want to expose your application data to widgets.
- You want to implement the AbstractThreadedSyncAdapter, CursorAdapter, or CursorLoader classes.
You don't need a provider to use databases or other types of persistent storage if the use is entirely within your own application and you don’t need any of the preceding features listed. Instead, you can use one of the storage systems described in Data and file storage overview.
If you haven't done so already, read Content provider basics to learn more about providers and how they work.

Next, follow these steps to build your provider:

Design the raw storage for your data. A content provider offers data in two ways:

File data

Data that normally goes into files, such as photos, audio, or videos. Store the files in your application's private space. In response to a request for a file from another application, your provider can offer a handle to the file.

"Structured" data

Data that normally goes into a database, array, or similar structure. Store the data in a form that's compatible with tables of rows and columns. A row represents an entity, such as a person or an item in inventory. A column represents some data for the entity, such a person's name or an item's price. A common way to store this type of data is in a SQLite database, but you can use any type of persistent storage. To learn more about the storage types available in the Android system, see the Design data storage section.
Define a concrete implementation of the ContentProvider class and its required methods. This class is the interface between your data and the rest of the Android system. For more information about this class, see the Implement the ContentProvider class section.
Define the provider's authority string, content URIs, and column names. If you want the provider's application to handle intents, also define intent actions, extras data, and flags. Also define the permissions that you require for applications that want to access your data. Consider defining all these values as constants in a separate contract class. Later, you can expose this class to other developers. For more information about content URIs, see the Design content URIs section. For more information about intents, see the Intents and data access section.
Add other optional pieces, such as sample data or an implementation of AbstractThreadedSyncAdapter that can synchronize data between the provider and cloud-based data.

Design data storage

A content provider is the interface to data saved in a structured format. Before you create the interface, decide how to store the data. You can store the data in any form you like, and then design the interface to read and write the data as necessary.

These are some of the data storage technologies available on Android:

If you are working with structured data, then consider either a relational database such as SQLite or a non-relational key-value datastore such as LevelDB. If you are working with unstructured data such as audio, image, or video media, then consider storing the data as files. You can mix and match several different types of storage and expose them using a single content provider if necessary.
The Android system can interact with the Room persistence library, which provides access to the SQLite database API that Android's own providers use to store table-oriented data. To create a database using this library, instantiate a subclass of RoomDatabase, as described in Save data in a local database using Room.
You don't have to use a database to implement your repository. A provider appears externally as a set of tables, similar to a relational database, but this is not a requirement for the provider's internal implementation.
For storing file data, Android has a variety of file-oriented APIs. To learn more about file storage, read the Data and file storage overview. If you're designing a provider that offers media-related data such as music or videos, you can have a provider that combines table data and files.
In rare cases, you might benefit from implementing more than one content provider for a single application. For example, you might want to share some data with a widget using one content provider, and expose a different set of data for sharing with other applications.
For working with network-based data, use classes in java.net and android.net. You can also synchronize network-based data to a local data store such as a database, and then offer the data as tables or files.

Note: If you make a change to your repository that isn't backward-compatible, you need to mark the repository with a new version number. You also need to increase the version number for your app that implements the new content provider. Making this change prevents system downgrades from causing the system to crash when it attempts to reinstall an app that has an incompatible content provider.

Data design considerations

Here are some tips for designing your provider's data structure:

Table data must always have a "primary key" column that the provider maintains as a unique numeric value for each row. You can use this value to link the row to related rows in other tables (using it as a "foreign key"). Although you can use any name for this column, using BaseColumns._ID is the best choice, because linking the results of a provider query to a ListView requires one of the retrieved columns to have the name _ID.
If you want to provide bitmap images or other very large pieces of file-oriented data, store the data in a file and then provide it indirectly rather than storing it directly in a table. If you do this, you need to tell users of your provider that they need to use a ContentResolver file method to access the data.
Use the binary large object (BLOB) data type to store data that varies in size or has a varying structure. For example, you can use a BLOB column to store a protocol buffer or JSON structure.
You can also use a BLOB to implement a schema-independent table. In this type of table, you define a primary key column, a MIME type column, and one or more generic columns as BLOB. The meaning of the data in the BLOB columns is indicated by the value in the MIME type column. This lets you store different row types in the same table. The Contacts Provider's "data" table ContactsContract.Data is an example of a schema-independent table.

