Android 6.0 Marshmallow is out in the market for quite a while now. Announced officially back on Google I/O 2015, the brand new version of Android was expected to come with a lot of new, innovative and useful features. Well it did, the Android 6.0 Marshmallow came with a lot of features, of which the App Permissions is one of the primary.
Before the Marshmallow version, i.e. in Lollipop or lower versions the users had to allow the permissions to the apps all at once. Such as, if Chrome wanted to use my phone’s location, I had to turn on the GPS. Not to my surprise, when I turned on my Android smartphone’s GPS, literally every apps on my smartphone which need to use the location feature used it, without my will. What if I want the Tinder in my phone to get access to my location but not Chrome? It was not possible. But in Android 6.0 Marshmallow, Google has taken this feature to whole extra level. In this new version of Android, the users now can grant app permissions individually, to each and every particular apps that they want to give permissions to use their phone’s hardware, such as microphone, camera, GPS, and many more.
By now, many of the Nexus devices have already got the Marshmallow update. Most of the new flagship devices of big brands are waiting for their turn, and many of the mid-range phones are doing the same too. If you are new to Marshmallow version, you might not know how to manage and allow app permissions individually. Hence, to help you with that, here we are having a guide. You can follow the following steps for that purpose:
- Open the Settings app.
- Tap Apps under the Device subheading.
- Next, tap the Gear icon in the upper-right corner, and then tap App permissions on the following screen.
- From here, you’ll get a list of all the sensors, information, and other features of your phone that apps can access.
- Tap on any of these to see which apps can get at that particular feature.
In case you regret giving an app some permissions, then you can do this to revoke an app’s permission:
- Tap the toggle switch to flip it to the Off position—it’ll switch from blue-green to gray.
If you want to re-grant permissions to the apps that you have revoked:
- simply tap the toggle switch again.
By default, you’ll only see apps here, not Android system services.
To see which system services have permission to access something,
- Tap the Options button—those three dots in the upper right—then tap Show system.
If you prefer to view permissions on a per-app basis rather than a per-feature basis:
- Go to Settings > Apps, tap an app’s name, then tap App permissions.
- From there, you’ll be able to see what features and information that particular app can access, and toggle permissions accordingly.
You can also view a list of permissions to see which have been granted to which apps.
- Go to Settings > Apps.
- Tap the overflow menu in the top right corner.
- From there, go to Advanced > App Permissions. You can see the whole list of the apps here.
You’ll see a list of different categories of permissions along with the number of apps installed that have access to that permission. Categories include Body Sensors, Calendar, Camera, Contacts, Location, Microphone, Phone, SMS, Storage, and some “additional permissions.” If you want to see a particular group of apps that you have given permissions to, just tap one of the category. There, you can grant or revoke the app permissions using the methods give above.
