Android Apps Permission Restriction

Here’s a short translation of my tutorial. I don’t write the whole story just the few steps to modify an app.

1. Check the license of the app you want to edit to prevent license violations!

2. Get the app’s APK file. You do not know how to do that?

Install the app on your smartphone as usual. Get “AppMonster” (free) from the android store. Now you can save your installed app on your SD card as an APK file.

3. Download the program “APK-Edit“, start it and choose the APK file which you want to edit. APK-Edit opens your file and let you make some small changes. But this brings us no further.

4. Click on the second tab on “Details” and choose “Browse”. Now you can browse the content of your APK file, edit the “AndroidManifest.xml”

Scroll to the bottom. Shortly before the end tag “</manifest>” you can see the permissions. Delete the line with the permission that you won’t allow for the app.

<uses-sdk android:minSdkVersion=”4″ />
<uses-permission android:name=”android.permission.READ_CALENDAR” />
<uses-permission android:name=”android.permission.WRITE_CALENDAR” />
<uses-permission android:name=”android.permission.ACCESS_FINE_LOCATION” />
<uses-permission android:name=”android.permission.CALL_PHONE” />
<uses-permission android:name=”android.permission.SEND_SMS” />
<uses-permission android:name=”android.permission.WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE” />
</manifest>

Explanation of the permissions: http://developer.android.com/…

5. When you are done you can now save your file and click in APK-Edit on the buttons “Apply” and “Ok”.

6. Then just copy the APK file on your smartphone’s memory card and install the app.