Design content URIs

A content URI is a URI that identifies data in a provider. Content URIs include the symbolic name of the entire provider (its authority) and a name that points to a table or file (a path). The optional ID part points to an individual row in a table. Every data access method of ContentProvider has a content URI as an argument. This lets you determine the table, row, or file to access.

For information about content URIs, see Content provider basics.

Design an authority

A provider usually has a single authority, which serves as its Android-internal name. To avoid conflicts with other providers, use internet domain ownership (in reverse) as the basis of your provider authority. Because this recommendation is also true for Android package names, you can define your provider authority as an extension of the name of the package containing the provider.

For example, if your Android package name is com.example.<appname>, give your provider the authority com.example.<appname>.provider.

Design a path structure

Developers usually create content URIs from the authority by appending paths that point to individual tables. For example, if you have two tables, table1 and table2, you can combine them with the authority from the previous example to yield the content URIs com.example.<appname>.provider/table1 and com.example.<appname>.provider/table2. Paths aren't limited to a single segment, and there doesn't have to be a table for each level of the path.

Handle content URI IDs

By convention, providers offer access to a single row in a table by accepting a content URI with an ID value for the row at the end of the URI. Also by convention, providers match the ID value to the table's _ID column and perform the requested access against the row that matches.

This convention facilitates a common design pattern for apps accessing a provider. The app does a query against the provider and displays the resulting Cursor in a ListView using a CursorAdapter. The definition of CursorAdapter requires one of the columns in the Cursor to be _ID

The user then picks one of the displayed rows from the UI in order to look at or modify the data. The app gets the corresponding row from the Cursor backing the ListView, gets the _ID value for this row, appends it to the content URI, and sends the access request to the provider. The provider can then do the query or modification against the exact row the user picked.

Content URI patterns

To help you choose which action to take for an incoming content URI, the provider API includes the convenience class UriMatcher, which maps content URI patterns to integer values. You can use the integer values in a switch statement that chooses the desired action for the content URI or URIs that match a particular pattern.

A content URI pattern matches content URIs using wildcard characters:

* matches a string of any valid characters of any length.
# matches a string of numeric characters of any length.

As an example of designing and coding content URI handling, consider a provider with the authority com.example.app.provider that recognizes the following content URIs pointing to tables:

content://com.example.app.provider/table1: a table called table1.
content://com.example.app.provider/table2/dataset1: a table called dataset1.
content://com.example.app.provider/table2/dataset2: a table called dataset2.
content://com.example.app.provider/table3: a table called table3.

The provider also recognizes these content URIs if they have a row ID appended to them, such as content://com.example.app.provider/table3/1 for the row identified by 1 in table3.

The following content URI patterns are possible:

content://com.example.app.provider/*: Matches any content URI in the provider.
content://com.example.app.provider/table2/*: Matches a content URI for the tables dataset1 and dataset2, but doesn't match content URIs for table1 or table3.
content://com.example.app.provider/table3/#: Matches a content URI for single rows in table3, such as content://com.example.app.provider/table3/6 for the row identified by 6.

The following code snippet shows how the methods in UriMatcher work. This code handles URIs for an entire table differently from URIs for a single row by using the content URI pattern content://<authority>/<path> for tables and content://<authority>/<path>/<id> for single rows.

The method addURI() maps an authority and path to an integer value. The method match() returns the integer value for a URI. A switch statement chooses between querying the entire table and querying for a single record.

Kotlin

private val sUriMatcher = UriMatcher(UriMatcher.NO_MATCH).apply {
    /*
     * The calls to addURI() go here for all the content URI patterns that the provider
     * recognizes. For this snippet, only the calls for table 3 are shown.
     */

    /*
     * Sets the integer value for multiple rows in table 3 to 1. Notice that no wildcard is used
     * in the path.
     */
    addURI("com.example.app.provider", "table3", 1)

