An ad-free, one-time-paid Android file manager. It browses and manages the files on your device — locally, with no ads, no account and no analytics.

Nothing ever leaves the device: the app declares no network permission and contains no advertising or tracking SDKs.

Working title. The display name and the store listing are decided before the first Play upload (see docs/ROADMAP.md, M10). The applicationId is already fixed and can never change after the first release.

Status

M6 — release config & Play readiness: done. Signed, R8-minified .aab builds; the Play release checklist (including the "All files access" declaration) and the privacy policy are written. See docs/ROADMAP.md for the full milestone plan.

Tech stack

Area	Choice
Language	Kotlin 2.4.10 (using AGP 9 built-in Kotlin)
UI	Jetpack Compose, BOM 2026.06.01, Material 3
Build	Gradle 9.3.1, Android Gradle Plugin 9.1.0
Storage access	`MANAGE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE` ("All files access") with a Storage Access Framework fallback
Archives	Apache Commons Compress (pure Java — no NDK)
SDK levels	`compileSdk`/`targetSdk` 36, `minSdk` 26

targetSdk is 36 because Google Play requires new apps and updates to target Android 16 (API 36) from 31 August 2026.

Project layout

app/src/main/java/de/softwareapp_hb/filemanager/
├── core/      Pure-Kotlin engine (no Android imports!) — paths, sorting, formatting,
│              search matching, copy/move planning, conflict policy
├── data/      Storage backends (all-files access + SAF), volumes, bookmarks,
│              file operations, archives, deletion
├── domain/    Browser + operation controllers, models, permission state
├── service/   Foreground service for long-running file operations
├── ui/        Compose theme, browser screen, components, ViewModels
└── text/      Domain enum → string-resource mapping
app/src/test/java/…            JVM unit tests for the core engine

core/ deliberately has no Android dependencies, so the trickiest logic is covered by fast JVM tests.

Building

Prerequisites:

JDK 17+ (JDK 25 verified)
Android SDK with platforms;android-36 and build-tools;36.0.0

# Tell Gradle where the SDK lives (this file is git-ignored)
echo "sdk.dir=$HOME/Android/Sdk" > local.properties

./gradlew :app:assembleDebug        # debug APK
./gradlew :app:testDebugUnitTest    # JVM unit tests for the engine
./gradlew :app:lintDebug            # Android Lint
./gradlew :app:bundleRelease        # Play upload bundle (.aab)

Release signing is optional and driven by a git-ignored keystore.properties (see keystore.properties.example); without it the release build still runs R8/minification but produces an unsigned artefact.

Tracked in git

Source, resources and Gradle build files.
docs/ — roadmap and release documentation.
PRIVACY.md, CHANGELOG.md, and (from M10) store-assets/.

Not tracked: local.properties, keystore.properties, *.jks, build outputs.

Releasing

Release signing is driven by the git-ignored keystore.properties (see keystore.properties.example). Without that file the release build still runs R8 and resource shrinking, but produces an unsigned artefact that cannot be uploaded.

./gradlew :app:bundleRelease                      # Play upload bundle (.aab)
./gradlew :app:assembleRelease                    # APK, for local checks

# Audit what is actually shipped — in particular that there is no INTERNET permission:
$ANDROID_HOME/build-tools/36.0.0/aapt2 dump permissions \
  app/build/outputs/apk/release/app-release.apk

Read docs/PLAY_RELEASE_CHECKLIST.md before uploading. Step 4 is the one that matters most for this app: a file manager must declare "All files access" through Play's Permissions Declaration Form, and have the core purpose documented in its store description. PRIVACY.md is written to match the shipped permissions.

README.md

File Manager