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Let's say, if I download image file from mobile browser, opening it leads to the "open with" window where i see all of the installed gallery apps to choose from.

however, there are other apps (i.e. upwork messenger) from where if i download the image file, while opening it, there doesn't show up any image editor/gallery aps, instead quite unrelated apps (i.e. ms word or pdf viewer shows up) so i just can't open images...

what could be the reason for that and how to force apps (i.e. image apps) everywhere to be shown up when opening the image files.

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  • Android 10 bought about an important change regarding apps accessing data, which is a good thing for privacy. Quoting from answer

Before Android 10, any app could read or write any files to external storage (the place where apps store their data), if they requested the READ_EXTERNAL_STORAGE and WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE permissions. Starting from Android 10,apps can only access data created by them and not other app's data or common data like images, downloads etc.

  • This means access to external storage apps need to access it using Storage Access Framework (SAF) . SAF isn't new, it's been around since Android 5.0 but many developers didn't want to use it since it was not developer-friendly

  • The messenger app you are using isn't seeking permissions through SAF, so it can't show "open with" options.

  • Install Local Storage app to overcome this limitation. From app description

Local Storage uses the new Storage Access Framework to allow other applications to read or write any file in your primary storage and read from secondary external storage devices.

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