    /*
     * Sets the code for a single row to 2. In this case, the # wildcard is
     * used. content://com.example.app.provider/table3/3 matches, but
     * content://com.example.app.provider/table3 doesn't.
     */
    addURI("com.example.app.provider", "table3/#", 2)
}
...
class ExampleProvider : ContentProvider() {
    ...
    // Implements ContentProvider.query()
    override fun query(
            uri: Uri?,
            projection: Array<out String>?,
            selection: String?,
            selectionArgs: Array<out String>?,
            sortOrder: String?
    ): Cursor? {
        var localSortOrder: String = sortOrder ?: ""
        var localSelection: String = selection ?: ""
        when (sUriMatcher.match(uri)) {
            1 -> { // If the incoming URI was for all of table3
                if (localSortOrder.isEmpty()) {
                    localSortOrder = "_ID ASC"
                }
            }
            2 -> {  // If the incoming URI was for a single row
                /*
                 * Because this URI was for a single row, the _ID value part is
                 * present. Get the last path segment from the URI; this is the _ID value.
                 * Then, append the value to the WHERE clause for the query.
                 */
                localSelection += "_ID ${uri?.lastPathSegment}"
            }
            else -> { // If the URI isn't recognized,
                // do some error handling here
            }
        }

        // Call the code to actually do the query
    }
}

Java

public class ExampleProvider extends ContentProvider {
...
    // Creates a UriMatcher object.
    private static final UriMatcher uriMatcher = new UriMatcher(UriMatcher.NO_MATCH);

    static {
        /*
         * The calls to addURI() go here for all the content URI patterns that the provider
         * recognizes. For this snippet, only the calls for table 3 are shown.
         */

        /*
         * Sets the integer value for multiple rows in table 3 to one. No wildcard is used
         * in the path.
         */
        uriMatcher.addURI("com.example.app.provider", "table3", 1);

        /*
         * Sets the code for a single row to 2. In this case, the # wildcard is
         * used. content://com.example.app.provider/table3/3 matches, but
         * content://com.example.app.provider/table3 doesn't.
         */
        uriMatcher.addURI("com.example.app.provider", "table3/#", 2);
    }
...
    // Implements ContentProvider.query()
    public Cursor query(
        Uri uri,
        String[] projection,
        String selection,
        String[] selectionArgs,
        String sortOrder) {
...
        /*
         * Choose the table to query and a sort order based on the code returned for the incoming
         * URI. Here, too, only the statements for table 3 are shown.
         */
        switch (uriMatcher.match(uri)) {


            // If the incoming URI was for all of table3
            case 1:

                if (TextUtils.isEmpty(sortOrder)) sortOrder = "_ID ASC";
                break;

            // If the incoming URI was for a single row
            case 2:

                /*
                 * Because this URI was for a single row, the _ID value part is
                 * present. Get the last path segment from the URI; this is the _ID value.
                 * Then, append the value to the WHERE clause for the query.
                 */
                selection = selection + "_ID = " + uri.getLastPathSegment();
                break;

            default:
            ...
                // If the URI isn't recognized, do some error handling here
        }
        // Call the code to actually do the query
    }

Another class, ContentUris, provides convenience methods for working with the id part of content URIs. The classes Uri and Uri.Builder include convenience methods for parsing existing Uri objects and building new ones.

Implement the ContentProvider class

The ContentProvider instance manages access to a structured set of data by handling requests from other applications. All forms of access eventually call ContentResolver, which then calls a concrete method of ContentProvider to get access.

Required methods

The abstract class ContentProvider defines six abstract methods that you implement as part of your concrete subclass. All these methods except onCreate() are called by a client application that is attempting to access your content provider.

query(): Retrieve data from your provider. Use the arguments to select the table to query, the rows and columns to return, and the sort order of the result. Return the data as a Cursor object.
insert(): Insert a new row into your provider. Use the arguments to select the destination table and to get the column values to use. Return a content URI for the newly inserted row.
update(): Update existing rows in your provider. Use the arguments to select the table and rows to update and to get the updated column values. Return the number of rows updated.
delete(): Delete rows from your provider. Use the arguments to select the table and the rows to delete. Return the number of rows deleted.
getType(): Return the MIME type corresponding to a content URI. This method is described in more detail in the Implement content provider MIME types section.
onCreate(): Initialize your provider. The Android system calls this method immediately after it creates your provider. Your provider isn't created until a ContentResolver object tries to access it.

These methods have the same signature as the identically named ContentResolver methods.

Your implementation of these methods needs to account for the following:

All of these methods except onCreate() can be called by multiple threads at once, so they need to be thread-safe. To learn more about multiple threads, see the Processes and threads overview.
Avoid doing lengthy operations in onCreate(). Defer initialization tasks until they are actually needed. The section about implementing the onCreate() method discusses this in more detail.
Although you must implement these methods, your code doesn't have to do anything except return the expected data type. For example, you can prevent other applications from inserting data into some tables by ignoring the call to insert() and returning 0.

Implement the query() method

The ContentProvider.query() method must return a Cursor object or, if it fails, throw an Exception. If you are using a SQLite database as your data storage, you can return the Cursor returned by one of the query() methods of the SQLiteDatabase class.

If the query doesn't match any rows, return a Cursor instance whose getCount() method returns 0. Return null only if an internal error occurred during the query process.

If you aren't using a SQLite database as your data storage, use one of the concrete subclasses of Cursor. For example, the MatrixCursor class implements a cursor in which each row is an array of Object instances. With this class, use addRow() to add a new row.

The Android system must be able to communicate the Exception across process boundaries. Android can do this for the following exceptions that are useful in handling query errors:

IllegalArgumentException. You can choose to throw this if your provider receives an invalid content URI.
NullPointerException

Implement the insert() method

The insert() method adds a new row to the appropriate table, using the values in the ContentValues argument. If a column name isn't in the ContentValues argument, you might want to provide a default value for it either in your provider code or in your database schema.

This method returns the content URI for the new row. To construct this, append the new row's primary key, usually the _ID value, to the table's content URI, using withAppendedId().

Implement the delete() method

The delete() method doesn't have to delete rows from your data storage. If you are using a sync adapter with your provider, consider marking a deleted row with a "delete" flag rather than removing the row entirely. The sync adapter can check for deleted rows and remove them from the server before deleting them from the provider.

Implement the update() method

The update() method takes the same ContentValues argument used by insert() and the same selection and selectionArgs arguments used by delete() and ContentProvider.query(). This might let you reuse code between these methods.

Implement the onCreate() method

The Android system calls onCreate() when it starts up the provider. Perform only fast-running initialization tasks in this method and defer database creation and data loading until the provider actually receives a request for the data. If you do lengthy tasks in onCreate(), you slow down your provider's startup. In turn, this slows down the response from the provider to other applications.

The following two snippets demonstrate the interaction between ContentProvider.onCreate() and Room.databaseBuilder(). The first snippet shows the implementation of ContentProvider.onCreate() where the database object is built and handles to the data access objects are created:

Kotlin

// Defines the database name
private const val DBNAME = "mydb"
...
class ExampleProvider : ContentProvider() {

    // Defines a handle to the Room database
    private lateinit var appDatabase: AppDatabase

    // Defines a Data Access Object to perform the database operations
    private var userDao: UserDao? = null

    override fun onCreate(): Boolean {

        // Creates a new database object
        appDatabase = Room.databaseBuilder(context, AppDatabase::class.java, DBNAME).build()

        // Gets a Data Access Object to perform the database operations
        userDao = appDatabase.userDao

        return true
    }
    ...
    // Implements the provider's insert method
    override fun insert(uri: Uri, values: ContentValues?): Uri? {
        // Insert code here to determine which DAO to use when inserting data, handle error conditions, etc.
    }
}

Java

public class ExampleProvider extends ContentProvider

    // Defines a handle to the Room database
    private AppDatabase appDatabase;

    // Defines a Data Access Object to perform the database operations
    private UserDao userDao;

    // Defines the database name
    private static final String DBNAME = "mydb";

    public boolean onCreate() {

        // Creates a new database object
        appDatabase = Room.databaseBuilder(getContext(), AppDatabase.class, DBNAME).build();

        // Gets a Data Access Object to perform the database operations
        userDao = appDatabase.getUserDao();

        return true;
    }
    ...
    // Implements the provider's insert method
    public Cursor insert(Uri uri, ContentValues values) {
        // Insert code here to determine which DAO to use when inserting data, handle error conditions, etc.
    }
}

Implement ContentProvider MIME types

The ContentProvider class has two methods for returning MIME types:

getType(): One of the required methods that you implement for any provider.
getStreamTypes(): A method that you're expected to implement if your provider offers files.

MIME types for tables

The getType() method returns a String in MIME format that describes the type of data returned by the content URI argument. The Uri argument can be a pattern rather than a specific URI. In this case, return the type of data associated with content URIs that match the pattern.

For common types of data such as text, HTML, or JPEG, getType() returns the standard MIME type for that data. A full list of these standard types is available on the IANA MIME Media Types website.

For content URIs that point to a row or rows of table data, getType() returns a MIME type in Android's vendor-specific MIME format:

Type part: vnd
Subtype part:
- If the URI pattern is for a single row: android.cursor.item/
- If the URI pattern is for more than one row: android.cursor.dir/
Provider-specific part: vnd.<name>.<type>
You supply the <name> and <type>. The <name> value is globally unique, and the <type> value is unique to the corresponding URI pattern. A good choice for <name> is your company's name or some part of your application's Android package name. A good choice for the <type> is a string that identifies the table associated with the URI.

For example, if a provider's authority is com.example.app.provider, and it exposes a table named table1, the MIME type for multiple rows in table1 is:

vnd.android.cursor.dir/vnd.com.example.provider.table1

For a single row of table1, the MIME type is:

vnd.android.cursor.item/vnd.com.example.provider.table1

MIME types for files

If your provider offers files, implement getStreamTypes(). The method returns a String array of MIME types for the files your provider can return for a given content URI. Filter the MIME types you offer by the MIME type filter argument, so that you return only those MIME types that the client wants to handle.

For example, consider a provider that offers photo images as files in JPG, PNG, and GIF format. If an application calls ContentResolver.getStreamTypes() with the filter string image/*, for something that is an "image," then the ContentProvider.getStreamTypes() method returns the array:

{ "image/jpeg", "image/png", "image/gif"}

If the app is only interested in JPG files, then it can call ContentResolver.getStreamTypes() with the filter string *\/jpeg, and getStreamTypes() returns:

{"image/jpeg"}

If your provider doesn't offer any of the MIME types requested in the filter string, getStreamTypes() returns null.

Implement a contract class

A contract class is a public final class that contains constant definitions for the URIs, column names, MIME types, and other meta-data that pertains to the provider. The class establishes a contract between the provider and other applications by ensuring that the provider can be correctly accessed even if there are changes to the actual values of URIs, column names, and so forth.

A contract class also helps developers because it usually has mnemonic names for its constants, so developers are less likely to use incorrect values for column names or URIs. Since it's a class, it can contain Javadoc documentation. Integrated development environments such as Android Studio can autocomplete constant names from the contract class and display Javadoc for the constants.

Developers can't access the contract class's class file from your application, but they can statically compile it into their application from a JAR file you provide.

The ContactsContract class and its nested classes are examples of contract classes.

Implement content provider permissions

Permissions and access for all aspects of the Android system are described in detail in Security tips. The Data and file storage overview also describes the security and permissions in effect for various types of storage. In brief, the important points are the following:

By default, data files stored on the device's internal storage are private to your application and provider.
SQLiteDatabase databases you create are private to your application and provider.
By default, data files that you save to external storage are public and world-readable. You can't use a content provider to restrict access to files in external storage, because other applications can use other API calls to read and write them.
The method calls for opening or creating files or SQLite databases on your device's internal storage can potentially give both read and write access to all other applications. If you use an internal file or database as your provider's repository and you give it "world-readable" or "world-writeable" access, the permissions you set for your provider in its manifest don't protect your data. The default access for files and databases in internal storage is "private"; don't change this for your provider's repository.

If you want to use content provider permissions to control access to your data, then store your data in internal files, SQLite databases, or the cloud, such as on a remote server, and keep files and databases private to your application.

Implement permissions

By default, all applications can read from or write to your provider, even if the underlying data is private, because by default your provider doesn't have permissions set. To change this, set permissions for your provider in your manifest file, using attributes or child elements of the <provider> element. You can set permissions that apply to the entire provider, to certain tables, to certain records, or all three.

You define permissions for your provider with one or more <permission> elements in your manifest file. To make the permission unique to your provider, use Java-style scoping for the android:name attribute. For example, name the read permission com.example.app.provider.permission.READ_PROVIDER.

The following list describes the scope of provider permissions, starting with the permissions that apply to the entire provider and then becoming more fine-grained. More fine-grained permissions take precedence over ones with larger scope.

Single read-write provider-level permission

One permission that controls both read and write access to the entire provider, specified with the


        android:permission

attribute of the


        <provider>

element.

Separate read and write provider-level permissions

A read permission and a write permission for the entire provider. You specify them with the


        android:readPermission

and


        android:writePermission

attributes of the


        <provider>

element. They take precedence over the permission required by


        android:permission

Path-level permission

Read, write, or read/write permission for a content URI in your provider. You specify each URI you want to control with a


        <path-permission>

child element of the


        <provider>

element. For each content URI you specify, you can specify a read/write permission, a read permission, a write permission, or all three. The read and write permissions take precedence over the read/write permission. Also, path-level permission takes precedence over provider-level permissions.

Temporary permission

A permission level that grants temporary access to an application, even if the application doesn't have the permissions that are normally required. The temporary access feature reduces the number of permissions an application has to request in its manifest. When you turn on temporary permissions, the only applications that need permanent permissions for your provider are ones that continually access all your data.

For example, consider the permissions you need if you are implementing an email provider and app and you want to let an outside image viewer application display photo attachments from your provider. To give the image viewer the necessary access without requiring permissions, you can set up temporary permissions for content URIs for photos.

Design your email app so that when the user wants to display a photo, the app sends an intent containing the photo's content URI and permission flags to the image viewer. The image viewer can then query your email provider to retrieve the photo, even though the viewer doesn't have the normal read permission for your provider.

To turn on temporary permissions, either set the android:grantUriPermissions attribute of the <provider> element or add one or more <grant-uri-permission> child elements to your <provider> element. Call Context.revokeUriPermission() whenever you remove support for a content URI associated with a temporary permission from your provider.

The attribute's value determines how much of your provider is made accessible. If the attribute is set to "true", then the system grants temporary permission to your entire provider, overriding any other permissions that are required by your provider-level or path-level permissions.

If this flag is set to "false", then add <grant-uri-permission> child elements to your <provider> element. Each child element specifies the content URI or URIs for which temporary access is granted.

To delegate temporary access to an application, an intent must contain the FLAG_GRANT_READ_URI_PERMISSION flag, the FLAG_GRANT_WRITE_URI_PERMISSION flag, or both. These are set with the setFlags() method.

If the android:grantUriPermissions attribute isn't present, it's assumed to be "false".

The <provider> element

Like Activity and Service components, a subclass of ContentProvider is defined in the manifest file for its application, using the <provider> element. The Android system gets the following information from the element:

Authority (android:authorities)

Symbolic names that identify the entire provider within the system. This attribute is described in more detail in the Design content URIs section.

Provider class name (android:name)

The class that implements ContentProvider. This class is described in more detail in the Implement the ContentProvider class section.

Permissions

Attributes that specify the permissions that other applications must have in order to access the provider's data:

android:grantUriPermissions: temporary permission flag
android:permission: single provider-wide read/write permission
android:readPermission: provider-wide read permission
android:writePermission: provider-wide write permission

Permissions and their corresponding attributes are described in more detail in the Implement content provider permissions section.

Startup and control attributes

These attributes determine how and when the Android system starts the provider, the process characteristics of the provider, and other runtime settings:

android:enabled: flag letting the system start the provider
android:exported: flag letting other applications use this provider
android:initOrder: the order in which this provider is started, relative to other providers in the same process
android:multiProcess: flag letting the system start the provider in the same process as the calling client
android:process: the name of the process in which the provider runs
android:syncable: flag indicating that the provider's data is to be synced with data on a server

These attributes are fully documented in the guide to the <provider> element.

Informational attributes

An optional icon and label for the provider:

android:icon: a drawable resource containing an icon for the provider. The icon appears next to the provider's label in the list of apps in Settings > Apps > All.
android:label: an informational label describing the provider, its data, or both. The label appears in the list of apps in Settings > Apps > All.

These attributes are fully documented in the guide to the <provider> element.

Note: If you are targeting Android 11 or higher, check out the package visibility documentation for further configuration needs.

Intents and data access

Applications can access a content provider indirectly with an Intent. The application doesn't call any of the methods of ContentResolver or ContentProvider. Instead, it sends an intent that starts an activity, which is often part of the provider's own application. The destination activity is in charge of retrieving and displaying the data in its UI.

Depending on the action in the intent, the destination activity can also prompt the user to make modifications to the provider's data. An intent might also contain "extras" data that the destination activity displays in the UI. The user then has the option of changing this data before using it to modify the data in the provider.

You can use intent access to help data integrity. Your provider might depend on having data inserted, updated, and deleted according to strictly defined business logic. If this is the case, letting other applications directly modify your data can lead to invalid data.

If you want developers to use intent access, be sure to document it thoroughly. Explain why intent access using your application's UI is better than trying to modify the data with their code.

Handling an incoming intent that wants to modify your provider's data is no different from handling other intents. You can learn more about using intents by reading Intents and Intent Filters.

For additional related information, refer to the Calendar provider overview.

Content provider basics

Open files using storage access framework